By guest blogger Catherine Crouch
Guests often ask us why we have 55-65 staff on hand at any given time when our guest capacity sits at a comfortable 52. Easy! The ranch has a huge “behind the scenes” effort that often goes completely unnoticed. Easily overlooked are the hard-working ranch hands. Michael and his team manage an immense spread of time-consuming projects while being at the ranch’s beck and call to run an errand into town, fill a pothole, change a light bulb, or numerous other disrupting but important tasks. Amidst all the running around that they dutifully do for the many other departments here, they have also accomplished some huge projects in the past 12 months that we are proud to share.
#1- Steak Ride is perched on the edge of a hillside overlooking all of ranch proper. The guys developed the idea to level out our Steak Ride Platform and increase its size by about 50 square feet. With this change, they were able to construct large wooden legs to support large, wonderfully shaded covers to combat the 6:00 pm setting sun. Steak Ride now welcomes guests to relax at shaded picnic tables overlooking the valley.
#2- You may have noticed that you can now walk side by side with multiple people down the ranch walkways instead of one person in front of the other. Previously, our walkways were about 3 feet wide. This made heavy snow days busy with early wake up calls for our ranch hands to clear all the paths with our push snow blowers working down the narrow walkways. This past year, the ranch hands spent the summer widening and replacing nearly all the walkways to the width of our Toolcat snow blower. They are now able to clear the walkways with one fell swoop. While it is nice to walk side by side down the walkways with your group, it also makes snow shoveling much more efficient in the winter.
#3- Have you ever sat at our kids rodeo while cheering your kiddos on as they race (or walk) around the barrel pattern wishing for some 5-star rodeo seating? Well, you’ve gotten what you wished for. Where we once had a small covered sitting area with room for the announcer and 4 guests or so has now been replaced by covered stadium seating with speakers, water coolers, and space. This was such a great addition to the outdoor arena. So great in fact, that we may get on the circuit for the PBR. Just kidding– but we can dream!
With all this to show, we are so incredibly thankful for our team of guys who do so much more than the eye can see. They keep this place up and running week to week and year to year. We’re excited to see the improvements and projects that this group comes up with for next year!