Day 7: June 22, 2000
Breakfast ride & "team penning" (at Laramie River Ranch)

We got up early without that much trouble and quickly dressed for the breakfast ride. I realized as we walked to the corral at 7am (when we were supposed to meet at the corral to get on our horses) that we hadn't signed up to ride, so they probably hadn't saddled our horses. They had made a big point about this at the beginning, but somehow we'd forgotten, I guess because we'd figured everyone goes on the breakfast ride. We rushed out and asked if it was too late to "catch" our horses (basically get them from the area right next to the corral) and get them ready. I found Todd, the really quiet wrangler, and he said it wasn't too late and he went to get them. That was a relief. I would have been really disappointed if we hadn't been able to go on the ride our last long ride of the week, though we wouldn't have had anyone to blame but ourselves. Todd saddled Flax and Cara did Cheyenne. There was so much going on that it didn't seem to slow us down much, or so it seemed to me. Walendo and I both thanked them profusely for being willing to accommodate us, and Cara was especially gracious about it, saying it was no problem.

At around 7:30 we all headed out, a group of about 15 or so people. Bill was among the people riding, which was nice to see, finally. He spends so much time running the ranch that he hardly gets to ride anymore. Since it was the entire group, we went pretty slowly, and the horses trotted only to catch up. For some reason, Flax was pretty energetic and seemed to want to be near the front. I think he's more eager to be part of a larger group, whereas he's willing to fall back with a small group. I felt like I kept cutting off Vicki on Scout, for some reason, but she was pretty forgiving. Anyway, it was yet another lovely day, not too hot but bright and sunny. We went up the back side of Bull Mountain, mostly rising fairly gently but in spots it got a bit steep. I was mostly in my own thoughts for the trip, but I did chat with Bill a bit when he told me about which land was owned by whom, and how BLM land is managed. They lease out rights to graze cattle, and people can sell those rights to others, but anyone can come onto the land and do pretty much whatever they want on it. I like BLM land.

Walendo and Bill at breakfast site

We got to the breakfast area around 9:30. It was another lovely spot in the trees with a nice view of the hills with the Raywah Mountains in the distance. Once again, the meal was delicious. Nancy and Chad made some of the best pancakes I ever tasted, plus there was a yummy egg & veggie mixture. We chatted more with Bill at breakfast, discussing the idea of coming back to the ranch next year with a group of people.

Four napping wranglers

We'd love to get a group of our friends to come with us. We talked a bit about the ranch web site and we were about to get into a discussion about web browsers when we were "saved" from tech talk by Chris, who had overheard us and was asking about having a family reunion there. I like the idea of giving them business, since we had such a wonderful time and were impressed with how they ran the place. While we were chatting, all four wranglers had laid down in the grass, put their cowboy hats over their faces and dozed off. It was an amusing sight. (They all must have been up at a ridiculous hour getting everything ready -- they'd earned their naps.)

On the ride up, I'd noticed that there were a whole range of different kinds of flowers up at this spot, so I wanted to pick some more and make more bundles of sage and dried flowers out of them. I wandered around a bit and picked a bunch, putting them in a napkin to protect them for the ride back.

We had two choices of rides on the way back. We could go with Chad up to the top of Bull Mountain and get a lesson in geography, or we could round up cattle for the afternoon's "team penning" activity. Bill said we'd have a lot of fun rounding up cattle if we hadn't done it before, and since we'd seen the big views on our all-day ride, we chose rounding cattle. The group we went with had the more advanced riders, so when we were on a flat area we trotted for a while and again went into a lope. This time my feet were in the right position so I felt more in control and liked the feeling. I stayed in the saddle better, though I don't think I really had it down smoothly. It'd be great to get more time working on my loping. Walendo hadn't loped much before (I think his horse had done it for a short spurt once before) and he said he had managed to hang on, so he figured it was a success.

When we got close to the ranch, we split up into two groups to find the cattle. Four of us went with Cara (Walendo and me and the South African couple), and we found a total of 7 cattle sitting around not far from the ranch. So the five of us made a U shape behind the cattle and moved them to the ranch. I wound up on the outside, and the idea is not to get ahead of the cattle, to be about half-way between the group. That meant walking pretty slowly, so I had to keep holding back Flax, who was fairly agreeable even though really all he wanted was to rush back to the ranch. It was interesting to do, even if having 5 horses to round up 7 cows is a bit of overkill. None of them ever strayed or spooked so it was pretty easy. Cara was very appreciative, which was kind of her. She made us feel useful.

When we got back to the ranch, we relaxed a bit until lunchtime. It seemed like we had just eaten, but lo and behold, I managed to eat. It was a hearty barley soup with homemade croissants, which were both delicious. It was nice that it wasn't a big meal. After lunch I took a walk behind the ranch to gather some more sage for my next round of bundles, but it turned out the particular kind of sage I wanted didn't grow back there. It was odd, since there was a bunch of it in front of the ranch by the road. I ended up picking some more flowers, which wasn't what I needed but I couldn't resist when I found really interesting ones. I kind of like how I developed a bit of an interest in plants, since I've tended to be kind of oblivious to them. I certainly hadn't known there were many different kinds of sage that grew in different places.

Ellen has trouble getting Flax to go the right way

For the afternoon ride there was a choice of going out on a ride or doing the team penning. I was more interested in riding, but everyone else had signed up for team penning, so I figured I'd try it. Walendo had had enough riding and wanted to do some more fly fishing, so he watched us for a bit and then went off to practice his casting. Penning turned out to be kind of fun. They had 8 cows and a U-shaped pen, and the idea was to move a certain set of cows from one area into the pen. Todd would tell us to get just the brown ones (though he called them red, the silly man) or just the black ones, or the ones with white faces, or the ones with green or red Xs on them (they had marked them). I was paired with Jim against Vicki and Chris, and one of the wranglers would join us to make three per team. The first time, it was just me and Jim and he told us to get the ones marked with green Xs, which was just two of the eight. I didn't realize we had to NOT get any of the others, I thought we just to get at least those two. So off we went and we got four cows in the pen, two green Xs plus two more.

Moving the cattle toward the pen

When I realized the mistake I laughed out loud! I guess it must have seemed pretty silly to them. After that, we had a wrangler with us, so it was easier to figure out what to do. I found it interesting to watch them (and Vicki, who had gone on real cattle round-ups and knew what she was doing). If a cow spooked and ran away from the group, they'd quickly swing their horse around and trot over to stop it from running away and steer it back toward the group. As we kept going, I tried to do the same thing and, though I wasn't as fast at it, seeing them gave me confidence that Flax would respond and he did. It was interesting doing the rounding up because I found I was so focused on the cows and trying to separate them out that I didn't think about the riding, and yet Flax pretty much did what I wanted. So I must have been giving him reasonable commands. It seemed like a good way to learn because it got your mind off of trying to assert yourself and you just tended to give the commands unselfconsciously.

Closing the cattle into the pen

Todd was timing us, and I was surprised to find that our times were usually between 1.5 and 2.5 minutes. It seemed like a lot longer when you were doing it. Of course, if you screwed up it could be four minutes or longer. Toward the end, Miah bet his buddies that he could get all eight cattle in the pen in under 60 seconds, which had been his best time before. (It's easier to get them all than to pick out certain ones of them, so it seemed reasonable.) Jim and I did it with him, and we had them all almost in the pen with no trouble but at the last minute one squirted out. I turned Flax around and went to get him as fast as I could, though not fast enough because our final time was 62 seconds. Doh! After that, Miah said he wanted to do it with Vicki and Cara, just for honor's sake. They managed to do it in something like 42 seconds, which just goes to show you that it helps to know what you're doing. When we were done I was glad I'd done the team penning, though I think I like riding better. It would be fun to go on a real cattle drive, though. Maybe next year. :-)

While I'd been doing the penning, Walendo had gone off to fly fish. He said he'd lost the hook on a branch fairly early on, so he decided to just practice his casting without the hook, since he really didn't want to mess with the fish anyway. He said he felt like he really got the hang of it and was able to place the line where he wanted it, so he was happy. However, apparently he'd walked back behind the arena to fish and when he came out, Miah scolded him for being there because he could spook the horses. I think he might have even riled up one of the horses when he walked out. He said Miah was pretty upset about it and he felt really bad about it. So it was kind of sad that his last experience was negative.

Walendo had walked right into the river with his socks and shoes on, so when we got back, they were sopping wet. He had to wear his clunky hiking boots, which looked lovely with his shorts & t-shirt. Anyway, while he took a nap, I went out to the front and collected more sage. Each time I went out, Cody accompanied me on the way out and back again, the cutie. And while I was out there, they let the horses out the front gate and they crossed the road and started munching right near me. I went back to the room and made up a bunch more sage & flower bundles. Then I joined Walendo in a short nap before dinner.

Dinner the last night was steak & mushrooms, baked potato & salad. Dessert was a yummy cherry/apple pie. I wasn't hungry but couldn't resist. Somehow, with all the eating I still managed to maintain my weight. Something about being on a horse seems to burn up a lot of calories, even for me.

Bill Anderson playing for guests at ranch

We ended up sitting near Bill again and we talked more about horses. We asked him how much they cost (anywhere from $1000 to $8000 or more) and how often they use the horses and how tired they get at the end of the season. It was nice talking with him. After dinner, I looked at a big book they'd put together that shows many of the local plants of the area. Each page had a picture of the plant and a dried sample, plus some facts about where it's found and what it can be used for. Now that I'd spent time looking at the plants and picking out the ones I liked, it had more meaning to me, although of course I can't remember most of the names. I was especially interested to read about how they could be used for medicine or food.

Later we went in to pay the balance of our bill for the week (we'd paid a deposit before we arrived) and while we were waiting, we talked with Dave more about his ranch and such. He offered to give us advice if we ever got closer to really buying some property and building a house. That was nice of him. While we paid, someone named Bill Anderson was playing guitar in the great room, so we joined the group listening to him when we were done. He was quite a good player and he was really enjoying himself, which made it even more fun to listen. It was a nice way to end the week. We went to bed shortly after he finished.

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