Way Out West: Wildflowers and Wild Laughs

Our ranch season has begun and that means the fun is just beginning! There is no shortage of laughs and smiles around here—from the littlest to the biggest of buckaroos. And there’s one night we get to kidnap (well the “kid” part—not so much the napping part) the little people and have (almost) ALL the fun to ourselves….

“We’re goin’ on a ……………………………….POW WOW!!!”

And what would an Indian Pow Wow be without some war paint right? It started off rather harmless……

Until the kids insisted they get to do OUR faces in return……(who agreed to this?)

At this moment we were wondering to ourselves…. “at what point did we lose control?” (Haaahahaaha!)

And when the ranch kids are happy—we’re happy! We can definitely say our kick-off Thursday night Pow Wow was wildly successful!

The second most popular evening for stripping the staff of their dignity on behalf of our beloved guests is Staff Show Night. I can’t reveal everything out of our bucket of laughs, but here’s a peak at your “Saturday Night Live of Ranching” actors and actresses. We see some Golden Globe awards in their bright futures…..

(** On a side note—here is the Ranch Crew this year. What’s cool about this photo is that ALL FOUR of these staff were GUESTS here at the ranch in their younger years. We love it!**)

All was going well until……the table couldn’t quite take it anymore.

It’s so GREEN. And you can see the snow still up on the peaks. Makes for some gorgeous, gorgeous views…

Can you see the flowers covering this hillside? Multiply that times every mountainside.

Some pictures don’t need words. So uhhhh…..no comment.

We get the BEST GUESTS in the WEST!

And SEE how we turn them into real cowboys and cowgirls? We take them on wagon rides and then cue a rainstorm JUST to toughen them up. And they rough it like champs! Ha! And just to tell ‘em how proud we are, we cued the rainbow as well…. just a little thing we “do” here. It’s the magic we tell ya….

Service with a smile as Lauren gives us the thumbs up. Our ranch wranglers have the best job on earth—and make it look easy at the same time!

The first thing you would notice if you walked on to the ranch right now is the smell that would hit you. (No, not from the barn you crazies…) The lilacs are in full bloom and they aren’t just gorgeous—they smell incredible, too. The guests are loving it!

We are once again happy to welcome Allie on ranch as an intern for the next several weeks. When our guests express a desire to eventually come work full-time on the ranch, we’re sometimes able to offer them a few weeks of live-in experience here helping out in different areas until they are old enough to come work the entire summer. It’s a win for us and them and we’re fortunate to have Allie at the barn again this year!

If you remember, last summer a small King Maple tree was planted on ranch in loving memory of King—Jerry and Cheri’s 17 year old ranch dog who spent his whole life on the ranch and passed away in his sleep the winter previous. After the coldest winter we can remember having in quite a while, and knowing this tree was already at the maximum elevation it could even possibly survive, we were fairly sure it had sadly not lived through the winter when it never dropped it’s Fall leaves. But lo and behold…..come this Spring that little tree showed us it has the true fighting spirit of our King-dog when it sprouted it’s beautiful crimson leaves! Hurray for the King Tree!!