A Tiny Slice of Heaven

Yesterday, my mom and I went to go feed the horses. When we put the hay out we thought it would be fun to go on just a little ride on the lower field. I was on Revler and my mom was on Chico. We only did a small ride, but it was like a tiny slice of heaven. The ranch is really beatiful right now. We went up to the tree dump which is like a huge compost pit for branches. My mom and I had so much fun. It was just a small little ride to start off the week.

These pictures are of me on Revler after our ride.

Kaia and I Rode Horses on an Adventure

Posted and Written by Kallan Ritzman

On Monday, June 24, 2013, I went riding with Kaia. We started out with me on Reveller and Kaia on Mousey. We went around the lower field for a bit, then Kaia decided to ride Lakota. We then went to the barn and switched Mouse for Lakota. Kaia was bareback on Lakota and I had a saddle. We then went to the top of the Lower Field. Kaia taught me to gate on Reveller by getting Reveller into it and showing me on Lakota. That meant she had to get off Lakota, so she had to get back on which was the hard part,  though she did it! Gating is really fun. To do it you have to dig your heels in to the horses sides, split-reign them, and kick them. A gate is a smooth walk that gated horse can to. Houdini, Reveller, Mousey, and Lakota are our gated horses at the ranch. That was the one day this week that I truly gated Reveller . It was incredibly fun. After a bit of gating, Kaia came up with an idea.

Ranch Week Summary

      One week in the summer 2013 we did ranch week. That basically meant that we would spend that time and sleep over at the Ranch. Kaia, my dad, and I were there every night. On Sunday we slept over. On Monday night Lena, Logan, and Griffin slept over with us. The next night Griffin and Logan were with us again. We had many adventures and did fun activities like riding horses, playing games, cooking, art, and more. It was really fun. My favorite part was riding. We did big ones. I loved it. I definitely need to do it again.

Fencing, Reunions and a Calendar

Wow! It's been a while since anything's been posted.  Stuff has been happening, just not making it to the blog.

A few things to summarize:
Harry and Dave are spearheading an effort to get horses into the upper field.  It is quite a project to get the fences up to snuff.  We're replacing some of the fencing that J. Edward might have done himself.  In one section, there are at least two sets of wire with varying degrees of corrosion, and the old railroad ties crumple under a little pressure.

We've got a reunion and shareholder meeting coming up on the 23rd of this month.  I'd love to see you there.

In order to keep up to date on events, I've created a calendar.  You can view with the link in the right hand panel.  If you use Google Calendars I can grant you access to edit and include this in your own calendars.

Not a typical day at the ranch

It often takes a predicament to provide the impetus to get a good ranch trip to happen.

Harry emailed Justin and I to request some help with a downed tree.  The three of us got to the ranch in the mid afternoon to cut the tree into manageable pieces.

While we worked, Julie took the kids to ride horses and play at the playground.

With lots of help from the kids, Julie got Josie on a horse for a 15 minute ride.  Most all the kids got a turn.  Logan was a bit disappointed, though, he didn't get enough horse time.  When asked what he did at the ranch, he said, "I wanted to ride a horse and then I didn't.  And then I wanted to ride the horse again and I didn't"

Griffin fared much better. "I had the best time I've had at the ranch since Abba passed away. I built a fire, rode a horse, and drove the truck.  Then we ate peaches, and that was it."  The fire was pretty impressive.  Even Logan enjoyed warming his hands by the fire.

It still gets dark kind of early, especially in the shadow of the hills.  So we wrapped up. There was a little bit of clean up (including some clothes dye that was mishandled ... oops!).  Then we got in the cars and left, everybody hoping to return again soon.

Downed tree - work day tomorrow

We have a tree down in the first canyon of the upper field blocking access to the top of the ranch. I think we can take care of it in about an hour. Are either or both of you available tomorrow?

H

Back-of-napkin sketches for a new barn

Several trips were made to the neighboring barn.  It has given us Barn Envy.  Ken sketched a new barn design:

I elaborated on that sketch:

(I put this sketchup model on the interweb, here: https://sites.google.com/site/mattritzman/test/test2/Ranch_barn.skb?attredirects=0&d=1)

Perhaps the biggest problem with both of our sketches is that they completely disregard the site dimensions.  We need to collect measurements of the barn and its environs.  That will certainly be another blog post down the road.

The Johnson Barn is sagging in many places.

The story goes that Dick built the barn when he was 17.

It has done fairly well considering...

But it is time to start considering a replacement.

We'd love to keep it around to honor his memory, but we fear it may fall over so we're planning to do some extreme renovations.  If you have any ideas for a new barn design, let's collaborate!