Trailhead Ranch

July 9th

And now, almost 4 weeks have already passed. But I didn't have any internet and absolutely no time to write anything. Since July 1st, it's been vacation time here and people are on holiday, so we have one ride after another. But we have become much faster. At the beginning, we sometimes woke up at 5 so that we could feed and saddle all the horses by 9... now we can do that if we wake up at 6:30. When riding, I usually (actually always) have to lead a child, that's why I still haven't taken any photos of riding. You have your hands full. Because Anne takes everyone. Even 3-year-old children, they then sit in front of her on the horse. Those from 5 to 9 are led and from 10 they are allowed to ride Brodey alone. So Brodey is 30 years old and does nothing else than walking in a nice walk and following the others. Strangely, we never went to bed before 12. In the afternoons, you couldn't sit down anywhere because as soon as you sat down, you fell asleep. One evening, we collected hay until 1 am... at 1 am! A friend (who lives about 1 hour away) mowed by the roadside and made small hay bales and we were supposed to come and pick them up. So Ann drove along the road with the pickup truck and trailer, and every time there was a hay bale, we jumped off and collected it. It was still bright until after 11, so we only continued in the dark for half an hour. There were only the two of us and we were really tired, but on the other hand you think: When do you ever drive at night at 12 on a pickup truck roof in full moonlight? That was really cool... the trailer was full and the pickup truck bed (about 200 bales), so I just sat on the roof ;) I always wanted to do that.

On Thursday, we had a carriage ride through the national park. But Ann doesn't drive herself, she asks acquaintances if they can do it. And on this day, it was Dan who drove and I was supposed to help him and be the passenger. I gladly did that :) Dan grows a lot of grain, has 100 Black Angus cows, and used to have 100 mares for breeding. So we talked about cows and horses the whole way and in between I also got to drive :)

If we had a little bit of time in the evening, we would go swimming because it's really warm here now.... but we never made it before 9 pm ; ) and one evening we also drove to the national park to see bison (see pictures).

We leave for Calgary for the Stampede on Wednesday night :) I'm looking forward to that. And I rescheduled my flight 2 weeks later, because from August 1st to 4th, Leslie (a friend of Aileen and Henry) is doing a tour of the Rainbow Mountains with packhorses and she asked me if I wanted to join. That's a silly question. I wrote an email to my travel organization in less than 5 minutes. Because Aileen already showed me pictures and videos and it looked really beautiful... beautiful nature and mountains and I don't have to do anything else but ride from morning until evening and sleep and eat in between.