It struck me today that technically this is a ridiculously dangerous job. Not deadly, per se, but in the way of small accumulating injuries this job is terrible.

Today, for example:
- Foot stepped on, twice, by Elina in the span of a minute
- Ankles mown down by Kitale whilst bolting from the hay tarp
- Trampled between Kitale and Isiolo whilst bolting ( Read more... )

We found the wickiup! The advantage to working lots of hours is that Mel feels a bit badly for me and gives me a lot more freedom when I ask for it--like the other day when I heard that cook Dan and a group of guests were going to head out to the res to search for the wickiup (an ancient and perfectly preserved Indian dwelling.) She told me to " ( Read more... )

SCENE:
(Theresa is getting dressed for dinner; Kristen is on her laptop, Lidia is finishing getting dressed for dinner.)
Lidia: My sock went down drain.
(Kristen continues typing for a moment, then mentally double-takes and looks up.)
Kristen: ...What??
Lidia (giggling): I was washing sock...in sink...and then I dropped and it went *shwoop* down drain!
( Read more... )

Got kicked back into cabins again for the week as Tisha is leaving, Theresa is sick, and that would leave only Lidia to do...everything. Needless to say, not very happy about it. Still, I get to help wrangle in the herd in the mornings so I still get my pony fix. Quite literally pony--we've been riding Vinda and Geoff the Icelandics bareback all ( Read more... )

SCENE:

Hadley walks into the staff room last night talking about our nine-year-old guest, who is a precocious and manipulative little girl. She was sitting at dinner last night coming up with nicknames for everyone on the staff.

Hadley: So she comes up with "Humble Hadley", but then Mel goes "Oh, no, that's not fitting at all." And I'm like, *gasp* ( Read more... )

Seriously, the International Suite is getting ridiculous, in a laugh-about-it-now, cry-about-it-later sort of way. My roommates, one German and one Russian, are perfectly nice girls, it's just when the two of them get together odd things tend to happen.

1. Finding programs downloaded onto my computer...sorry, but no.

2. Teresa thought she set the ( Read more... )

Wrangled again yesterday morning...what a lovely change. Other than Charlie being incredibly sore, meaning I got to ride the exquisite (sarcasm) Whitey, the first half of the morning was simply spectacular. Richard and I tacked up and headed out to round up the herd in the light of the early-rising sun over the snow-covered Absarokas. Hadley had ( Read more... )

"They know it's Monday," I said to Hadley about 6:45 am yesterday, as we rode out to round up the herd. The horses are free right now to roam around the ranch all the way up to border of the national forest. And of course there were none to be found, even with Richard zipping about on a 4-wheeler trying to "scout."

We wound up on the forest road ( Read more... )

Quote: (best if read in an unpolished British accent)
"And god! Smoking in California! I might as well walk about with a sign pinned to me saying...'I'm a child molester...and...put needles through cats' eyes.'"
--Alex

Scene:
Mel karate-chopping Bayard in the arm and telling him to "shut up."

Scene:
Storm blows in; hail begins to fall. Sallie (from ( Read more... )

What's next for a Philly girl?

Playing with guns, apparently. Craig decided to make it his personal mission to "completely corrupt" me, especially before sending me to Mel to be dealt with. So Sunday morning we started some more big fires and then played with firearms. I shot some rifle-esque thing, and then a handgun which threatened to twist my ( Read more... )