Hard Work - Good Work

I just want to start out by saying that around here, we do hard work and we do good work! I remember being told once that if you don't have time to do it right the first time, how are you going to have time to do it right the second time? I'd say that's pretty true! About a week ago, it was really windy and a few of us were done with everything for the afternoon for awhile and we were cleaning out some of the pens in the petting barn and pretty much we got a spray tan of poo dust. But it wasn't nearly as clean as a spray tan… ha!

This is a picture I took of me when I came inside from all the wind and the spray poo! It doesn't look that dirty in the picture, but my face was so covered in dust and dirt!! Plus my hair was pretty much a mop, so… you know, I was doing the best I could (; 

So speaking of hard work, not this past Monday, but the Monday before, I was given the honor of employee of the week and received the honorary toilet seat to hang on my door for the week! Now it sounds a little sketchy and gross to hang a toilet seat on your door, but just wait until you see this one of a kind, magnificent toilet seat! If you were me, you would be in cahoots to have this hanging on your door too! (:

This is it! The legendary toilet seat (: 

That would be me, the proud mama of that crazy awesome toilet seat! 

While I'm on the subject of hard work, I'd love to introduce you to some of the hardest workers I know down here! Their names are Adam and Nykele and Adam Shapiro! In fact, they got the toilet seat this week (; Anyway, they've come to be some good friends down here and I appreciate their great example of hard work and service with a smile and a good attitude.

This is the famous Adam and Nykele duo! 

Another good example of hard work - Adam has a metal forge down here and he made this knife on his forge! 

I actually had the chance to accompany them today in Sacrament Meeting. They sang "Because He Lives" arranged by Sally DeFord and I played for them. We just found out last week that they were going to sing and being at the ranch, we have so much spare time to practice (Not EVEN!!) but it ended up great and it was a lot of fun! They both have amazing voices and Nykele is a vocal performance major. So pretty much amazing is the best way to describe it! Ha! (:

So this week I got a package!!! YAY! I would just like to give a shout out to Mama Harper and Papa Harper, but mostly Mama Harper for making my day with some very delectable and tasty peanut butter balls! But there's a twist to that. When I got the package there was a little note saying that since I am now a real authentic cowgirl, that they were horse…. well, you know. (: Well, I didn't want anyone to throw them away, so I labeled them as "Danielle's Horse Turds." Just in case you were wondering, if you ever don't want someone to touch your stuff, just lable it as "(Your Name)'s horse turds." It'll work every time, no fail!

I of course had to do the package selfie (: Thanks mom and dad and mama and papa harper!! 

I couldn't quite get a good picture of me with the package by myself, so I went and posed in the kitchen! 

I know what you're wondering… Yes those are the horse turds. Knuff sed. 

Are these turds sanitary? They look questionable to me!

So this past week, we had a young men's group come through and I was assigned to do archery with them. A few of the leaders brought their own compound bows and they had me try one out. It was flippin' awesome! Although, I should probably do a few more pushups so I can pull that big boy back. (; Anyhow, I tried it out and I am happy to say that on my first two shots, I hit the target dead center! Then on the third shot it went over that white fence you can see in the picture and into the field. Well they went a lookin' for it and couldn't find it, so I went back later with a few other workers and we found that arrow!! It was pretty amazing because they for sure thought they had lost an arrow! Ha!

This is me with the compound bow and in the background you can kind of see a little black and green spotted box right next to that first tree up in the lefthand corner. That was the target that we shot at with the crossbows. But holy cow, what fun!!

I'd just like to add here on a tangent, that I can actually say that I am a real authentic cowgirl because I can rope! Well, more like I know how to pretty well, I'm still working on the making it every time part. But, I must say that I have learned how to heel and I have quite the knack for it! I can walk behind someone as they're walking and rope them! Or in this case, "heel" them!

Alright, so a few posts ago, I put a picture of our resident ranch dog's new pup! Well it's sure gotten big and is the cutest little thing around and also of course a common attraction for guests! One of the staff is taking her home when she leaves and named her Zoe! She's flipping' adorable and so playful! It's fun to have a little pup around! Mom and Dad??….. (;

Mama Bella and Pup Zoe playing around

I just can't get over this pup! She and her mama are both so dang cute! 

Hidden Springs, Old Mines, and a Full Moon

Saturday, June 14, 2014
Today (and yesterday actually) we were all given an extra day off because the schedule hasn't been very full. So, I took advantage of the time I had and made the most of it! There was only one other wrangler off today, so we took out a couple of horses for a few hours in the morning and rode up into the mountains behind the ranch. We took some of the trails and went out to Hidden Springs, which is one of the trail rides we do here where guests ride out and they take sack lunches and spend some time at the spring before coming back to the ranch. We wandered around getting there and tied up the horses and went exploring a little bit too. There was a little cave at the top of the mountain that we hiked up to that was pretty cool too!

This is me and the sweet mare I took out, Cricket.

This is right above the spring. When I climbed up there, I got caught in a whole bunch of dry branches, but luckily made it out! haha (:

This is the view from where we climbed up to the little cave at the top of the mountain. If you look close, right in the middle you can see Cricket and Spider down by the trees. The next two pictures show it zoomed in a little closer each time.

This is zoomed in a little closer, the horses are in the upper right hand corner in the shade of the trees.

This is Cricket and Spider. I took the picture while clear up on the top of the mountain. I'd say the zoom was pretty good!

Another picture from the top of the mountain

This was on the way back to the ranch

I love this picture! This has got to be one of my very favorite viewpoints in life, from in between my horse's ears.

We ate lunch after we got back and then went shooting. I brought my pellet gun down with me and tried it out with the bb's. (It doubles as a BB Pellet gun) Later we went up Antimony canyon to find an old mine that used to be up there. Dude, the road up that canyon is like the dirt roads that are turnoffs up AF canyon. It was SOO bumpy! Thank goodness for pick-ups! After awhile it got so rough that we had to get out and walk the rest of the way up the road to get to the turnoff for the mine. We finally found it and hiked up and looked around a little bit inside. There are some really cool old shafts still inside. We didn't go in them, but did shine a flashlight down them!

On the Way up to the mine, we passed Cowboy Rock, which is a destination for one of the trail rides we also do up Antimony Canyon. On that ride, we also bring sack lunches and it takes about half the day for the whole thing. We stopped and took some pictures while we were up there. It's really a neat place!

This pictures is a little further away, but you can see the rock right in the middle of it.

Here it is, Cowboy Rock in all it's glory!

Okay, one more of the same picture, but with me in it (: 

This is up on top of the mountain we hiked up to get to the old mine

Let's face it, I had to take a selfie from up top at the mine (;

This is back down on the road when we were walking back to the pick-up! The road here doesn't look as bad, but we had to stop at one point because there was a huge, deep wash. There was no way we could have made it through so we parked and got out and walked probably about two miles up to the mine altogether, plus another two back, so… Anyway, on the left side, there is a river you can't see, it's pretty far down and tucked back kind of below the trees. I thought this was a really neat view.

Saturday was quite eventful! It didn't end after the mine. Usually when we have bigger groups, we have a live band come in a play. We do country swing and line dancing and it's a blast! But there's more! Around here, we do what we call "night rides" when there is a full moon. Guests can come on night rides as well if they schedule for it. We didn't take any guests out, but about seven of us took some horses out and went for a night ride. We left at about 10:30 Saturday night and got back around 12:30 am. Riding at night is one of the coolest feelings ever, especially when you run. (I wouldn't advise a night ride around American Fork haha) The horses can see better than you can and that night they had a lot of get-up-and-go! It's amazing what kind of energy the night can give to a horse! I really wanted to take pictures, but it was so dark still even with the moon and I didn't want to freak out the horses with a flash, so I decided to forego the pictures. But if you can imagine riding at night up in the mountains with a full moon, stars, coyotes in the distance, jack rabbits, and all sorts of other critters, you would just about have the right idea. It was super neat because when we headed out, the moon was mostly hidden behind some clouds and then when it came out, it was amazing!! I don't even have words to describe it. It felt like flying through the night. I'm in a living dream. That's all I can say!

Nights Under the Stars

Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Well as you may know, we had some flooding issues a couple nights back. Thanks to a lifesaver of a manager, we were able to get the carpet cleaned and the floor is now dry!

Here's the catch though.. With a wet room before, we've been sleeping outside on the deck. Ha! For the past few nights we've been sleeping outside and half living outside. Yesterday morning two of our roommates left early in the morning for two days and last night, my other roommate and I slept outside. When we went to bed we noticed it was sort of cloudy and I asked Andi (my roommate) if maybe we should pull everything inside in case it rained. We decided to just stick it out and hurry and pull everything in if it started to rain.

We lasted most of the night until around 3 am I hear Andi say in a voice that sounds like she just saw a bear, "Danielle! There's thunder! What should we do?!"

Well I told her we should just wait and see if it rains! Luckily it didn't rain, just sprinkled a bit and and we lasted the whole night. Although it sounds kind of funny and it is pretty funny, it was actually really cool and fun being able to sleep under the stars! So if you haven't tried sleeping out yet this summer.. DO IT!!

These are our mattresses we moved outside that we slept on for a few days until our carpet was finally dry!

Now on the subject of being outside under the stars, on clear nights, the sky is amazing here! The sky seems to go on forever and you can see all the constellations! It's quite amazing if I do say so myself. (: I can tell I'm living the right kind of life when I am able to see all the amazing creations our Heavenly Father has made for us to enjoy and be a part of. Look around you - it's all there, you just have to pay attention.

Floods, Fans, and Reincarnations

Let me begin by saying that a late night (or should I say early morning?!) of 2 am, church, and a teenage girl DON'T MIX!!

Alright so here's the story.

Ever since I got here the toilet in our room has been a little sketch. It has a hard time flushing, and even when it does, it still can't decide if it's going to flush all the way. So.. we had our maintenance guy, Walter, check on the toilet and he fixed it. Well, sometimes what we think is right, isn't. Last night, Cameo (one of my roommates) and I went out to our room to pick up something, and she had to use the bathroom. She went in the bathroom and the next thing I hear is "EWWW!"

Yeah, well, our toilet sort of had an explosion inside itself. Luckily it wasn't anywhere else. Yet. We flushed it and it wouldn't flush, so we put the stopper down (Oh and did I mention that every time we flush it, we have to take off the lid and put the stopper down?), got what we needed and went to find Walter. Again.

About an hour later, after forgetting that we were headed to find Walter we were hanging out at the front desk. Our other roommate, Sky, left to go to bed (it was about 10:30 at night) and ten minutes later walks back in the front door and says, "Did you know our room is flooded?!"

We booked it down to our room to check on it and our room truly was flooded. There was about a half inch of water in the bathroom and in front of the sink outside the bathroom and the carpet was soaking wet throughout almost the whole room.

My bunk is on the far side of the room, thankfully, so not much of my stuff was touched. Just a day before I had taken my guitar up to the staff room to keep up there for hay rides and campfires. Also, earlier in the afternoon I had put my laptop in one of my suitcases to have it out of the way off the floor.  My suitcases were just a little wet on the bottom and didn't soak through at all. I am so grateful for those   tender mercies!

Anyway, so we ran to find Walter, who happened to be in the hot tub of all places! Our rooms are really quite literally in a barn, where we are above a garage workshop. When we went back down we checked in there, and the water had leaked down into the shop and was dripping. I checked again this morning and most everything was dried up.

Because the floor was soaked, our other roommate's (Andi) things under her bunk were wet and part of her bedding was too. Well Andi left last night to go camping with her cousins so we grabbed her stuff first and took it up to the staff laundry room. We had to move almost everything out of our room, so right now on the deck there are suitcases, dressers, boots, just about everything. We are kind of living half outside right now….

It was a long night of putting things through the wash. The three of us that are still here fell asleep for a little while on wooden furniture on the porch just outside of the wash room for a little while and eventually moved into the staff room because it was so cold. In the middle of it all we grabbed some leftover sorbet from the freezer and had a late night snack. Eventually we just went back to our room and stole the fans from everyone else's rooms and they have been on and going to help dry out the floor. Walter said last night that we should pull up the carpet so the wood underneath could dry. Well, come to find out that the carpet is GLUED to the floor. We ended up just sleeping in our room with five fans going along with the ceiling fan. What a night!! I think I could take on anything right about now!

This is the porch we fell asleep on. I fell asleep on the little wooden bench on the far left.

As for reincarnations.

I feel like everyone that works here is a reincarnation of someone I knew from back home because they all seem so familiar and I feel like I've always known them. It's sort of like we never didn't know each other.

On the bright side, today we found the pups of our resident ranch dog, Bella! These are her pups.

Well this cowgirl is just about to doze like a teen in church. Good times! I'm sure there will be many more to come!

Embracing Simplicity

June 6, 14

It’s only been a few days since I’ve been here, but the days blur together and already I have come to love and appreciate all the people that I work with. It feels like I have already been here for months and I know I am definitely in the right place.

Just yesterday morning I had a “Riding Interview” with my manager and assistant manager, Brandon and Sarah. They had me saddle up a horse and ride out in the arena to make sure I could do what they needed me to. And… I passed! So I guess you could say I am now an ‘assistant’ wrangler of sorts. In the afternoon we took a trail ride (when I say trail ride I mean it!) out and it’s so beautiful out here – I wish I had taken my camera with me, but even a picture wouldn’t do it justice.

As I’ve worked here the past week or so now, I’ve started to notice how simple life is and how complicated we try to make it. Every morning I get up and do chores and look at what I’m scheduled for during the day. I usually am on housekeeping and cleaning the rooms has opened my eyes a lot. We live in a world that is so full of technology and distraction. These rooms don’t have any TV’s, most have two beds,  and a small, simple bathroom.

I don’t have any cell reception or service whatsoever and the most connected I am to anyone is on wifi once or twice a week. But I’ve learned this: It doesn’t bother me. At all. I love the simplicity of life where I can pull on my boots each morning, put on my hat, and just go live the life I love.

Last night I was assigned to campfire entertainment with Dachelle, the head wrangler. (yeah our names our similar (: kind of funny. Whenever I look on the schedule I always have to make sure it’s my name and not hers) The weather has been really nice and most of the time it cools off a lot at night and if we keep the window open, I usually end up pulling a blanket on.

I enjoy being able to interact with people in real life and get to know them because we work together, goof off together, live together(ish) and just have fun together. I mean, who knew that on Monday after just one day of working with all these people, that  I would end up swing dancing with them out on the lawn by the lodge until ten o’clock at night?!

It’s a good life. You don’t realize it because it’s a reality that you don’t understand until you live it.

(My best attempt at a selfie…) 

A Day in the Life

 June 2, 2014

Three hours, some beautiful views, and a decent amount of tootsie rolls. That’s all it took to get this girl to the destination of a lifetime.

Well I made it! I am now at the highly esteemed Rockin R Ranch where I live in the top floor of the Marriott! Ha! Who am I kidding, I live on a ranch and I basically live above a barn about 50 yards away from braying donkeys, a paddock full of horses and a tack shed.  Let’s be honest, the petting zoo is closer to the lodge than I am! (:

But I don’t mean to make it sound like I’m living in a third world country! I absolutely love it here and it’s definitely a new learning experience! There are about 30 people on staff and they all have been great so far. The lodge has 41 rooms, all simple, without TV’s. If you are unfortunate as I and T-Mobile is your service provider, and also if your phone happens to be a dinky little flip phone, you are no longer connected to the outside influences of this world.

At the beginning of this week we had about 110 guests arrive. (Talk about jumping right in!) Some for family reunions and some for youth conferences. I started work this morning at seven a.m. for what we call here, “AM chores.” We all rotate through what we do every morning. After chores we had breakfast and then all headed out for what we were assigned next. I was on house keeping with several others.

We eat lunch around noon and by the time we had lunch today, most of our guests had arrived. After lunch we are assigned to various activities. I was assigned to archery all afternoon with another staff member. 

I can now say that I am at least a partial/semi-real cowgirl because I tried roping today for the first time and after a few tries, I had one horn! I could totally go professional, right?!  Just kidding, but hey, by the end of the summer I’ll be a ropin’ fool!