In 24 hours I will be in the Denver airport, bumming time with Jack, waiting for a flight that will carry us east.

In 48 hours I will be in my new dorm in the Brick, (hopefully) sleeping nestled 'mongst Empire State hills again.

So hard to imagine that I will probably never see again most of the people with whom I eat breakfast tomorrow.

Also hard to ( Read more... )

Went across the footbridge tonight with the intentions of doing my laundry; Steph's clothes were in the washer so I headed back across in the falling twilight in time to meet Brian in the middle of the bridge, holding his dictionary, beer, and guitar. We greeted each other, and he sat down to play; I sat next to him, the two of us in the center of ( Read more... )

The past week or two went by with lots of trail riding (Princessa, Peanut, and Shaka mostly) and some fun/funny moments. The most giggle-inducing moment was probably the Suswa "GIVE ME YOUR LUNCH MONEY" episode, but since few people have my sense of humor I'm just going to keep it to myself. Also entertaining:

Megan: Yeah, so these guys came out of ( Read more... )

Led a picnic ride today into the forest; it was one of those mass-recon missions involving Richard breaking off of the back of my ride and galloping into the forest to catch Bayard, then me taking the group and meeting Hadley's party by the exclosures and aspen; Hadley then radioed Richard on the walkie-talkie and then sent me back up the mountain ( Read more... )

Some of you may have come across the NY Times article about "the state that never was", aka a big chunk of northern Wyoming and bits of other states that decided in the 1930s to attempt to break off and create the state of Absaroka. Obviously this never happened, but it's a lot of fun to talk about it and nominate first Richard and then Scott (the ( Read more... )

SCENE:
The bathrooms between my cabin and the other cabins on this side the river are connected through one wall, so we can all hear everything going on in the other one. After work today.
(overheard)
(Boots thumping on the floor, the door shuts.)
Jack: Oh, son of a--
(Shower turns on, water sprays, enormous clunking thud and water cuts off abruptly)
( Read more... )

The llamas are all on alert (and making their weird alarm call) and the dogs are barking and we're all either on the lawn or hiding, with a rare few of us actively searching the hills and woods for THE BEAR. This creature has been coming onto the ranch by darkness for the past several nights, breaking into the grain, the dumpster, and Richard's ( Read more... )

This week passed quickly with lots of small-children rides; Tracy and I were blessed/cursed with the family picnic ride which was two families and three children. Thanks to Tracy's ability to charm anything that moves and my ability to create trail-and-picnic-friendly games (Whisper Down the Lane, Geography, and Mad Libs--the story which I will ( Read more... )

Wyoming internet + broken power cord AND dysfunctional battery = a sort-of nice break from the computer for awhile.

In case anyone has been curious to my recent activities:

Cattle drives (thrice), meeting the Marlboro man and picking up some horses (one of which my mother named Stinky Pete and who then got sent back, the other of which is foundering ( Read more... )

Sallie and I had to pick up the four horses used in the Twinney clinic and run them to the Bench after the rest of the herd had gone out yesterday; we also had Congo in the bunch whom Jack had just picked up from the trainer's in Riverton. We were going to let them out and then zip up after them on the 4-wheeler to open and shut the gate for them, ( Read more... )