Spring Trail Maintenance – Dude Ranch Work Vacation
By popular demand! A new get-away idea! May 13 to May 19
So, if you want to get away from
the telephone ringing,
the traffic,
the TV commercials every six minutes
And you think that celebrating spring might include
hauling logs,
carrying buckets of dirt up steep climbs
setting fence posts and
a few hours of riding horses every day for a week?
May 13 is our spring trail maintenance week, and you are invited to join us!
We will have 12 – 15 new horses joining our herd, and they will need lots and lots of riding to get into shape for the summer.
Our trails will also need lots of attention (that is, lots of sweat and dirt!). Areas of erosion will be repaired, dead trees that may compromise safety will need to be removed, water bars built, and just maybe we will build a small barn.
Hard physical labor and
Lots of dirt.
No texting,
No cell phones,
No TV
and very limited internet available.
A break from civilization!
If this sounds like fun, visit our Dude Ranch Specials Page or call the ranch (970-224-1222) for more details.
BTW, summer is booking now. If you are planning to join us this year, you might want to call soon!
Summer is coming soon – yeehaw! We are now looking over applications for summer 2012. Here’s some highlights:
Summer Dude Ranch Kitchen Staff
Don’t listen to those wranglers! YOU are the most important part of our ranch!
Some of the most important memories that we want to create for our guests are meal memories. We eat in the dining room, in the back yard, and on the trail. We serve “hearty western fare family style,” which can include lots of vegetables and salads as well as meat and potatoes. Because Ellen and Dan are both RN’s we see many guests who have therapeutic diets or allergies.
The kitchen staff is a group of five people who have high energy and good humor. Psychosis is not an obstacle to working in the kitchen, although active drinking problems will get you sent on your way. Kitchen and housekeeping staff typically works forty-five hours per week over six days.
There are five positions in and around the kitchen:
1. Kitchen Manager/THE Cook (the Boss)
2. Breakfast Cook/Prep Cook
3. Dining Room Steward/Dishwasher
4. Kangaroo #1/Housekeeper/Dishwasher/Other skill #1
5. Kangaroo #2/ Housekeeper/Dishwasher/Other skill #2
Guest Ranch Barn Employment:
Don’t listen to those kitchen people! YOU are the most important part of our ranch!
Some of the most important memories that we want to create for our guests are from horseback! The barn has three types of wranglers:
1. The Barn Manager (Boss)
2. Children’s Wrangler
3. Plain Ol’ Fashioned Wranglers
Dude Ranch Rock Climbing Instructor.
This is a part time position, usually done by a Kangaroo or Wrangler. (i.e. Must be bi-lingual (speaking both kitchen and horse) or schizophrenic.
If you are interested in working for us, then please
When at Sundance Trail Guest Ranch, either for a summer dude ranch vacation or Fall/Winter/Spring B&B stay,
you will spend lots of time with our horses (and donkeys!).
Horses communicate with body language. (Is this why women so often understand their horses immediately, and why guys are so often clueless?) Their faces, and especially their ears speak volumes, once you learn how to read them.
Here’s a quick primer on some easy to recognize “expressions.” Have fun!
Answers to each of these facial expressions are listed at he bottom of the page!
1. Stevie is ANGRY!!! She is having a bad hair week. Spring snow has melted and she want’s to party, and the geldings around her are all nerds or something!! Dude ranch horses are supposed to be romantic!!! None of these guys want to dance!!! Best to just leave her alone for a few more days…
She is clearly saying: “keep your distance or I will bite you!!!”
2. Mocha is taking a nap, or maybe she is meditating. Nope, she’s sleeping, in fact, she is snoring! One of her back hooves is up on the toe, her ears are flopped off to the sides, and her eyes are soft, gently starting off into the distance.
3. Rose Blossom is definitely sleeping! She’s still a baby, so she sleeps a lot. She even has her eyes closed, which only babies do – adults sleep with their eyes open.
4. Apache is awake, alert, and wants the cookie in my pocket. He is demonstrating interest and is interacting.
5. Khalli also wants the cookie in my pocket, but at the same time she is listening to some interesting gossip BEHIND her! Yes, kinda like radar dishes, horses’ ears can pivot front to side to back; even in different directions. Yes, if she wanted, Khalli could listen to two different conversations at once!
6. Rusty is actually sleeping. one of his hind feet is up on the toe, his ears are flopped off to the side, and his eyes are softly staring off into space…
7. Calamity is not happy that she is the last picture. She is small, but she is VERY bossy!
Hmmmm…… The weather people call for an October total of 2.9 inches of snow for our area. We got that three weeks ago, and it disappeared the next morning, as October snow should. The aspens still claim October as theirs; time to show off their golden leaves.
Oops! Wait a minute – we got a good eight more inches last night, and another six inches falling today!
The dogs are delighted! The older horses are playing like foals! The goats are making snow angels and laughing!
And the guests riding in the snow? Just look at their faces…
Tracy (from Houston!) says that riding in the snow is spectacular. I think that Laura (from Cleveland) agrees. Not too sure what Texan Kevin (also from Houston) thinks, but his horse, Jack is a happy fella! At lunch Kevin said it was a great ride…
Cowboy Victor was born and raised up here – he’s just cold!
–After successfully keeping momma black bear and her cubs out of the dumpster and the kitchen all summer, Sundance Trail Guest Ranch has been been completely overrun with bears… and mooses*!!
-Take home a bear as a memory of your ranch vacation! Or maybe a Christmas present from your family vacation. Looks like there’s a whole herd of the critters hiding in the gift shop, next to the Jackalopes, water bottles, disc golf Frisbies, and elegant Colorado hand carved bowls.
-Our neighbor, Rob, is a chainsaw artist, and he make some of the finest carvings we’ve ever seen!
-Our dude ranch has become a gallery of finished pieces!
-Rob’s work shows the demanding control and precision needed for this unlikely art form.
Big ones, little ones, some holding signs, some holding tables, some just sitting on a table top being cute.
Most of these are bears, but there are cubs and mooses* as well.
He takes custom orders for wood carvings of any kind; including bears, bear lamps, Eagles, Indians, Cowboys, Santas, pumpkins, …you name it!
Rob’s prices vary, depending on the size and difficulty of the piece, and whether any museums or fine arts galleries are bidding for the piece.
Generally, small bears & mooses*, about a foot tall, start at $35 or so.
If you have something special in mind, please feel free to email the ranch and Rob can give you a quote.
Also, Rob said he’s open to demonstrating his art here at the guest ranch if you have a group that would like to watch & learn more.
A little while ago, a journeyman square dancing caller named Mark Hammett somehow got entangled with a local group of crazy people, and the result is the Ponderosa Promenaders Square Dancing Club.
The Promenaders meet every week. Cyril somehow managed to get Ellen, Dan and Justin off the dude ranch to enjoy part of the winter in weekly lessons, and we’ve all been having a ball.
In fact, we’re having so much fun that we’ve installed a new dancing floor in the dude ranch recreation room!
Mr. Mark has graciously agreed to call for us this summer!
He and his bride Corrine will be joining us for supper every Monday and then will be teaching us with the beginning of the dude ranch season in late May.
We will be square dancing every Monday night!
All of our neighbors and all “Angels” are always welcome! No experience necessary! There is no charge to dance at the Sundance Trail.
What do Pepi Roni (the pizza magnate), Judge Waylin Payne (of Roadkill, Colorado) and the science fiction author H. G. Wells have in common? Why, they’ve all been murdered right here at our Colorado B&B – dude ranch!
One of our favorite winter time activities is Murder Mystery weekends. Once a month or so, when we have 8 to 12 willing suspects, we find a poor murder victim sprawled out nearby – “deader than a doornail.” Murdered, and often with the first clue nearby.
Who did it? Helena Handcart? Charley Chaplin? Tiny Bubbles? Father Alfredo?
Our guests then spend the weekend, between meals and horse back riding, untangling each others’ half-truths. evasions and high jinks. The games are designed for participants who are willing to take a whimsical view of blackmail, larceny, deceit, and murder.
Those of you who are offended by such high-jinks as shady dealings, sordid affairs, and deceptive conduct should not book reservations for these weekends! If you do book, plan on some laughter!
We love hosting these games. Imagine, people come to spend a B&B week-end with us: They exercise our dude ranch horses, they make us laugh like crazy for the weekend, and then they pay us money! What a life!
We have games scheduled the weekends of:
November 11th Sorry! Fully booked!
December 9th
December 31st New years!
January 13th
February 24th
We can also schedule a game for any time that you might have 8 – 12 people who want to spend the week-end together and play (before dude ranch season begins in mid-May) – birthday party or maybe just get away with some friends!
Give us a call (970-224-1222) and we can tell you all about Bed and Breakfast murder in Red Feather Lakes.