getting ready to go home…

well it’s hard to believe, but Summer’s almost over… but then again, did it ever get here? I don’t think I have used any of my tank tops at all this year, but got lots of wear and tear on my fleece jackets and mud boots…. but it was fun, fun, fun…. I actually concocted another long entry yesterday with pictures and everything and then got disconnected. We had a rainstorm come in and my connection was fading quicker than I could save the entry …. so I try again. By now I’m sure y’all know that Scooter and I had a great show in Great Falls. I will try to post some video later on – We had two first places, a second and a 4th place. Wow – it was way cool. The neatest thing though was to have the support and enthusiasm of Kathie, Bob and Stacy who came along to support Pat and I in the show pen. I truly enjoyed their company and their support was beyond words. Thank you guys for being there and being such great friends. How fortunate I am to have you in my life. You really made showing (and celebrating) a whole lot more fun!!!!

The second week of the clinic went over even quicker than the first – if that was even possible. I love the August Seminar – simply cause I get to see and ride with all my friends. The July is always fun, cause I get to meet so many new people! Anyhow, after the fun filled weekend with Charlie Russell Train ride and gathering cows etc we dashed into the second week with lots of enthusiasm –

here we once again enjoy a wonderful evening amongst friends – pretty tough to “rough it” like that, huh?!

Bob, grilling our steaks to perfection – thanks Bob!!!

no puppy was save of Kathie’s spoiling…. they either laid down at her feet, waiting for some “involuntary” food droppings or then they stood in front of her camper, waging their tails, waiting for some dog cookies or then the real sneaky canines figured out how to go INTO the camper and sprawling out on their bed!!!!! Thanks Kathie…. it’ll only take us 10 months to get our puppies back to reality

To Doreen’s dismay, Pat figured out the “train whistle” he’s got for watching/feeding the horses while we were off on the Charlie Russell Chew-Choo ride ….

look how GREEN it still is…. usually by August the grass is brown and burnt…. so yes, we had lots and lots of rain, but the sunny days made up for whatever bad weather we had….

This is Cory in his new outdoor cage…. sharing his food with his pet Chipmunk….

well, I hear the Kubota’s engine… so I know Pat is not too far … I best get ready…. I will continue the entry another time – more pics to come and of course more stories…. cause Summer ain’t over till it’s over

into the second week already…

well, after a fun filled week with lots of riding and visiting with friends, I had a run in with Ceena on our last run on Friday afternoon (last run on the last day of the week – go figure) – she pulled, I pulled, she tried to pull her head away and one thing led to another…. and I ended up with a big chipped tooth and a big shiner …. however I did NOT come off….

Friday night we had a great dinner at the local Cowboy Coffee House, however we were all pretty tired and didn’t make it to the dance and the local Rodeo… Saturday morning, we worked the cowhorses and then headed out to Lewistown where we boarded the Charlie Russell Chew Choo train…..

I think we were the “hired” entertainers of the whole train and were asked to move from wagon to wagon to lighten up the other passengers LOL… needless to say we had all a good time and arrived back at the Horse Wyse Ranch way past our bedtime and of course were not all too thrilled when the alarm went off after only a short night sleep…. Sunday morning we worked the cow horses again and then changed horses to go up the hill to gather new heifers for our “fun time”…. we didn’t get home till 2pm, so we all were pretty tired by then (running on low fuel). We went down to the campground to gather the garbage, did a ‘dump run’ in town and came home for a nice get together BBQ with all the friends around here……

Today we started the week off pretty exciting, but nothing seriously happening….

now we sit down in the camp ground, having Bob grilling our steaks to perfection, before we are heading up the hill to work cows … then around 10pm it’s ‘wrapping up time’ for us….

“trying to scare the people with my shiner”

“the big glasses help”

“Stacy, Kathie and Doreen”

well, my steak is cooked, so I best go… I’ll try to check in with more pics soon….

Honey… I love you

The August Seminar has started…

After a busy weekend at the Horse Sales in Billings, we returned home to Townsend on Sunday afternoon. Our friends that arrived as early as Thursday have taken well care of our horses and Cory. All pens were cleaned and all horses seemed to have weathered well (even w/o the blankets …). Stacy and I finished putting everything away and went down the hill to say HI to everybody before heading up the hill and into the pasture to spray weeds before having to meet Sunday night for our first gathering of the August Seminar. Of course we got “stuck” with Mitch’s Bloody Mary’s… to the point where Pat was saddling up a horse, looking for us and seeing how we were doing spraying weeds…. we crossed his path as he was on his way home ha, ha, ha… Mitch, Stacy and I still got lots of spraying done and came home just in time to hurry with barn chores so we wouldn’t be late for the meeting.  The “party tent is up and we are ready to go and have another great clinic…

Sure enough with the start of the clinic, the night from Sunday to Monday we had tons and tons of rain – Mud welcome home!  So we had to ride indoors, which always makes things a bit harder as most of us are ‘roughing’ it in those two weeks and lots of stuff is being left outside… Tuesday was a gray in gray day, cold and breezy, however it was not AS rainy…. Wednesday it was nice and cool, but at least the Sun was out which brightened the mood tremendously… Tuesday night we all were supposed to meet for a get together, video and discussion…. so Stacy and I took the opportunity to do the garbage run and laundry at that night, so we wouldn’t miss a night working cows (don’t want to miss cows for laundry, do we now…. LOL) – Kris Nast pulled in Tuesday afternoon to visit the Horse Wyse crew for a few days – yahoo… we have yet another cook and a homemaker, so not to worry, Stacy and I will have plenty of GOOD and HEALTHY food to eat now  (we are notorious for eating from the fridge to the mouth – w/o hitting the stove in between LOL)

That’s Kris and her 4 wheeler…

here’s a little view or Townsend – the Townsend State Bank… one of the oldest and privately owned banks in the Nation. Has been in the family for 4 Generations….

This is Kathy Neu, who came to FL once to ride in our Fall Pat Wyse clinic. She’s holding her dark bay “Tex”, who’s a horse she’s bought from us…. then the Palomino is “Hank” who is one of my training horses for August.

Mitch and Bob (who is Kathy’s hubby) – also known as “Grasshopper” or Bobby Dick (for Robert Richard) LOL… poor thing has to put up with all of us women. But he’s a great sport and fun to ride with. Sure wished Patrick could come up here too, so he could give Bob some male support….

Here’s Mitch and I… not the tank top and the polar fleece shirt? Guess who’s from Idaho and who’s from Florida????

 

Skittles is stealing everybody’s heart… she’s such a nice dog to be around and is the mascot of the campground….

Here’’s Pat, Skittles and I, saying good-bye to the July people – it’s always a sad day! So of course lots of last minute pics have been taken and I just got this one from “Fast Kathy” – Thanks Kathy for passing it on!

Another week gone by….

Time’s just flying by and we’ve been so busy around here that I have hardly found the time to boot up my computer…. the show in Hamilton was great. However the entry fees were about 100.- more per class (!!!!!) than at other shows, so it was an expensive weekend. Friday, Scooter and Yeller (Pat’s gelding) were doing great and being competitive and showing well. The cows were tough, but we were fortunate to have an early draw, so we lucked out and the cows were still good for us. Phew…. Scooter and I were leading the class for a while, however it wasn’t quite enough to win it, but we were happy to have had such a great run! The next day, wasn’t going so well… Actually Scooter worked even better, but I was in the bottom third of my class and the cows were getting tough to hold…. My poor pony tried his darnedest to hold the first cow, but she almost pulled the reins out of my hands, ducking underneath his neck… so needless to say, loosing a cow wasn’t getting us into the money this time LOL…. Sunday was our best day yet, however we had a rough first cut, that knocked us out of the $, but we had the best run yet (work wise… too bad it wasn’t enough for the big fat check) – So we drove home Sunday night… having had a great time in Hamilton. The Bitterroot Valley is just absolutely georgous – I sure wish I taken some pictures to share. But I think I just was busy enough with everything else, I never took the camera out of its case. As soon as we got home, we met Stacy, who pulled in about 15 minutes ahead of us… A big hello of course, not having seen each other for a month (she dropped two colts off for me to ride a month ago – wow, time flies!!!) – so we put all the horses up, put away the show stuff and then went on down the hill to the camp ground to have cocktails and snacks and a great chat with Karen, Pat’s neighbor …. Monday started off busy – with was going to be a non-horsey day, as we had so much stuff to do and only half a week to get it done as Stacy and I were going to the horse sales on Friday already…. So Monday we tried to get caught up with fixing the arena fence (I ran a cow through the fence, so we had to fix that before the second seminar started), working on the sprinkler system for the big roundpen and weed spraying….

 

Tuesday we worked our cow horses on fresh cattle… THAT was fun! Then off to do more farm work, weed spraying, keep working on the sprinkler system (it was getting close of being done) and then riding another set of horses in the afternoon. We were going to meet Liz and Rob in Helena for Dinner that night. Liz had a bird cage she was going to give to me for Cory – I was so excited!!! So Cory has an indoor and outdoor house now… we had a good visit with Rob and Liz … sure wish we could see more of them…. too bad they moved to the other end of town. Thursday, Stacy and I went to town to do laundry and do a dump run after we worked the cow ponies…. then coming home and hoping to finish the round pen project (which we got done) – wow… way cool. Now we have a great sprinkler system… THAT will make things easier! As soon as we were finishing up the project, Kathie and Bob were pulling in… it was so great to see them. They are such great friends and I sure wish they’d live closer or I have a chance to see them more often!!! Anyhow, I will be looking forward to see lots of them in the next two weeks…. we all met down at the campground for drinks and snacks (we never got around to actually have dinner) when Pat and Doreen showed up and joined the ‘party’….. then Kevin joined in and we had a fun little evening….except the mosquitoes put a bit of a damper on it, but coming from FL we are just not used to them at all …. Well, and here we are… Friday evening already… Sunday night the second seminar will start…. Stacy, Doreen and I are in Billings at the Livestock Horse Sales for the weekend. We hope to sell some of Stacy’s horses… today was the preview of the two- and three year old cutting horses on cattle. We decided we will NOT show them on cattle, however we still rode them around to get them used to and ready for tomorrows preworks before the sale (you get a minute and a half to show off your horse in the arena) – both our colts (only having about 45 days on them) were pretty frisky and experiencing a lot of stage fright, but worked through it just fine and by the time we were ready to put them back in their pens, were walking nice and relaxed in the warm up pen…. what troopers!!! – So tomorrow they will sell…(hopefully) – looks like they all sell tomorrow, however the two colts will sell lat at night. So we won’t make it back to the ranch before Sunday morning…..Anyhow, now I’m pretty ‘toasted’ myself… Stacy is already sound asleep and Skittles is laying at my feet, not knowing if she should ever tell her friends at home that she got to stay in the Montana Grand Hotel…..

Pat and I after working our cowhorses – talking things over….

Pat, cooling out Yeller, while I get ready and warm up my horse…

 

 

 

well, I have more pics to post, but I AM tired, so I try to not wait another week before signing in again….

call it an early night…

well, I guess y’all wonder why I don’t post for a week and then 3 times a day! Well, first I had a long lunch (very rare) and then an ‘early’ evening….

But let me tell you about the weekend a bit (sorry – no pics and no video ….)…. It was a blast to say the least. We decided to leave early in the AM to go to the show instead of the night before and staying in a crummy motel, having to eat dinner out and get a stall for the horses…. MUUUUUCH easier to put up with an early Sunday drive…. and boy was it beautiful. I packed up my trailer (my house) and stayed up at the barn overnight…. at 5am I loaded Yeller and Scooter and picked up Pat and Doreen at the house. We drove up to White Sulphur Springs (up a canyon) and had breakfast at a little tiny cafe. Then on we went through Harlowtown to Big Timber, where the cutting was. It was on the rodeo grounds… how fun. I’ve never been outside at a cutting and truly enjoyed it (I guess cause we didn’t have any rain!!!) – the loping pen was the rodeo arena – so it was nice and big. The cutting pen itself was a little catch pen to the side – it was great! Pat and Yeller did great – however the fast, rerun cattle didn’t let him score as well as he should. But Yeller was great and stayed on the cow even though she tried to jump out of the pen, hang on the side, before sliding back down into the pen. It was quite a sight (or should I say rodeo???). They ended up 4th in their class. I was first in my bunch on fresh cattle, and the gal that settle my cows told me to be careful, they are all like “Quail” – so I snuck one off right at the end, got some good licks in and then tried to do that again…. the second cow was just as good, however I didn’t ride Scooter as well as I could have or should have….so I ended up with two misses (being out of position), which cost me first place. Oh well… we take a second for not having shown since March and it being Scooter’s 5th or 6th show….! Pat was tickled the way Scooter worked, so I guess I should be too….

The way home was quite spectacular, with lightening shows all around us and we actually hit a bad rain storm (well in FL you probably wouldn’t call it bad LOL) – we ALMOST pulled over, cause the roads gotten so slick. Pat said this is the most rain he’s seen in this country at this time of the year…. the flowers are still blooming in the pasture and the grass is still green and growing!!!! Anyhow, we took care of horses, dogs and other things (unloading the trailer, putting/cleaning stuff etc) and went to bed early. (Honey you would be proud of me how I parked the rig next to the bunkhouse – one try and I got it smack in the middle… surprised myself LOL – I thought I had to sleep on uneven ground for a night ha, ha, ha).

We got an early start today and had the big help of Karen, who brought Mugzie, her horse, to stay with us in between clinics… Since the cows were all used up and stuff, we worked a couple of 3yo’s on them. Pat worked Reno and I worked my little red roan mare, Ceena. Boy is she cowy… maybe my next Scooter???? Then we went up into the pasture, to gather more fresh cows to work. As soon as we broke for lunch we had a heavy, heavy downpour… I couldn’t even see out the window to my truck … and lots of hail as well…. hooooray…. lots more mud in the forecast!!! In the afternoon, we loaded the used cattle in the trailer and hauled them out into a different pasture (we didn’t want to drive them with horses and dogs, cause we were afraid to mix them up with the fresh cows in the field…). Have way through our task, it started to pour again! It cleared up it rained, it cleared up and then it really rained…. now it’s been raining and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop…. so I have an early night… I took a hot shower, will see what I can dig out of the fridge to eat and maybe start a movie on the laptop….

here’s the second half….

I don’t know why it wouldn’t take MY smiley face on the download… but here it is…. 

The clinic is over :-( …

The second week of the class just flew by… Monday started off with some heavy downpours, so we were forced to ride indoors in the afternoon. We were optimistic for it to clear up enough so we could work the cows outside after dinner…. the weather “kinda” held up and we only got soaked once …. Tuesday was a hard working day in class – lots and lots of questions, which we continued in the evening when we met at Pat’s (after dinner) to watch a video and have some Q & A’s….. Wednesday we put the crunch on our show horses (cutters) as Pat and I planned on going to a show on the weekend…. However after a while we decided to only make it there on Sunday, as it was the class’s last day and most people were leaving Friday night or Saturday am and we didn’t want to be gone and not say good-bye…. Friday came around and we video-ed everyone in the morning and had lunch at Mary’s camp. Then we met at Pat’s to review the video before we saddled up for the last time…. how quickly that time just flies by is unreal. I can’t believe I’m up here a month already!!!! WOW!!! So Friday night we went to dinner with the whole group – Chinese was on the menu and I think we drove the waitresses nuts …. however I’m sure they got over it as the tip should have covered for all misgivings on our end …. Then Saturday was pretty sad…. I hate it…. you basically live together in misery and happiness ha, ha, ha – and then you just go your own way again… that sucks… but we’ve had a great group and a wonderful time all together. Hope to see many again next year or the year after!!!

  Kay and her daughter Jessica – own and operate a local Working Cattle Ranch….

everyone listening intently to the demo…

Pat on Reno – one of the horses he’s bought in TX at the Futurity sales….

lunch at Mary’s camp… she spoiled us with burgers and hot dogs….

everybody’s digging in….

Kate (white tank top) is from England and getting into the “hamburger the american way”….

This is Sue Muir… our jokester and NRHA judge and free style champion. She entertained us all with jokes at our chinese dinner….

the two girls – Jessica and Kaylee – they both hit it off right away and had a ball together on and off the horses…

They were the first to arrive at the restaurant…. Maecile and her “helper” from England, Kate. Maecile owns and operates a Dude Ranch in Wyoming

Heather and Shawna… do we need to say more?

and know you can’t believe it… but we had so much fun and the restaurant didn’t even serve Alcohol!!!!!!! So we were all sober on tea…. must be the mountain air that made us goofy or just the fact that we don’t know when we’ll see each other again!

A note…

Hello to all – first I wanted to ask all of you friends that read my blog to please keep our parents in your thoughts and prayers as they are facing some health challenges and can use all the support! Then of course I wanted to tell my dear hubby how much I love him and wish he could be here too! Hon, I miss ya – see you next month!!!

This is Leah and I goofing around on our last evening of the class. We all went out for some chinese and had a ball!

Another week….

After a busy Sunday, we have started our second week of the clinic…. yesterday we worked our cow horses in the morning and then went off to Bozeman, shopping and doing laundry. The truck was full with 5 of us and off we went…. Laundry… Costco (food) … Laundry again …. Murdoch’s (Tack store)…. Laundry again… then off to a steak dinner and Margheritas…. yuuuuummmmy!!! Then we came home a bit later than expected, so we had to do chores in the dark after putting all our groceries, tack and laundry away…. and today, we started off our second week of the clinic…. here are some pics from last week as promised….

the girls waiting for their turn… Shawna trying to keep the mosquitoes away….

Pat and Doreen at group dinner, Friday night….

oops… gotta go… got company…

oh no! one week’s already gone….

Well, as you can tell, I haven’t had much time to sit on the computer and “google” around …. Monday morning class started at 9am, but we were supposed to be ready and warmed up with the horses…. needless to say, anxiety brought all the people (and horses) out of bed and barn early and it was quite busy (not now as much anymore…. everybody is tired LOL) – we had hauled new sand for the arena the week before, so it was quite dusty (for most people… for FL folks it was ‘normal’) before we could run some water on it in the afternoon

So the day went over quickly and after we were finished riding in the afternoon, we had dinner and some drinks and got ready to work our cow horses after dinner…. so ‘light out’ was not till 10.30pm….. the next day (Tuesday), the day started off with a long demo and lots and lots of questions… so we only got one ride in per group in the morning…. the afternoon sessions went over in a snap and the whole group met for “Monday night at the movie’s on Tuesdays” and we had another opportunity to ask a lot of questions…. so no cow work on Tuesday…. Wednesday we got going early and every one is getting the hang of the routine already…. So the day went over in a snap again and after dinner, Pat and I loaded up the used up cattle and hauled them back to the ranch they came from….. once we got back, I visited with some of the people and time just slipped by till another night was toast with the resolution of going to bed early….Thursday we started to have a bit of a funky mood, as the first week started to twindle down already…… oh now… why’s time flying so quickly??? After dinner some ‘cowgirls and cowboys’ met to gather new cattle for our cow horse work…  yahoo! Fresh cows!!!! Friday we had video-ing on the program in the morning… the sky’s were overcast and it started to drizzle as the clinic started and after a few riders we all had to move inside to finish the video taping… Mary offered lunch (hamburger and hot dogs) for everyone and after a short lunch we gathered at Pat and Doreen’s house for the video review. After we got scrutinized from head to toe we tacked up our horses and went ‘after it’ again…. so much fun. I can’t believe the first week has gone by so fast! Dinner was planned in town with the group…. The Mint Bar was hosting us and the food was great….. Saturday morning (4th of July) we got to work fresh cattle in the morning…. then a garbage run to town and Lobster feast in the afternoon…. but more about that and more pics later… I hear the “dragon” (off road vehicle) and the ‘boss’ arriving….