The foals are growing and getting used to being handled and loved by our guests each week. As we watch them lounge in the sunshine, frolic in the green grass, and stretch their legs running around the pastures, we’re getting to know their personalities and helping them get used to dude ranch life. Here’s a…
Maybe it’s that I’m not 23 anymore, or maybe it’s just because our staff are just that adventurous. But, this morning it hit me that our staff are moonlighting (sometimes quite literally) in some pretty amazing athletic endeavors. Why did this hit me this morning? Well, Beka and I went for an early morning run,…
Recently we had some special visitors come up to the ranch. Does the name Tufly ring a bell for any of you? If not, here’s a clue: the Tufly family owned Vista Verde from the late 1920’s until the 1970’s. Their boys grew up on the ranch, so we were thrilled when Elvin and Roy…
On the very first day of my kids’ summer vacation we discovered that my daughter’s old faithful horse has some really serious health issues. Given that having a horse is an integral part of my summer childcare plan, this put us in a bind. Yes, we have plenty of horses here at the ranch, but…
It’s been a whirlwind of excitement and learning this week at the ranch. You know that saying about drinking out of a firehose? That is pretty much how our staff feel at this point. They arrived Monday, and we kicked off our orientation time with a welcome dinner Monday night. First thing Tuesday morning there…
Oh boy. Can I just tell you all how excited I am about this summer? I’ve been doing this a long time (this summer marks 20 years in dude ranching– who’d have ever thought I’d be saying that?!) and there are some years that I am more excited about the start of the season than others.…
The valley is just bursting with life. The grass is spreading out over the meadows and the glacier lilies are popping out all over the place. The rivers are rushing by with tremendous speed. The sand hill cranes are calling out from the ponds and the trees are filled with chirping birds in the morning.…
The start of our summer dude ranch season is always an exciting time. The staff show up in the latter part of May for an intense, two week orientation. During that time we pour information into them so they will understand the culture of the ranch, wrap their heads around their roles for the summer,…
Spring is a busy time for Art, our UPS driver. Each day a slew of boxes of new gear arrives, and lately those boxes have been really, really big as our new bikes arrive. Beka and the guides spent a week building bikes to update our Salsa fleet. This year they are playing around with…
Every now and then someone at the ranch moves on and opens up the door for shifting around within our management structure. As Steve and Kelli moved on this spring to their grand adventure (more on this in the last blog post), we saw some opportunities to move people to areas of the ranch where…