official start

Yesterday, May 23, was our official dude season opening...and our last day of bed and breakfast.  What a hectic change over!

We had weekend guests who were taking their last ride and finishing around 11:30.  Lunch is at 12:30 (but there's feeding and dishes to be done in that hour) and new guests aren't supposed to arrive until 2.  But, of course, half of them showed up during lunch, so we had to rush to finish cleaning rooms for them to move into.   Phew!

I have to say that the first Monday of dude season went pretty smoothly...until the end of the day.  Actually, I take that back.  It started at the beginning.  Fortunately, almost all of the staff showed up last week, so they're mostly oriented by now.  Which means horses were saddled and ready to go on time, if not early.

But, as it turns out, one of horses, Velvet, got nicked by the tractor bucket (sharp) when some horses pushed her back into it and it was moving forward during feeding this morning.  Being black, it was hard to tell much was wrong as she limped off.  Now in the cowboy world we have a saying, "Cowboy/girl up," meaning toughen up, walk it off.  So it takes a while to know if something is seriously wrong or they're just walking it off.  Unfortunately, as we pulled her for saddling a few hours later she was still limping.  And once Mr. Vetman (one of wranglers going to vet school) cleaned her up with some water, we saw just how bad of a "nick" it was.  I think Velvet will be having some time off to heal up her cut.

Then, as Donovan and I were removing manure from the arena - via tractor and Jeep pulling 1937 manure spreader - we decided to let the horses out to graze so they wouldn't be in our way.  It turns out the food truck driver left the gate open unbeknownst to us.  The good news is, when we rounded them up tonight they were all here.  What a sigh of relief!

All in all, though, I have to say this was a much less hectic start to the beginning of dude season than last year.  I hope it's a positive indicator of a good season to come!

PS - I apologize for the lack of pictures, but manure spreading doesn't always make for the best pictures...