OK…. more updates….Dad’s 80th Birthday Trip…..

Uhm…. let’s see… another highlight of our Spring was of course our trip to Key West for Dad’s 80th Birthday. Too bad Patrick had to stay home and hold down the Fort – he was certainly missed! I picked Mom and Dad up on Monday the 28th (a Day after Dad’s Birthday, March 27th) and we loaded up and headed south to the Keys. Key Largo was our first stop for the night, where we had a nice Hotel we stayed over. A wonderful dinner at a little “hole in the wall” rounded off a great day. The weather was trying hard to be good – it’s been wonderful, sunny and warm for the past two and a half months… of course if you have a trip planned, it’s ready to change. But the rain held off and the sun tried hard to show her face most of the day. The drive down to the Keys was just as picturesque as it could be and it already has  been turning green and lush from the past few rains storms we’ve been having. The Winter brown has given away to Spring green! Once we settled in the hotel room (Mom and I have decorated the hotel room with 80′s stuff for Dad’ Birthday) we took our first cocktail at the Tiki Bar…. then off we went for our dinner. I had wonderful fall-of-the-bone ribs, Mom’s had one of the best filet’s she’s had in a long, long time and Dad had a “ragin’-cajun” seafood dish! It was mouthwatering and it was not even that far from the Motel! After that filling dinner, we had a good night’s sleep and off we went the next morning – Key West bound! After stopping at Robbie’s Tarpon Bar and having a wonderful breakfast at Bob’s Buns we arrived in Key West around lunch time – our Motel was right off Duval Street and off we went on foot to explore the Town. We had a late lunch or an early dinner at Sloppy Joe’s before we headed to the dock to go on the Sunset sail – thank goodness the weather still held off and we had a wonderful evening sail! Having a night cap and some appetizer’s at a bar right on the water rounded off our full day, before we grapped a cab to go back to the hotel. The next day it was already time for us to head on home again… wow – it sure passes quickly if you have fun! Well, the last day, we left Key West early and had a wonderful drive home… of course we got sucked into visiting one of those many nurseries that line the highway coming out of Miami and had to buy some “cheap” plants…. I sure hope they grow where I live! Anyhow, we had a nice dinner at Applebee’s before arriving at home – tired, but full of wonderful memories. The next morning it was time for me to head on north to go home myself…. and then the rain hit… and hit hard. It rained so hard, I got washed off the road! Unreal. I never experienced something like that! Car pile ups left and right delayed the trip even more than the heavy rain and it took me close to 5 hrs to make it home. What a trip! But I was glad that the rain held off and let us have some wonderful days in the Keys! What a nice way to celebrate Dad’s 80th Birthday!

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catching up, catching up… I promise, I promise!

Wow – who would have guessed, I’m on it two days in a row? Patrick is watching the Stanley cup Playoff games – game 7 actually (that’s Hockey we are talking about in case you do not know!)…. so since I’m a proud owner of a laptop, I usually sit on my corner of the couch and catch up on mail and other things (Blog for instance LOL) – ever since the first week of February we have had the most wonderful weather – EVER! Wow. In the beginning we were afraid to mention it…. afraid that it might turn cold again… we didn’t even put our winter jackets away till this week, just cause we didn’t think we could be that lucky! But the weather we’ve been able to enjoy since early February has just been unbelievable. We are still able to sleep with open windows (no a/c), even though some of the neighboring dogs make it less enjoyable at times (barking all night) – but that also gives us a chance to keep up to date with the coyote population… if it’s not the dogs in the neighborhood, it’s the coyotes roaming the fields at night. Foaling season started off well… we have gotten more mares in than last year, but not back up to our prev. years… but at least we could up the number this year again… so far so good…. other than the leg issues we deal with every so often all went  well – so far! … We are not done yet. We have one more mare here that needs to foal and another one we need to pick up to foal. That should be it for this season. We’ve gotten quite a few horses in from the recent TB sales (the last one being a two-year old in training sale) and are full to the brim at this point. Too bad those are all temporary horses and not full-time boarders… but then the upside is that our pastures are able to recuperate through the Summer. The Lord willing we will pick up in the Fall where we leave off in the Summer…. I’ve been so fortunate to be able to train with my horse Scooter a lot on cattle this year and to show a lot… but more on that in another post… yeah… I promise, I AM getting y’all updated… just not all in one post! But here are some pictures!

now we have a real ‘kindergarten’ out in the field. So much fun to watch them play!

We also have had several torrential rains already – with the heat we’ve been having we do need it, but it’s always impressive how it can come down… wow!

Oh my…. Easter already came and went …. and it’s almost May already!

You know, I never believed it when my parents told me that time will go faster and faster the older we get…. when I was a kid, time couldn’t go fast enough… now I wonder where it all goes? Really!? I just got up this morning… and on top of it, I hardly can remember what I did during that time when it just flew by me! Well, we did manage to make some pictures, so at least we have somethings to go by when we try to recap what is going on LOL… even though our camera bit the dust, we started to use our phones for picture taking… so the quality is not that great, but on the other hand, we don’t have an excuse anymore to not have the camera handy either…. well, I finally gotten caught up somewhat with my e-mail, so my next project is to get caught up with my blog. So much has happened in the past few months, I don’t even know where to start…. phew! I REALLY need to update it more frequently!!! Well  – so long and it won’t be too long before I check in with a recap and pictures!!!!

first week of 2011…

… is just passing as quickly as the weeks before? Here I thought we’d get a break and the new year might go a bit slower so we can sit back and enjoy it… doesn’t seem to happen. We just got done loading two two year olds that will go to the training center/track to get started with their (hopefully) racing career. Our days here are up and down in temps and it’s hard to dress ourselves and the horses approprietly. Layers upon layers – on and off and on and off…we actually gotten so used to the cold that 30′s doesn’t seem cold anymore LOL – how’s THAT for a change?! However it does irk us when we read up on Zurich’s temps and they are WARMER than us in the Sunshine State of FLORIDA! So much for our global warming, huh? Not much has actually happened this first week… we try to watch our food intake a bit more and hopefully shed the Christmas pounds soon so we don’t have to pack them through out the year… but then there is this getting-together and that getting-together and soon our diet looks like “hopefully we don’t gain more!” – LOL…. life’s still busy… thank God! We are happy to still have work and plenty to do, even though we have slowed down as well just like everyone else. Mom’s big birthday – her 70th – is just around the corner … then Dad’s who will be 80 this year … WOW! We are very fortunate to still have them with us and hope to be able to say that for many more years! – well, right now we are sitting here in the house, chores are done, some horses shipped out already and warming up over a cup of coffee. Then off we go and tackle the new day – TGIF. We’ll be over at our neighbors this evening… it’s been so long – unreal! This past year has gone by so quickly we hardly have time to visit with them – time to change that and time to catch up!!! We hope you and yours have a wonderful weekend!

The past 6 months in review – through pics

as you know, I’ve had a wonderful Summer in MT again – it’s just so much fun to ride with Pat all Summer long, visit with the most wonderful friends and and enjoy the beauty of Montana – how fortunate I am! Too bad my wonderful hubby who lets me do that, isn’t able to join in on the fun, but gets stuck working at home so I CAN do that…. maybe one day we get to do it together! Anyhow, one of the highlights this Summer was of course showing Kitty at some Cutting shows…. She’s the first 4yo I’ve ever shown, so it was exciting to take her to town for the first time. We have still lots of work to do, but she’s a fun horse to work with!

then another highlight is the wonderful time I get to share with friends and other horse enthusiasts  – we live the rough life in MT, don’t we?

off we went to one of our weekend outings….

 

even the most fun time comes to an end… our last evening together for the Summer of 2010!

then it was time to hit the road and go south again… Patrick had once again a wonderful route for us to drive…. here some pics from Santa Fe, NM

taking a scenic train ride….

strolling through downtown….

visiting the capital….

once we were home, we tried to pick up business where we left off…. I don’t think I have many pictures from us working LOL… I’ll see what I can come up with ….

how about that one? Patrick took that one morning when he went flying with his powered parachute… it’s a bit foggy yet, but you can make out our house, the barn, the different paddocks etc…

here’s a different shot…. you can see the old hay shed, that got a new roof … Patrick my handy-man – and then of course the big sandy spot is the arena….

as you know from the Christmas Letter – the Pat Wyse clinic and the following trip to the Keys was the most recent highlight (where I got pictures LOL) – so here are some pics from the Keys…(Mom and Stacy in Key Largo, our first stop for the night)

contemplating if it’s worthwhile to get wet?!

feeding the Tarpon’s at Robbie’s bar…

lunch at Sloppy Joe’s ….

at the sunset cruise….

well… and here we are already with some pictures from Christmas…..

the love of my life…. we are happily married for 18 years and living together for 20…. HALF MY LIFE – oh my… I’ll be celebrating my 40th this year… YIKES!

we moved the tree to a different place as we have put Corey’s big cage in the spot where we usually have the Christmas Tree. But it has worked well there, so we might just keep that spot again for next year

Patrick cooked every day something special…. needless to say the diet was shot to hell, but it was WELL worth it – now we are ready for the 2011 to bring out the best in us – My New Year’s resolution????? KEEPING the BLOG updated on a regular basis… what is yours????

Happy New Year!

Overs, overs overs!!!

I think it’s time to give our blog a new face as it’s been almost 6 months since I gave it my all american try to get it updated… so… I might as well… shamefull LOL… I know!!! Ok… I will start all over with the 2011….

I’m sure y’all got our Christmas Letter, so I am not posting it here again… We spent some wonderful days with Mom and Dad (my parents) up here in Anthony. Since the weather wasn’t all that great (however we’ve had much colder weather already) we didn’t feel guilty to just enjoy their company, eat, laugh, veg-out and watch wonderful movies…instead of laboring outside from sun-up to sun-down. They left for home on the 26th and we returned to our daily routine… the 28th was the first day of the Winter Circuit – oh my. Are Scooter and I ready to go and show? We’ve only worked cows TWICE since I’ve started to leg him up and the Winter Circuit IS a huuuuuge show… it was a bit much to expect of Scooter to hold together for the whole class….. I picked him up after the first cow … and was hoping to get some good training in at least….well, THAT didn’t happen either… needless to say, I was in doubt to go back the next day…. we were JUST NOT READY yet… but everybody “convinced” me (maybe I just wanted to show real bad) that I should try again…. one time out isn’t enough to judge… it could have been just “bad-luck” – right – anyhow after drawing last in the first bunch (why bother going into a fresh cattle class if you draw up last???) I drew up a little bit better (3rd to last LOL) on the second day…. buuuuut…. we had a GREAT run… well, still room for improvement, but it was a real nice run. The first cow didn’t let us show off what we could do, just ran us across the pen, but the 2nd and 3rd cow were making our run….

I was happy with a good run and decided to not show any further – the week passed just as quickly with every day work – and then here it was New Year’s Eve…I think we’ve been in bed by 9pm already…. I made homemade Pizza (one of my few dishes I make LOL)…. then we ordered a movie on Pay-per-view (Inception) and settled in for a nice evening… well we clicked on the wrong movie and the movie we clicked on didn’t start till 8.30h….. well that was stretching it, so we decided to record it and watch it another time LOL… but…. the Y2K11 was there the next morning w/o us staying up, so it all worked out!

Well, because I was so lazy in not updating the Blog in the past few months you’ve missed so much fun stuff we’ve experienced… I try to post some pics to get you updated a LITTLE bit!

… scenic drive to Edith Lake….

Well, Pat and Doreen were still gone, I worked all the horses and have taken care of all the other odds and ends and chores around here…. so, having a couple hours to kill (I COULD have taken a nap or watched a movie or read or….) I loaded up Skittles and headed up North Fork Road – what a scenic drive THAT was and I had no idea it lead me up the mountain to Edith Lake. So I drove as long uphill as I could before unloading Skittles and taking her for a walk…. Neither her nor I lasted long, the horse/deer flies being so bad and vicious, making us diving for cover pretty soon. But it was well worth it (to me, my dog just lay on the back seat and snoozed on the way up AND down!) – I just made my return when Pat called to tell me to wait with my dinner, that they were on their way home from the show already and grabbing some pizza on their way through town. So we had a nice visit and a fabulous pizza (Papa Murphy’s) to round off a perfect day. Pat did well at the show – from winning one class to getting run over in the next…. here are some pics I took from my drive up North Fork Road

  North Fork Road – Mount Baldy and Mount Edith in the back ground

Farmers are busy to cut and bale hay, even though they still have left over from the prev. year…

new buildings are popping up here and there…

Mountain Meadow… nice pasture to summer cattle, huh?!

old homestead…

Little tree – Big trunk….

Horse Wyse Ranch from across Hwy 12

up in the pasture…..

well, I went up the hill yesterday, spraying weeds and enjoying the wildflowers – they are still abundant thanks to all the rain we’ve had when I first got here – it’s just so breathtaking up here in the Summer! No wonder it’s called Big Sky!!!

 

now it’s haying time – all over the valley, farmers are busy cutting hay!

time flies when you are having fun…. or so I’ve been told…..

It’s already been a week since we went to the Big Timber show. What a great time we’ve had. We left early Saturday morning, which was great, so we didn’t have to shed too many tears saying good by to all our new and old friends. It’s always easier to leave before them and come back to an empty campground instead of seeing all the taillights leaving…. I hope everybody had a good trip home! We had a fun show, it was very, very windy, but the approaching storm missed us “by that much” and we only felt a few rain drops, which wasn’t worth getting worried about. Other than the wind the weather was perfect for an outdoor cutting and the cows were great. It was a rather small turnout, which enabled us to get home in a decent hour, after having dinner at a Mexican Restaurant in Livingston. Yeller and Pat did great and had a good kick off into the new season. Too bad he ended up in the crying hole in both classes. It would have been fun to have him pick up the bar bill LOL. I can’t wait to hear how he’s doing this weekend at Corvallis. I wish I could be there. But it’s such an expensive show and none of my ponies are ready to go to as big show like that. Besides, somebody had to hold down the fort while they’re done. So here I am. Last week we did lots of odds and ends that got left behind during the clinic. Lots of catching up on ranch work and fixing little things. While Pat is gone, I get the pens ready for the next seminar and run to town to pick up shavings for some of my friends, so they don’t have to head out as soon as they get there. I hauled a pallet of shavings yesterday on the bed of my truck, which was a bit nerve racking, but then sometimes ones nerves got to be a bit tickled LOL. I made it home w/o loosing my load or tipping it over on the road (shoulda tied it down I guess) and unloaded it all, so now the indoor stalls are “ready” – got the names on the stall doors and shavings piled up … can’t wait for everyone to get here, even though that means that my Summer is already coming to an end. I can’t believe how quickly time’s just passing by! After only riding a colt yesterday and running errands and spraying weeds, I am heading up the hill soon to saddle up my ponies and ride, ride, ride! Can’t wait. It’s a brilliant day out – what more do I need? Great horses, wonderful weather and the best dog by my side. If only my hubby could be here, life’d be perfect! Love you hon!!!

 

(thanks Ginny for the nice pics!)

Oh my… the first Seminar is over!

…. and you probably wonder where the heck where the updates, huh. Well, it was a rather busy two weeks to say the least. Friday afternoon Stacy and I picked up Ginny from the Bozeman airport. Needless to say, we had her up on a horse as soon as she was stepping foot on the Horse Wyse Ranch. Sadly enough, Stacy couldn’t stay too long and only after a short visit had to head on home. But it was fun to have her visit (and dropping off a horse for Ginny) once again. We always have a good time. But soon after the first participants started to pull in and the “Hello” was big as most of the people I have met and become friends with over the recent years. The weather finally started to improve and we were looking forward to some great riding, sunny days and lots of fun with great friends. Too bad, after the first sunburns set in, we were looking for our sweatshirts and fleece jackets again and the weather deteriorated again and we were once again stuck riding inside. That always makes my job a bit harder, but that’s ok. I guess that’s just part of it. It’s not like it’s beautiful at other places when it’s cold, rainy and overcast…..Of course keeping up the place and fixing fences and other things never stop, so we took the first few sunny days to go on a pasture ride and fix some fences, before the time was limited to do stuff like that during class

Skittles loves to come along and proves to maybe the laziest Border Collie, but she still can keep up and loving every minute of it.

The first week of the Seminar just flew by and before we knew it it, we were making plans for the upcoming weekend. As we were in need to exchange the cattle for our evening fun of working the cow horses, I didn’t get to go to town with “the girls”, but we all met for a nice BBQ on Saturday night and had a blast just hanging out!

Sunday was a day “off” and we took a ride up to White Sulphur Springs to check out the Ranch Rodeo. From Team Penning, Working Cowhorse to Wild Cow Milking we saw everything. After a short visit to the local “Castle” and a scenic ride to “Fort Logan” we came home – however too late for the trail ride with some of the participants.

 

This is a picture facing the “Castle Rock Mountains” up in White Sulphur Springs.

Since it was 4th of July, it was time to gather up the horses, so Kevin and his family could get the fire works started. Wow – what a huge spectacle it was! And that is coming from somebody that doesn’t like fireworks LOL.  The horses weathered the fireworks just fine, however some of the dogs were rather stressed out and hid out in some odd places.

“Mrs Robin” is trying to raise her 3 “kids” even with all the commotion in and around the bunkhouse and the little birds are growing up quickly and since left the nest (only took the two weeks of the Seminar!)

The second week of the Seminar just flew by more than quickly and we found ourselves once again at our group dinner – has it been really two weeks already? How come time just flies by when you are having so much fun???

Patsy (who bought Gucci from us a few years ago) and I ….. oh-oh… I hear the boss coming with his “dragon” (Kubota), so I best get ready. I will try to post more pics from our dinner and stuff and then of course have to tell you all from our last weekend, when we went to Big Timber to our first cutting show this year!