Branding!

These are some of the ears we cut off the cows, creepy!



This second one is all of us standing on the hill after the branding.




The third one is all of us riding away, isn't this a cool picture?




This last one is Uncle Matt. He looks like my dad, (with just a little more hair...) but I think he looks the most like Aunt Doris. They have the same face but their eyes are exactly the same.

7/9/09

Today Annie, Tasha, Sam, and I went into Roundup for errands. It was an ALL day trip. We went to the Western Wear shop, and I got a really neat cowboy hat. :) The girls got bracelets. All this stuff was a gift from Uncle Matt, who is awesome.


After the Western Wear store, we went to the secondhand shop, the auto shop, and the grocery store. I did pretty good with my shopping, and got chicken breasts, vegetables, and all sorts of yummy stuff.


We're doing a branding tomorrow, and I'm bringing my camera so I'll have a lot of pictures.

7/7/09

This is the view from Annie and Stuart's ranch entrance. No matter which direction you look, you can't see ANYTHING else.








Today we got up around 7, we got to sleep in a little bit. We went to Stuart and Annie's house to see the horses and so Uncle Matt could work on some stuff. Annie introduced me to Traveler, the horse I'll be riding. He's apparently a really nice horse other than having a really bumpy trot. I need to get the stirrups put up on my saddle, they are too long.


After that, we went home and made some lunch (rice and black beans), and then we went to Chris and Christy's house. I got to meet Tasha and Sam, who are 17 and 15. We got to drive the truck around and I learned to drive a stick shift and a bale mover thing. We did alright for the most part.




This is Traveler, the horse I have been riding. He belongs to Stuart, who is considered a really good horse trainer out here.

It's been raining like CRAZY these past few nights. It's amazing to see how beautiful the sky is out here, it looks so much bigger.
This is a sort of guest house that is on Annie and Stuart's ranch. Annie said if Tasha, Sam, and I want to spend the night out there sometime, we can.

7/6/09

Today I got to bottle feed a blind calf named Jenna. I got a couple pictures but they aren't on my camera so that will have to wait. I also met a Jack Russell named Lucy who has to stay tied up because she tries to kill cats. I want to bring BOTH of them home! :)


I met a lot of Uncle Matt's friends today and we hung out at their house with them. We're all going to town (which is like an hour and a half away!) to get me a hat and to take one of the dogs to the vets.

Hopefully I'll start riding soon, it started raining really bad on the way home. The sky was BLACK and the clouds were huge. Tomorrow, me and Uncle Matt are going to fix up an old truck of his (it's 17 years old!) so that he can teach me to drive.



I don't think it has sunk in that I am here yet, I kind of keep thinking that I'm going home tomorrow.

Flight Problems

So after my flight to Denver, I went to go get something to eat. I had NO idea that they close the gates 10 minutes before they leave...so I missed my flight. I'm flying out on another one at 11, so it's not that big of a deal, but I'm still disappointed.


But I did get some pictures!




(I think this one is my favorite!)





There were some really interesting people on my flight to Denver. Other than the guy next to me snoring REALLY loud, getting hit in the face by the chair in front of me (multiple times!), and having my seat back pulled on, it was awesome. There were some gypsies on the plane, not even joking. They were really sweet though!

The story behind this blog

This will be the story of my 7 weeks in Melstone, Montana. My Uncle Matt is the caretaker of a ranch out there, and he invited me to spend the summer with him. I'll hopefully be spending a lot of my time riding the ranch horses, learning to shoot (!!!), and learning to weld. I know there will be a bunch of other ranch work I can do too.


I leave on July 6th, bright and early in the morning. I'm going to get there in time to go riding, which I am SO excited about.

Here are some pictures I found of Melstone, but hopefully in a week I'll be able to replace these with some of my own!



Wow, look at how flat it is out there!