My heart belongs in Inkom

So, where is Inkom you might ask, and why does my heart belong there? Well, let me tell you a little bit about it my friends. I have recently crossed off 2 very big items on my bucket list and realized that I am a cowgirl at heart. My dear friend Lacey Gilbert found out that one of the things I wanted to do before I die was drive a tractor and work on a ranch and so she invited me to her beautiful home up in Idaho. Ruth, Doug and I drove up there Friday evening and were kindly greeted by the gang of dogs. Elmo is the only male dog on the ranch and therefore is naturally afraid of almost everything so occasionally we refer to him as homo... it's fine. Ring is blind and spends most of her time underneath the Suburban or cautiously exploring the hay fields. Priest is jealous and needy of your attention most of the time but has the endurance of a champ. Sydney likes to bark for no good reason and try and bite the tires of the 4 wheeler as you are trying to drive. And finally Bear is the beary best dog on the ranch and I hear she's the best at herding cows as well. She loves driving in the tractor with you and is very loyal. So, after we met the family and the dogs we had a huge bonfire in the back which included smores and a whole lot of throwing flaming pine cones. We woke up early the next morning and got to work. Lacey lovingly let me behind the wheel of her very large tractor and helped some of my dreams come true. :) We spent the next hour moving large bales of hay from one side of the ranch to the other and this is what it looked like.

I let Lacey take a turn on the tractor and she decided to roll one of the bales of hay over the barbed wire fence and into the field where all the horses were roaming. All of the horses looked over at it as if it were Christmas morning. It was so hilarious pretending to be the voices of the horses as we sat there in shock as to what had just happened. Thank you for that moment Lacey. After we finished the tractor chores we loaded up in the awesome pick up truck and headed down the the river to start up the water pumps which irrigated the land where some of the cows were and then we headed back to get the horses ready for a ride. Lacey's brother in law taught me how to get my saddle hooked up and I jumped on Dakota for our ride through the mountains.
Dear Dakota, I'm sorry that when Ruth took the picture she cut your head off. I'm not sure that you deserve that but there is nothing I can do to fix it, let's still be friends. Love, Me.

I've probably only ridden a horse 5 times in my life but it happens to be one of my favorite things to do. I pretend like I know what I am doing and let the horse know who is boss. During the ride my horse and Doug's horse decided to race each other and so we let them, I beat him by a head and to save face he slowed his horse down and pretended like it was a tie. We all know the truth, my horse was faster... take that Doug. One of the biggest compliments I received however was when Doug told me that I was really ballsy (any questions on this word, please contact me) on a horse. YAY for me.
After the horse back ride we each got our 22 rifles and headed out to shoot some rock chucks. I obviously did not get the memo that we were supposed to look tough in this picture. I guess I was just so happy to be there that I couldn't stop smiling. We spent about an hour trying to find a moose on the loose and finally found him. We named him Dober, we loved him, we watched him chase some mules and disappear into the unknown. Lacey called us a couple days later to tell us that he got ran over by a diesel on the freeway... worst day ever. To wrap it up, I have never felt so happy to use my hands and get to work. I think I was born in the wrong place because my heart belongs in Inkom with the Gilberts.

I'm still straight. I promise.

Okay. No you didn't imagine it, you actually DID see Melissa and I marching in the Gay Pride Parade last Sunday. Thank you to both Wells Fargo and Kyle Mantas for inspiring us to participate. I had a really good time and it was a lot of fun. I've heard a lot of people my whole life use the phrase "well I have a lot of gay friends" and usually if you ask follow up questions that quickly becomes "well I have met gay people before." I am privileged to be able to say I actually DO have a lot of gay friends. So here's to you, a former roommate, a cousin, a former manager, a brother of my best friend, a former co-worker, and all my other LGBT friends I have had throughout the years. I love you all and sincerely hope you are happy.




Oh the Wells Fargo Wagon is a comin' down the street, oh please let it be for me... (this picture was apparently sponsored by Brighton Bank...I wish we had taken it from a different angle.)