The 2012 Summer season is officially underway! We kicked off our first week of the season with great group of 30+ guests. We had kids, moms, dads, grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts and uncles and long lost friends. By the time they left, they were all part of our Drowsy Water Family.
A highlight for the kids during the week is our Tuesday night hayride. The kids get to leave their parents at the ranch (where the parents enjoy a four-course candle-lit dinner) and head down the road in the haywagon for songs, sights, and s’mores.
The horses were at pasture along the road, too, so we enjoyed picking out each persons horse and noticing who they were hanging out with at pasture. Horses, like kids at recess, have their friends and their enemies. The same group is always waiting at the gate in the morning, ready to come back in and go to work. Likewise, the same group of five straglers hang out in the back of the pasture causing trouble until the last possible moment.
And here, at Drowsy Water, the kids get to take a break from the day-to-day of thier life, recess and all. They might be the really cool kid at school back home or maybe the kid that prefers to have her nose in a book. Here, at the ranch, they are all just cowpoke.
The kids build confidence throughout the week and we cheer them on everystep of the way.
Sending the kids home at the end of the week is hard for us and hard for them. They have met new friends and role models. They have learned new names and new skills.
They are all learning something about horses and enjoying the outdoors of Colorado.
We’ll miss the kids from this first hayride of 2012 and we look forward to meeting all the other young cowboys and cowgirls coming to the ranch this summer.