Howdy Ma'am

Lander, Wyoming

After a quick trip home, and a freaky, icy trip back to Wyoming, I am now finally settling in at the Circle Pine ranch here in Lander, just in time to catch the tail end of the first snow storm of the season!

With copious amounts of sunshine this week, the snow quickly turned our dirt road into a big mudfest! My city slicker tires slid all over the place, making it a much scarier endeavor than during snow or ice. I broke in my car and mud-driving skills on the first day by driving the left side of my car into a deceptive snow-covered, muddy trench!! Fortunately it was on our dirt road, not too far from home, so a quick call and a few minutes later, Chris pulled me out with his backhoe!! Yeah, backhoe!! I highly recommend living with someone who owns a backhoe. My car is now outfitted with burly snow (mud) tires, so now it actually comes to a stop when that 100 head of elk crosses the road inches away from my car during the dark of night.

Ahhh, Wyoming. I love that I can pretty much go anywhere in this town and say, "Put it on my account," or rather, "Put it on the ranch account, Gary!" Or if you don't know what part or item you need from a store, they will just send you home with a few different options and you just bring back the ones you don't use, no questions asked, no collateral asked for, nothing. Everyone seems to have everyone's phone numbers memorized as only the last four numbers are different. Everyone knows what everyone owns, so you just ask for a part for "the tank" and you get the right part! The UPS man will wait at your house while you repackage something in front of him.

Quirkiness is everywhere. Today one of the admin people at the office took her shoes off at the main desk and started trimming her toenails, which spurred a conversation about diabetes and bad toenails amongst some staff, which turned into someone admitting they had all their toenails removed so they wouldn't cause problems. Fortunately I was in my office and couldn't see any of this, only hear it. The barista guy at a coffeeshop up the road was wearing a kilt. People laugh at you when you talk about washing your car, and they laugh again when your remote "beep" goes off, locking your car. There appear to be very few building codes, and antlers and railroad ties are viable and popular building materials. This morning I walked out of Ace Hardware and was greeted by a tall, dark cowboy on horseback; as I got into my car, he tied his horse up to the bike rack out front and went shopping!

The Circle Pine has been treating me well - I roll out of bed every morning and spend a solid hour or more feeding and moving ranch animals, so I start my day wide awake with a good dose of brisk, fresh air and a workout. Yes, as hard to believe as it is, I am getting up out of bed every morning before 7:30am! Margery and Chris have been feeding me a LOT - lots of steak and sheep and eggs and birthday cake. I am so well fed in fact, that if my name were Gretel, I might be worried! I've seen what they did to Buster the sheep; he was delicious!