orientation

Orientation.  Initiation.  Hazing, if you will.

The dictionary calls hazing this:

haze2 vti

to persecute or torture somebody in a subordinate position, for example, a fraternity pledge or a first-year military academy cadet.

The only problem is...I'm NOT in a "subordinate" position.  But in this case it doesn't matter.

The lions went for the weakest of the herd...Dizzy.  Dizzy is our new guy from Belarus, so of course he's willing to go along and "learn" whatever we have to teach him.  

Next, they went for the dumb one.  That would be me.  I'm standing there, with Cookie, Dana, and Wrangler Sarah, saying, "Poor Dizzy!  That's what they meant when they kept saying 'orientation'".  

I was in the midst of clearing the picnic table when Slim, ever so politely said, "I'm sorry, but you're going to need to put that down."  I didn't even have a chance to run before they grabbed me.  

I kicked and screamed.  

The dogs barked.  

I held myself rigid so I wouldn't end up with with splinters in really uncomfortable places.

While they were kind enough to take off my hat, they dropped me in head first.  GROSS!

And can I just TELL you how FUH-reez-ing that water was!  Ugh!

It was one of our hottest days yet.  80 degrees in the morning.  But before lunchtime, a storm started to roll in and it dropped about 10 degrees.  Brrrrrr!  Not to mention mountain water is just melted snow, so it comes out of the hose ICE COLD!

The lions went for the next dumbest.  Apparently, the cooks thought they were immune to being thrown into the trough, which is why Cookie grabbed my camera and followed me down.  But, alas, she was next.

And again, they were kind enough to let people take off important items, such as boots.  

It just makes me really happy to see how wet Bryce got from dunking Cookie.  

Dana went ahead and got prepared.  She took everything out of her pockets because she KNEW she was next.

I love Cookie's face in this picture.  Check her out on the fence.

The 4 of us posed for our fuh-RIJ-id photo as Wrangler Sarah ran around the entire place with Bryce and Slim in hot pursuit.  

She was eventually captured and came willingly.

Her only request was to NOT be dunked head first because her dreads would soak up the horse nastiness more than the rest of us.  

They kindly obliged.  

And so all the new staff was successfully haz...er...initi...um...oriented.

...............................................

Roo, our new housekeeper, arrived last night.