Sweepstakes Winner is Announced!

 Willow and Bobbi "work a cow" at the Bruce Laird Horsemanship Clinic last September.

     The winner of the "Wyoming Riding Vacation Sweepstakes" is Dixie Lee West of Alabama, CONGRATULATIONS!  Dixie was randomly drawn as the winner and has chosen her husband Chris as her riding partner for a Mustang Horse Adventure. There were well over 7600 entries in the sweepstakes, one of biggest that Horse & Rider Magazine and Equisearch.com has hosted ever. We sincerely thank each of the individuals who entered and although there can only be one winner, we invite you to book your horseback vacation with Blue Sky Sage for this summer anyway and join us in Wyoming!
     
     The photo for this post is of Willow mare and I on the second day of our Bruce Laird horsemanship clinic in Torrington, Wyoming last September. Bruce had spent most of the first day on Willow himself getting her to work through a really hard mental block; when Bobbi got back on her for the second day, Willow was a "new girl", much more willing, more free to move and pay attention, and able to understand my sometimes less than clear requests of her without getting frustrated or anxious.  Here we are "cutting" or "working a cow" on a neat little flag machine Bruce designed. What a hoot, and we could have played there a lot longer, but we had to give everyone else a turn too! I will definitely be going back to one of Bruce and Joan's clinics, would love to go to the colt starting / horsemanship weekend in May, but I don't have a colt right now, so may have to wait. The weather here at the ranch is almost to the point where we can get some saddle horses in and start getting them back into physical and mental shape for the upcoming ride season; as soon as the mud dries up it'll be back in the saddle!

Coming Out of Hibernation

With the release of our latest newsletters this morning, it's high time I update the blog and let you know we are coming out of hibernation here in Wyoming!  Really, we don't hibernate, though we do slow down to a more winter-like pace.  Right now as I write this, I am parked at a scenic turnout north of Jackson, Wyoming facing west and looking at this bright and spectacular view of Mt. Moran, one of the major peaks in the Teton mountain range, in Grand Teton National Park. I'm on a "road trip" today, drove over the Continental Divide to Dubois, Wyoming to pick up a load of feed for Emily's sled dogs, and then back into Jackson to have a social evening with my friend Ellen, who is also one of the "Wild Wyoming Women" horseback riders, the first all-women group Blue Sky Sage hosted at camp.

Though spring is still a long way off, that season in-between snow and -20 degrees+ weather, and green grass is starting show up. This means half-melted snow drifts, rough roads and mud are the norm, with sunny days and a bit of chill in the breeze. This "season" seems to be coming on early this year, and Mike will start getting the new horses in later this week to start working them out to see what they're going to be. I will be getting to the corral later too, around my other "winter job" and keeping in contact with the many people who are responding to the newsletters.

Recently, we completed a sweepstakes giveaway of a weeklong horseback riding vacation for two, through Horse & Rider Magazine and equisearch.com, and are currently waiting for the winner to get all the paperwork returned so we can introduce them and get their dream riding holiday scheduled.  We thank everyone who entered and opted-in to receive our newsletter, and we look forward to meeting many of you this summer of 2010 to ride the wide-open spaces of Wyoming.

There are still openings throughout the season on rides, though reservations start to really pick up from this time of year on, so book your vacation now for 2010 to make sure you get the date and trip you want; call or email anytime and we'll be glad to visit with you about horses, wilderness, riding, politics, . . . . oh wait, maybe we'll leave that for around the campfire!