Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Back from the ranch! Part 3

 Here are some pictures of Ryan and me shooting. Enjoy.

Handgun (Springfield XDM .40) - not my favorite...mostly because I only hit like one target in 16 rounds. :)




Pistol/Revolver (.22) - kinda fun. Felt like I was in an old western movie.


Rifle (.22) - this was my favorite. I hit lots of stuff :)


It got too heavy for me so I had to shoot like a 4 yr old shoots....wimp, I know
Somehow Ryan just looks so much more hard core than me when he shoots a gun. Probably because he knows what he's doing and I still have training wheels.

Ok so on our last walk before we left to come back to Denver :(, we took these pictures just down the road from the cabin. 



These are "mule deer" leaves because, well, they look like mule deer ears!

And finally, right before we hopped in the truck to head back to our car, we took this picture on the old dog house. 

The drive to and from the cabin is pretty cool. Going through the mountains was beautiful and on all the switchbacks you really get to see the landscape since you are only going 30mph. We didn't actually see any big wildlife (moose/elk) which was a bummer but our list of wildlife we did see would be:
1. Gophers
2. Ground squirrels
3. One chipmunk running across the road
4. Antelope
5. Deer
6. One porcupine
7. Bugs

We got back into Denver and did NOT want to turn our phones back on. I still don't want my phone to be on. I really appreciated the quiet and the simplicity of the cabin after we got back into town. There is just nothing like being totally disconnected from all things stressful and busy.

I want to go back.

Back from the ranch! Part 2

Day 2...well let's start with Night 1: Grover was up all night the first night so I was up all night the first night :). I'm sure he was hearing the ground squirrels or mice pattering around outside and he was just beside himself. No one else seemed to notice him, but I did! The nice thing was that I knew I had nothing but time to nap the next day and I didn't have to get up for anything!

Anyway, we actually got up as the sun was coming up so Ryan ran outside with the camera.

Nice hmm? This is the view from the front porch.
This is actually the out house...but the picture makes it look cool. :)
Now remember how I said Grover was so worried about the creatures outside and didn't sleep all night? Well, he got over that. Leave it to him to find the sunniest spot in the house and crash there.


Now of my favorite things at the ranch, the baby goats were one of them of course! They were all bottle-fed and as of the day or so before we came, they were switched to grain. Hanging out with freshly weaned goats means a lot of attempts to eat your clothes and suck on your fingers.

This goat was the most outgoing.
The goat I'm flirting with here was the most affectionate. He also had a pretty bad cough and lots of snot. He was my favorite anyway...
Note my left sleeve being attacked.

 
There is also a tradition to feed extra pancakes to the ground squirrels. I personally would call this animal a chipmunk but I was schooled that this is not a chipmunk...it is a ground squirrel. This particular one cashed in the most pancakes. He lived under the porch so I spread pancakes all around the porch and would watch him throughout the morning. Grover liked him too but for different reasons.




Day 2 was a lot of shooting in the pit (pictures to come), taking walks, and we went on a leisurely 4-wheeler expedition. The lowlands around the mountains were pretty flooded due to all the snow melting. The statistic for this year is that they got 250% more snow than normal so all that runoff and melting made the pastures into lakes. We actually couldn't even drive our car on the road to the cabin - we left it out on the county road and Tim picked us up in the truck. When we went out on the 4-wheeler, we couldn't go as far as we wanted because the road was so flooded. Pretty crazy.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Back from the ranch! Part 1

Oh the ranch. For over 4 years now, I've been hearing about "the ranch" and how great it is. The first night I ever really hung out with Ryan back in the summer of 2007, he showed me probably 200 pictures of the ranch because he had just gotten back and I pretended to be interested because I thought he was cute. Then, for the next four years, I heard more and more about the ranch and what a great place it is. Finally, June 10th-12th 2011, I experienced the ranch for myself. Now, I will share 200 pictures with you and tell you how awesome it is.

Ok, not 200, but I do have a bunch, so I'll be breaking up these posts by day so that your computer isn't totally overwhelmed with loading picture content.

Friday we left Denver about 12:30pm and got to the ranch maybe around 4:30? I don't know. Time doesn't really matter at the ranch :) - one of the many great things about being up there. We grilled hamburgers for dinner and spent a lot of time talking with Ryan's uncle Tim.

Back of the cabin
Front of the cabin
View from the front door of the cabin :)

The barn, where the baby goats are!

The old shop (left) and the new shop (right)
So that was Day 1 basically. Just getting settled in and getting ready for two more days of utter relaxation and quiet!

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Goin to the ranch!

Hello all! Ryan and I are going to the ranch this weekend! For those of you who don't know, the ranch is property that his family owns up near Wyoming. Ryan describes it as "going back 100 years instantly" - we're really excited about it and I'll be sure to post pictures when we get back. We'll be gone until Sunday and I doubt our phones will work out there so don't freak out if you can't reach us.

Today is all about running errands to prepare to leave tomorrow. So bye for now! Will blog next week.