5/1/12

Hey there everyone!

I have some great pictures and stories for you in this blog post, and it’s going to be quite a long one, so get pumped. 

Spring time is here. I’m so stoked for the weather getting nicer, people in great spirits, animals giving birth to their young, and all the other great things which come along with spring. It is a fun time of the year here on the ranch, lots of things going on, very busy schedules, and lots of people coming and going to and from the ranch. 

A couple of weeks ago, my dad came to visit, which was an absolute blast. It was so great to get him out here, and give him a chance to see what I’m doing. It’s tough to describe some aspects of my experiences to people, and experiencing it yourself is really the only way. 

He got the full experience. One of the days we rode 22 miles, gathering a pasture, taking them to the carpenter corrals and branding 100 calves. It was a big day for me too, as it was the first branding of the year, and my fist branding ever. What an awesome experience to have my pops there, while I’m riding around the corral with Duke, roping calves, and bringing them to the branding pit. Dad even got in there and wrastled some calves to the ground and restrained them while we did our business. He really got into it, and it was so great to see. 

We got a chance to do some fishing, where my dad actually caught some fish! Whoo hoo! Now he cant claim that he has never caught a fish in his life. I witnessed it with my own two eyes. Albert Arthur reeling in multiple fish. 

Jonathan was nice enough to lend us on e of his guns so dad and I could go out and do some shooting/hunting. We had a such a laugh going out into the pasture and getting our shoot on. 

We had some great cook outs, dinner at the Phillips’ place, and many other great meals. We had fun just hanging out with the crew here, everyone is so awesome, and I think they all had a good time chillin with my dad too. 

I’l remember the weekend for the rest of my life, and I’m sure my dad will too. It was so great to have you out here dad, I’m proud to call you my father, and you’re a great role model to me. Not to mention you handled yourself like a true badass out here, not many people can come out here and fit in as well as you did, riding horses, wrastlin calves, shooting weapons, pulling fish, and throwing a mean fast ball. Nicely done pops. 

So its branding season. One of the best times of the year here on the ranch. Tons of work to be done, thousands of calves to be branded, ear notched, vaccinated, and castrated. The brandings are full day events and have a ton of cool aspects to them. Unfortunately, I dont have any pictures of one yet, but we have two this week, and ill be sure to take some sweet ones. After that, I’ll do a post about brandings specifically. 

I’ll also do a post about my new place were building out at the casita house. I’m gonna have my own little apartment space. I’m super stoked about that. I’ll go take some pictures and post them soon. 

Everything is going great here, the lodge design is really coming into its final forms, I’m still loving working on it, and cant wait until construction starts. 

Brutus is still kickin ass and taking names, he is doing awesome as my roping horse. We make a great team out there. Roped 15 or so calves last branding. Atta boy. 

So I have a bunch of pictures for you, I’ll caption them to let you know what’s going on. 

Fish which Connor and I caught this sunday out of head quarters pond. We were bound and determined to have fish tacos that night, and these 11 large mouth bass gave us plenty of meat for them. We were pretty proud of our catch.

Kathleen found a great beer batter recipe, and startes frying up the fish we had filleted. Wow, I've never seen that word in print filleted, what a weird looking word.  

Only about half of the fish we fried up that night. It was soooooooo damn good. 

Add to the fish some chopped cabbage, and carrots, roasted onions garlic and jalapenos, fish taco sauce made from sour cream, mayo, cayenne pepper, diced cilantro and lime juice, all folded between a soft taco shell. Holy moly, literally the best fish taco I've ever had. No joke. Way to go bunkhouse crew. 

It's spring time, and LAMBS ARE HERE! And they're cute as hell. 

Here are the telephone poles we set for the foundation of our new porch were building for the bunkhouse. Should be pretty sweet when we have a little nook to hang out in and watch the storms roll in from the west. 

Wee were all very intrigued by the lighting that this storm produced, so we all went out to see what it was like outside. It ended up producing some spectacular photos. The western sky (behind us) was clear, and the sun was shining, but as you can see, the eastern sky was very dark and ominous. It was eerie, but very neat. 

I like this shot. The bright colors contrasted against the dark sky. 

There was about a 15 mph south-north wind, adding to the effect. 

For anyone who doesn't know, thats the Colorado state flag. 

Look how green it is out here right now! It amazes me every time I see it. 

Well, there it is folks. Hope you enjoyed. 


I'll be doing another post later this week about our brandings. Should be a good one. 


In a while crocodile. 


- E

4/2/12

Hey there everyone.


Just wanted to do a short post to share a funny picture with you. 


This happened while I was house sitting for jonathan the other day. I told his dog Oakley to load up into the truck, and she hopped up in. She then proceeded to sit exactly like a human would in the seat. It took me by complete surprise, and made me laugh so hard. Here's what it looked like. 

Oh man that made me laugh. She is an awesome dog, and it was a pleasure to take care of her for the week. She rode around with me like this the entire week. Just awesome. 

Well, its a big week here on the Chico. Its my birthday tomorrow, which is cool. Were halter breaking our new yearling foals which will be fun. Jonathan and Duke are building their new saddles. Big Al will be in town beginning wednesday night through Sunday, which I'm absolutely stoked for. Its gonna be so much fun having him here, and I cant wait to just chill with him. And to top it all off, we have our first branding on thursday! I'm pumped for that too, time to rope and wrastle some little calveys. 

I'll try to keep my camera handy, should come up wth some great pictures this week, so ill post soon. 

LATER GATORS. 

- E

3/16/12

IM BACK WORLD!!!!

Hey, so I’ve been on a hiatus from the ranch life, and as a result my blog as well. 

I went home for a while. Went home to see the family mainly. My mother was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, and I took a month off to go home and be with the family. 

I also had some shit to deal with for school, which I wont get into because its a really long drawn out story, and I’ll just end up ranting. 

Back to my mom. She’s just fine, other than being in a pretty serious amount of pain at times. Her cancer is between stage 0 and 1, and hopefully, will be taken care of in just a short period of time. I love you mom, you’re such a trooper.

It feels great to be back on the ranch, I forget how different this place is from a typical urban or semi-urban environment. It’s so peaceful out here. It is also great to see all my friends who I missed while back home. Everyone here has been so great helping me get through this tough time. Thank you everyone, your support means so much to me. 

So I’m back, on the grind again, with the hunting lodge in my sights. I’ll be working full time on it from here on out, until it’s construction is complete. It seems to be moving along well, but there is a ton of work to do, as with any large project like this. Unfortunately, this means that my blog posts might be a bit drier for a while, as most of my time will be spent at a desk in front of paper or my computer screen. 

However, I’ll still try to get some good shots of interesting subjects while I’m doing desk work like this because even though I’ll be at my desk most of the time, I wont’t be there all the time. With such a beautiful natural environment surrounding me, it would be almost impossible not to go outside at least once during each day. Also, I’ll be participating in some of the cooler cattle moves, some riding, some roping, brandings, concerts, etc. It’s going to be an awesome spring. 

Last weekend one of my best friends from life, Trent Cohune, came out from Vail to visit me on the ranch. Although he was only here for one full day, we made the day count by going on a great ride in the morning, hunting in the afternoon, and fishing in the evening. It ended up being an absolute blast, it was so awesome to see a childhood friend which I really haven’t hung out with in years. After visiting, TJ has decided that he would like to apply for our summer internship here on the ranch, which would be awesome if he got. It would be so fun to have him out on the ranch this summer. 

Here are some of the pictures we took last Sunday. Unfortunately, the camera didn't make it on our ride in the morning, so we only have pictures from hunting and fishing. 


Anyways, they’re great pictures. 

We converted the AR-15 to .22 cal so we could shoot a brick of rounds without paying 100s of dollars. 

On the hunt

Oh hey look, I caught a fish...

Oh, fish number two!

(one cast later) fish number three!

I think I'll Tebow fish number 4.

I got one.  Yea, one. 

Keep em comin...

Ok, now you just look bored. Fish number six. 

Finally, it's getting dark enough, he can stop embarrassing me at my own pond. Fish seven.

Ended on a beautiful note, what a great day we had. 

And some extras from previous days...

The view towards Pikes Peak from the exact location of the new hunting lodge. Pretty awesome. 

A cool scene right outside of the bunkhouse. 

A beautiful moon we had one night, this photo doesn't do it justice, but it does alright. 

Well, life is good out here, It's great to be back and great to see everyone again. I'll start posting regularly again now that I'm back. 

Hope you enjoyed this one. Talk to you soon!

- E

1/16/12

Hey there everyone!


Just wanted to post this video I couldn't post the other day. It is a video of us riding out and wrangling some cattle. 


Everything here on the ranch is great, the weather has been beautiful, mid 40's and 50's for the last two weeks. 


It's 5 am right now, were saddling up in an hour, so I have to go make lunch and get ready for the cold day ahead. 


Hope all is well in the rest of the world. 


- E

1/10/12

Hey there everyone!!!

So we just started our weaning process today. This is where we bring in all of our pairs (mothers and calves) and separate them from each other. 

Its time for the little ones to learn how to live on their own. 

So today, we ventured out to the far ends of the ranch, looking to gather 4 pastures in one day. 

It was a long day of riding, especially since I haven't really rode in about a month. (when I say really ride, i mean from longer than 3 hours) 

Today, we started out at around 7:30 and arrived home at 5. About a ten hour ride. 

It was a great one. It felt so nice to be back on bruiser, cruising along. 

We had an awesome group today too, about 14 of us. Jeff, David and Carla came over from the MZ, we had Mark from Australia, our new interns, Kathleen and Katherine, and the whole chico crew. 

It was an all around stellar ride, the weather was superb, the cattle moved as smooth as silk, and the people we were with were just fantastic. 

Things are good here at the ranch, although the weather is supposed to turn on us tomorrow, we will be riding all day tomorrow as well. 

Here are the pictures and videos from today. Hope you enjoy. 

The Boss Man. Leading us out. 

Mr. Allen Ferguson. Our Foreman, also looking like a boss. 

Jeff, standing majestically on the hilltop.

Some lopers, running away as we ride up. These things are about 500 yds away. This is my camera in super zoom mode. Its legit huh?

Oh Bruzer

Look at his thick sweaty winter coat. He is also fat and out of shape. 

Hair justa blowing in the wind. 

A nice little landscape pano

Bored, waiting for cettles. 

David, hanging out with some cettles

An awesome group shot to wrap up the day. 

For some reason, blogger wont let me upload a video right now, 


Guess you'll have to wait till tomorrow. 


Hope you liked this post!


Gutennacht

1/5/12

Hey there everyone. 


Jonathan and I had our first (at least my first) meeting today with the Landscape architects were working with on the hunting lodge. 


It felt like it went really, and I'm really excited about getting rolling on the project. It will be an absolutely awesome experience for me, getting to work on this project, hopefully, seeing it all the way through construction. 


I could go on, but I will later when I actually have design content to show. 


for now, I have a few cool pictures to show you. 


Here they are. 

First, a great sunset panorama from last night. The sunsets and sunrises had been unbelievable the last few nights. I believe it's because of the recent heat wave we have had. (60 degree highs)

Mmmmm, a nice sight to rise to in the morning. beautiful. 

The animals we slaughtered, which we will eat for the next year. Hanging in the quoncet hut, waiting to get butchered so we can start eating. 

Some nice pictures. 

I'm in a great place here. I can't wait to get rolling deep into the hinting lodge. very excited. 

Goodnight world. 

-E

1/3/12

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to post up some videos I have taken, as well as some pictures from today. .

Everything here on the ranch is great, it seems like everyone is in very good spirits. It could be the fact that it was 55 degrees today and its supposed to be 60 tomorrow. woo hoo!

Anyways, this first video is of a really funny ram who is penned up all alone in our corrals right now. I'm not really sure why he is there, but he is, and he is quite curious. 

Today, I gave him some chips, and he started to follow me around. When I wouldnt give him any more chips he started to charge me and try to ram me. This is probably a good 300 lb ram with some big ol' balls. He is a feisty one. The funny thing is, most of the time he will let you just come up and scratch him on the head. not this time though...

This second video is a short one of Cecilio and I catching Pheasant. It was the first video I ever shot, so it's a bit shaky. And, I only remembered to bring my camera out on the last bird I caught. 

I'll make a better video of this because it really is an exciting event. But here it is. 

Oh by the way, I cant upload HD videos because the internet here is dog. 

There it is folks, just a snipit.

Talk soon!