Incredibly Ellie

Today is my day off. I got to sleep in, finish a blog post that has been waiting for my attention, go into town for an organically made breakfast burrito, have lunch with my friends, and watch a storm come in. I am still sitting on the couch on our pouch, watching the water fall from the sky. I watched the first lightning strike come into view of this storm. I watched and listen to bright flashes of light followed by the immediate expansion of air that causes the rumble and cracks in the sky. I am enjoying spending my day off this way; at peace watching and listening to the rain, thinking about what my next move will be in a second, a minute, hours, days, weeks, months, years. I have started the lifestyle I knew that was coming after graduation with my degree. I remember sitting during graduation wondering how I would adapt to this lifestyle. Will I hate it? Will I want to quit? Or will I come to like it? Sitting here today, I realized I love where I am. I wouldn't want to chan

I was talking to Mom on the phone the other day, telling her yet another funny story about the horses and she told me, "You should do a blog post about all of these funny stories." I thought it was a good idea and it would be a funny post, one needed after the sad story of Cimmaron's passing. So here we are... I'll let you know right now, I will save the best one for last because it is pretty damn funny. The first one I will start out with is a character trait I finally put together today about one of our horses, Spartacus (we call him Sparty). I was on a ride the other week, leading three of our Junior Wranglers that we had that morning, when I saw my co-wrangler, Nick, heading back from leading his ride. I had to quickly find a spot off trail to turn us around so we can start heading back. There was just no way we could pass them on the trail, it is impossible. On the way back, I had us pull over in an area where the trail split off then rejoined 10 yards later. I

Hello, everyone! It's been a while! Its been almost four weeks since my arrival here to Harmel's and I absolutely love it! A lot has happened in the past four weeks, and the days are starting to run together. We have a joke here on the ranch that everything is "the other day." Whether it was yesterday or two days ago or three weeks ago, everything is "the other day." And this is because for everyone who works here, the days really do run together, especially when we work 48 hours a week and get one day off a week, and there is some partying at night. Anyways, here is an overview of what has been going on the past couple of weeks: The most exciting thing that has happened, is that I started leading rides! Right now I am just leading one and two hour beginner rides in the morning and afternoon, because I know the beginner trail well. I am still learning the intermediate trails, and haven't even began to learn any advanced trails. My boss, Bode, said

The day has finally come and today was my first day of work! It was early start with lots going on throughout the day. First of all, every day will start almost the same. Wake up and head to breakfast before breakfast is over. For work days, we head to breakfast at about 7:30, eat, and head up the road for work. We started by bringing in the horses, putting on their halters, lining the up then feeding them. We then started working on the fences that surround all the fields where the horses can go. We had to repair and replace sections of the fence. After repairing the fence, my boss, Bode, starting me in on my training. It first starts with getting all the horses' names. Right now there are about 23 horses, in June we will be almost doubling the amount of horses we have. So that means more names to learn. I have a list right now of the current horses, so I have been studying their names, but it is still harder than you think. Then there is getting to know their line up, how the

I arrived at Harmel's in the early afternoon. It's been ten years since I have been here and it was interesting to see how it compared to my memories. Once I found someone to check in with, I was shown to the bunk house I would be calling home for the next four months and starting settling in. After getting settled, I met the other females wranglers that were already up here. They invited me to go out on a hike with them and another wrangler to go check the condition one of the trails we ride on. We were able to bond a little bit and get to know each other on the hike. The hike was beautiful. It was up on a small ridge that lined the river that is the heart of the ranch. It had snowed here just earlier in the week so the trail was pretty muddy, but that made for excellent conditions to see bear prints. Yep! A bear had walked the same trail that we were on probably earlier that day. I wasn't too concerned since it was early in the afternoon and we were traveling in gr

Welcome to my first post! I will be doing my best this summer to keep this blog up to date and share what I am up to at Harmel's. I'm so excited to get this going, so let's get started! I left the house yesterday morning at around 9:15 and actually left Flagstaff at 10am (I drove passed my usual gas station, so I had to drive back, then go to the bank, then I went to Starbucks for breakfast and it was really crowded, but I was really hungry). The whole drive really wasn't that bad. I went to Gallop, NM for my first gas stop (no offense to anyone, but that place was weird and sketchy), then I went up the 491 through Native American Reservation, up to Cortez, CO, and then made my way up to Telluride, which is where I stayed last night. It was so beautiful there! It had snowed there the night before and so it looked like winter in the little valley and there still could of been skiing on the mountain. But, I checked into my hotel/Inn and it was so