Ghost Town

Yes, I live!

I am still limping, but I really am fine after getting flipped on. Brose told me a little more about what happened and let's just say I am *really* thankful to not only be alive, but walking and coherent.

Somehow, when Skip flipped over on me, he managed to miss all my pressure points with his. As a result, I am sore but not dead.

The ranch, however, is. Today the last guests left, and there's just a handful of people left to close up shop. Six people, 72 horses and 1300 acres.

Today, it's been just three people since everyone but Brose, Will and myself left for the day. Heck, my car even went. I'd gone into town yesterday and really just felt like crashing today, which is what I've done.

I'm the lone kitchen worker remaining and I get to not only close up the kitchen (no clue what that entails; guess I will learn shortly) but also feed the remaining wranglers, guest services and management staff. This is daunting to me as I have no menu but a lot of leftovers.

Tonight will likely be the best meal -- I had a nice cut of meat left over and am making roast. From breakfast on out, who knows. I have 24 eggs for seven people (someone's wife is coming to stay with us, too) and four breakfasts. Not sure how that's going to work out, other than a lot of pancakes.

Since I had to work the lunch ride on Thursday (a bitter subject I need to let go) I was exhausted today and after lunch I headed to my cabin and crashed.

Well, I killed flies first. Again, this is nothing like Morocco, but the tune of flies just drones all the time. Within a four-minute span, I'd killed six and not even tipped the iceberg. Anyone watching the windows would think I am spazzing out because I keep moving the curtains and slapping at the windows.

I cleaned out the fly carcassas from the two light fixtures and already there are two more (apparently really stupid) flies caught again. I relish the thought of them being dead in three days anyway, but the incessant buzzing is annoying.

Prognosis: Negative

The good news: a CAT scan reveals nothing.

The bad news: Possibly, the same thing.

Actually, I am grateful to be in one piece now. My attempt at wrangling didn't go too well. I never made it to the wrangling part, though. I never got out of the corral. Later, I felt like Christina McAuliff, only not dead.

Here's what happened, to the best of my recollection: Skip, the horse I was riding today, spooked big time as Brose, who was lowering my stirrups, had to take a call on the walkie talkie.

I do remember Skip backing up and backing up, and Brose holding the lead rope, trying to control him. The next thing I remember was sitting in a chair in the barn room with Brose standing over me.

After piecing stuff together, apparently Skip backed into something and further spooked. He flipped over and landed on his back, and I haven't figured out where I was at that point. I know I came out of it with a huge strawberry on the back of my right knee and a giant, softball-sized boo boo on he inside of the same knee.

My left ankle hurt at first, and by afternoon a tennis ball-sized lump appeared. Right now, that's the biggest concern.

Initially, I was freaked about a closed-head injury. I guess the Vladdy Konstantinov story is still fresh in my mind even though it was over 10 years ago. While sitting in the chair, Brose left and Will took over babysitting duties, and my memory came back, although I still don't remember coming off Skip.

But I was still scared about it and went into Laramie to get my head examined. It's still there, and intact. The imminent death prognosis was negative, although I have a mild concussion.

Sprains, too. The ankle is absolutely killing me and I'm icing it now. I feel like a truck hit me and I bet I am worse tomorrow, but it's at least my day off.

Update Saturday morning: We had a crew party last night and I talked to Brose a bit. He said he thought I was dead.

Apparently, Skip came up and over and landed on me. I remember nothing, which is good, Brose said. He said I was out flat for five minutes, and then I sat up annd mumbled incoherently for about 10 more. He radioed Brian, who came to help wrangle (since they still needed to do their job), and Will to come babysit me.

When they woke Will up, he was on automatic. He thought since someone came pounding on the door for him he was late for work, and when they said, "Skip flipped over on her" it didn't register. His roomate said after Will heard that, he got up groggily to get dressed and then all of a sudden it hit him what had been said and he tore out of there.
I'm already a legend. All the guests know, and of course the staff does. The story is growing. Too bad this didn't happen the first week because by now the story could be I was out for an hour. (As it appears, it seems to be about a half an hour I lost although Brose tells me I was muttering -- perhaps in Arabic -- I still remember nothing from about 6 to 6:45.)

I am off on Saturdays, so this morning, after the 10-minute effort to get out of bed, I ate breakfast with the guests, who all are asking about me, and then soaked in the hot tub.

My neck is stiffening and I feel pretty much like I fell off a building, and most people tell me tomorrow will be worse. So I'm trying to fend it off.
I do hope to go into town today. If I do, Stephanie will likely go with me and drive since she's off. The doctor said I could drive after 24 hours, so by him I am safe, but it's my clutch foot and I am not sure I want to do that.

I am bummed I can't ride today. The director about had a cow when I said I wanted to. I really want to go out again.

Idol fever

I've been on Billy the two rides I've done this week. I did the penning again and Billy just seemed to be on his own time schedule. He refused to do a darn thing I asked him to. Apparently, the wranglers feel he's stoned, and he really does look it.
Heidi, Vivian and myself on our mounts: Scout, Skip and Billy. You can see the would-be cattle in the background.

Billy, the equine cattle prod. I used his biting habit to held push the cows. They didn't like it.
At one point, the joker wrangler assigned us to herd the entire herd (maybe 10 head) into a little pen. We were doing just fine, really, when he decided to have more fun and cause a stampede. Then we enlisted the help of some of the other riders and got them all in.

Here's an action shot of us cutting the cows. Again, it was a lot of fun. Friday morning I am supposed to graduate to wrangling horses, but I won't be able to take a camera along for that.

The ugliest horse you'll ever see

This is Billy, as in Idol. He is the ugliest horse I have ever seen. That tail is real, folks. And the mane is just as sparse, but he's a really good ride. He does have an Ugly Man Complex, though, and tends to bite at other horses, so back off. On the way back, we passed by this bison head. The neighbors have bison, and this one likely died of natural causes, but it's been spread a bit by scavengers. The rest of the skeleton was nearby, in different sets of pieces.
We passed through meadows and a forest. The forest was new for me, and it was a beautiful ride.

This was our pit stop on the way to the lunch site. It's an old cabin with a little creek nearby.

This is Tango. He is the second prettiest horse at the ranch. His half sister, Gracie, is the prettiest. I rode Tango today and he's a fabulous ride. He's very smooth, but he did step in a hole on a canter. I almost fell out of the saddle and did lose my stirrup!

Off the beaten track

I went for a great ride this morning up Crazy Mountain. Around it, too.

We -- three other women and myself -- went up with Brose, meaning it would be a fun trip. Sure enough, we went straight up the mountain, and down and around other places.

At one point, I was leading and saw this huge ditch-type thing in front of us. I figured we'd make a right turn, but Brose said to go down and up. I was like, uh, you first. Honest to God, I thought he was kidding, but he went right down and popped up again, so I followed.

Stupidity, ignorance and blind faith lead us to do very inane things.

But it was a really awesome ride. We saw a herd of deer and some weird animal carcass, but other than that, it was cool rock formations.

The view from the top is absolutely gorgeous from any angle, really.

There's another ride this afternoon, and I will be taking Newt out one more time. I'm trying to get used to his canter, which is full speed, even over the brush that's on the sides of the mountain.

This week has been long. I did the lunch ride yesterday and managed to not get a break afterward. I wound up working 12 1/2 hours, and prior to that already had 40 hours in my work week. I still have a half day yet to work, too.

The lunch ride was much better yesterday than the other week. I drank unsweetened tea and water instead of lemonade and it wasn't so hot. I didn't get sick when I returned, and I managed to bring the hit of the party -- blonde brownies.

Zippy sent me the recipe, and I have no idea where it originated but it's gone over awesomely here. As in, a day later, people are still talking about them.

Still, I hope I've done my last lunch ride, but somehow I don't think that's the case. There are still three rides left and there are three of us in the kitchen. We'd hoped Trevor would want to do them, but at some point he will want to ride one. The math doesn't work out.

Next week (which starts Sunday afternoon), we're getting three German guys in for a visit. Vivian, who is from outside of Frankfurt, is really excited about having them come over and stay. They'll be here over a week, I think.


After that, there are only two more weeks left of guests. I stay for another week to close up the kitchen. I've no idea what that means except I get an extra week of employment. There are others staying in the other two "departments" (guest services and wranglers) but I am the only kitchen person staying.

There's nothing new on the job front, which is depressing. I found out four of the CDC jobs are being filled by people other than myself. It's awesome for them but man, I am getting dejected. I do not have the slightest idea of what I will be doing for pay after Oct. 1.

I do know that I am almost done with the book, and have received a paycheck for my part. I am really relieved it's almost over.

A month left

Well, it's now September and I have employment for one more month.

It's still fairly fun, too. I mean, I work a ton of hours but there's no commute or errands to run after work, so it's basically just work and then vacation.

This week, I've ridden twice. I'd hoped to increase to about three times a week, so that's where I am now. I'm not sure it will be possible to do more, though.

This week's rides have been fun, though. I went out on Jello Monday and we saw -- actually surprised -- two deer at the river, then we turned the corner and saw Momma Moose and her baby. They ambled off as we rode by.

From there, the weather turned bad and we donned slickers and fought off hail, but still just wandered around. Brose, who's one of the ranglers in this life and a politician in another, was a wild leader. Although we were on property the whole time, we had trouble finding a safe spot to cross the river. He got bogged down several times and we had some spooky horses.

Tuesday was a fun ride, and I rode Newt, who's the one pictured. (Jello is a Palomino.) He's got a really funky gait and I never got used to it. He'd canter for about 12 paces, then trot for three and then canter for six before going into a trot. He had a fast trot -- faster than a lot of canters -- but man, it was tough to switch.

We saw a coyote and some sand cranes on that ride. I probably won't ride again until Saturday because the Wednesday-Friday routines are big in the kitchen.

Our menu is the same weekly, and tonight I am cooking my second turkey. I also did Mexican for lunch. Tomorrow is the pork loin again, and it's also the day the truck comes to unload, hence the full day.

We actually had a long conversation about the workload this morning. The two women are willing to work a ton of hours to get it done, and the guy is a lot more lax. He does what's on the schedule, but anything above and beyond -- like "we're out of crutons and need to make some" -- just bypasses him totally.

Today was his "half day" and apparently there's some confusion as to what that is. The two women assumed it's working 4-5 hours, as our normal schedules are 9-10 hours. But he appeared and then disappeared and then somehow managed to go on another ride.

So there was a discussion about what to do, and we're unsure of the outcome. The thing is, it's the three of us on a team without an on-site boss. There's no chef to run the kitchen and the boss, at this point during the season, is primarily off-site.

My opinion is so long as he's not on the clock, I don't care. I'd just as soon get the hours, and if we're all working a 40-hour base, I don't see how it matters if, say 20 total overtime hours are split 10-10 or 3-17. We're on the same pay scale, so I don't understand how it's a factor.

But we'll see how it plays out. Neither Vivian or myself are particularly confrontational, and, since we're not the guy's boss, we don't really want to be the one to say, "hey bub, we're working our butts off and you're just sitting there stirring soup."

We'll see how it plays out. We've already decided we're making him take the trash out for the rest of the week. The two Dumpsters are full (nauseatingly so, thanks to a dead duck and a spoiled shipment of chicken) -- and apparently the next step, as it's not emptied until Tuesday -- is to don boots and jump up and down on the bags.

Not it.

Critters -- not horses -- on the ranch

One of these guys is Midnight. I forget the other's name. I've only met them once.

No roosters, thankfully! Although I don't exactly sleep in. I wake up at 5:45.
If you can believe it, we had another duck who drowned.

The big goat is handicapped. He has a deformed back foot, but he gets around just fine. They eat a ton of scraps from the kitchen.

We have three goats total, and none are in danger of winding up in the tagine. One escapes quite a bit. I've chased her down several times and locked her back up.