Manitoba

June 22nd

I have been at Trailhead Ranch in Manitoba for a week now and it's beautiful here.... like a free horseback riding vacation. In the morning, we wake up, feed, brush, and saddle horses, and then ride through the forest all day. There is another helper from Saxony here and we live alone on the ranch. Anne, the owner (who is also from Germany), comes by every morning and tells us what to do. So far, only people who wanted to ride for 1 1/2 hours have come, but there are also 3 and 6 hour rides. For that, we load the horses onto the trailer and go to the National Park. If we have enough time in the evening, we watch Westerns (Anne has over 200) and eat ice cream with cake :) (Haha we do this every day) We also often go somewhere, like to the city, to a concert, to the lake, to a country charity concert...

But Manitoba is completely different from British Columbia (at least the two regions where I have been and am now). I haven't seen any real cowboys here yet. And I bought such nice cowboy stuff in Kamloops and now I can't even wear it (people here dress like in Germany).

And even the horseback riding is very different. If you ride bareback with cows through the forest for 2 months, it quickly becomes boring here ;) I have already written an email to Aileen and Henry saying that I will visit them again ;)

And the weather is also very cool haha... I have been here for a week and a half now and there was only one day of good weather. Otherwise, it's been raining every day, storming, and about 10°C ? But I think that's much better than being too hot. And sometimes, when the weather is bad, Luisa doesn't feel like going out anymore, and then I get to do all the outdoor work alone while Luisa and Ann cook, bake, and such. I'm happy every time :D. As far as I'm concerned, it can rain every day. As you may have noticed, I don't have internet here either (only when we do laundry (in a hotel) or when we're in a café), so I can't write as often.

June 30th

Last Monday, Luisa left, but Jasmin from Switzerland came instead and the weather improved. It was probably already 30°C and we went swimming. We also went to the cinema, which looks really cool here. Ann always has new tasks for us that make me think: no one else would let us do something like this. For example, we were supposed to ride Monti all by ourselves and teach him a few things. He's only 3 years old and someone has only sat on him briefly before me. And you could ask Ann 3 times if she can make sure we're doing it right (because I can't really ride Western), but she always has other things to do and just doesn't help us. Jasmin and I actually know too little to do something like this, but Ann says we should still do it. (Monti is the sweetest horse in the world. Nothing can happen to him.) Or today, I was supposed to drive alone with the pick-up to Erickson to the hardware store and pick up some things. That was over an hour's drive and I was lucky that it was a straight road and you can't get lost as easily here. And there was also a nice employee who attached the straps for me and packed everything so that nothing would fall off. But it was fun... I had a very old Chevi pick-up and loud country music and only gravel roads and prairie (Haha like in a movie). So in between, I had to go on the highway. I had a very long line behind me because I was the only one who obeyed the speed limit and I didn't want to drive faster because everything was working out with the car ;) (there is no TÜV or anything like that here).

Many interesting people come here to go horseback riding. Last week, for example, we had a group of Chinese people. I don't want to have any prejudices, but other people manage to ride just fine. We have very sweet horses and all riders are shown how to brake and steer before. And then we put them on the horse and the horse walks carefully somewhere and they just sit there and don't do anything even if you tell them what to do..... they sit there and call out: 'Help help my horse my horse is moving.' When we had the last rider on his horse, there were already 9 horses spread all over the yard and they were eating with 9 helpless Chinese people on top who were all calling for me. It was quite a sight. And my task was to put them in the right order. Because once the horses are in the right order, they all walk in a line and you don't have to do anything. But that wasn't easy..... that's how the whole ride went. After that, we had a school class.... they were a dream compared to that. You only had to tell them once what to do and they could do it. Otherwise, when we're not riding through the forest, we do things on the ranch (gardening, mowing the lawn, cleaning up, ) One day, we also cleared the trail. Most of the time, while riding, you just have branches and leaves in your face, because the next day, we didn't get very far. And there are many mosquitoes here. Most mosquitoes are in the bathroom and in my trailer. All I hear when I'm lying in bed is: sssssssssss. And that's how I look too.... from head to toe, hundreds of mosquito bites. The good thing is that they don't itch anymore because my body has already gotten used to them. The stupid thing is that it looks like I have a skin disease ;) I also spray myself with mosquito spray every day, but they still sting you in the shower and they can get through jeans or when you're eating dinner and they land on your hand.

I just got emails and I'm really going back to Nimpo Lake to Henry and Aileen :D :). Actually, I wanted to travel, but playing cowboy and driving tractors is 100000 times better than traveling around somewhere. I'm really looking forward to it.