I’ve decided that I’ll only be posting once on weekends, because I have so much other shit I need to accomplish on the weekends, and they’re really not all that exciting...
This one was really fun though. It was sad and boring at times, but the fun times trumped those by far.
The sadness came when it was time for Kerstein to leave this morning. She has been here for the last 3 months, and has absolutely fallen in love with it. She was heartbroken while leaving today, you could see that she was on the verge of tears the entire time. I can understand why she feels so emotional about the place. Its amazing here, and leaving will be hard.
However, preceding her departure, on Saturday night, we had a great last night with her. Everyone on the ranch got invited to some wedding party of some guy the interns dont really know, so Kerstein, Stuart and I had the ranch all to ourselves. This was a weird, but invigorating feeling, having 87,000 acres of land, and you are the only 3 on it.
It was absolutley beautiful out, the water was warm and the swimming was great. We ended at may camp, where stuart lives, and continued the party.
We got out his three guns, for which he had just recently purchased a ton of ammo for. He has a Remington 270 long barrel with a scope, a 20 gauge double barrel side by side, and a winchester model 1857 lever action which is is great grandfathers. An absolutely awesome selection of guns, perfect for range scale hunting (and dicking around). You could tell Kerstein was terrified from the very beginning, having never shot a gun before in her life. We started with the 1857 lever action. Set up a beer box with a target drawn on it at about 40 yards, and took aim. When she heard that rifle fire for the first time she screamed and jumped 3 feet in the air. You could just tell she she was thinking “nuh uh, not doing that, never”. I took my shots with the 1857 and nailed them. Actually out shot stuart that round. She was looking so scared, that we told her she should start with the 20 gauge, as it was a smaller kick and less loud. She agreed. She wanted to see someone shoot it first though, so stuart let off a round into the hill. She felt comfortable enough to load herself two rounds, take aim at a PBR can and fire. Her first shot, missed a bit high because she didnt really know how to handle the kick. She was scared and said she didnt want to do it again. We told her that she had to hit that can before she could quit. She aimed, pulled the other trigger and blasted it away on her second shot. Atta girl. Thats when we got the clay pigeons out, and the tosser, and started a bit of trap shooting. Stuart went first and hit 0 out of 6. I went second and hit 5 of 6, which I was feeling pretty good about. We went round two, stuart hit 1 of six and I hit 5 of six again. 10 out of 12 aint bad considering the last time I shot trap was with Mark Thomas in 8th grade. We moved to the scoped 270 after that, sholders sore, and took 3 rounds each with it. Hell of a gun, put all three inside the bullseye from 100 yards, fairly easily. So all in all I shot well, didnt embarrass myself.
After that we played some drinking games, and BBQ freshly slaughtered steaks on the grill outside may camp. What a beautiful night, warm, while breezy, and thunderstorms rolling in from the west provided a spectacular show for us. After Kerstien went home to have some time alone with the ranch, in her favorite tree, and watch the sunset, her daily evening ritual. Stuart an I kept throwin em back while I taught him how to play my favorite card game ever, cribbage. I fashioned a makeshift board out of card board and q-tips. And we played cribbage, drank, and listened to great music until 2 am. It was a great, great night.
Other than that, it was a pretty laxed weekend, today I read, wrote some letters, did my laundry, went to the store with cooper, stuart, and rafa. While we were out we picked up ryan, who is here for a week looking at the ranch, because he might apprentice here soon. He is a country boy, who lives for ranching from arkansas. He seems like he knows his shit, and is nice overall. Pretty quiet.
I’m tired, I have a lot on my mind, so Im going to hit the hay. I dont have any of the pics from our little going away party, they’re all on kersteins camera, ill get them from her soon. I do however have some others I would like to share, so enjoy.
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My good friend Kerstein. Thank you for teach ing me so much about how to successfully integrate into the ranch. You made the transition so easy, you were so friendly and accepting, and I owe you so much gratitude. Thank you as well for all the amazing pictures you took. I’ll always remember you.
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Kerstein and I at the very beginning of the pipeline which we worked ever so hard on. Even though there is a ton of work still to do, kerstein was a master pipe layer and gluer, and helped out tremendously.
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Micheal before a ride a couple days ago, getting control of the wild horse he was riding that day, the control of the horses that he posses is truly stunning. This horse went from kicking and bucking violently, to calm submissive and rideable in a matter of minutes.
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A nice shot by Kerstein of some moving cows. Its louder than you coul imagine, all the mooing, stomping, farting, and pooping. Very intense, and very fun.
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This is a nice rainbow which settled over headquarters the other day after a rain storm. I love the pinkish lighting which remains after storms roll through, its very calming.
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A great shot of Cooper and David Leach. It was great to see David in the flesh after talking on the phone and e mailing him for so long. He is so nice, and pretty much just as I expected him to be. He told me that he comes around Chico about once a month, so that will be great to see him that often.
Thats it for tonight. Im exhausted, and work starts early tomorrow.
Goodnight everyone.
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