I decided to get Candice to do the Blog for the week that she was at the Ranch. Just to get a different perspective, considering she was seeing it with fresh eyes….this is what she came up with!!

Ok, well here goes nothing! Not sure that I am going to remember half of what we did on the ranch (Catherine cheats because she keeps a diary), but I'll give it a crack.

So after me complaining about Catherine making us get to the airport 2 hours before our flight to Regina, it was actually good that she did because we didn't really wait around for that long.

We got to Regina and then hopped in our van and did the last leg of the trip to Moosomin by road. I now know how our backpackers feel because on arrival at Little Rainbow Ranch, we were told that we were going out for a BBQ that night!! I'm not sure how Perry navigated his way to the BBQ and I am still amazed that anyone knows where they are going in that area. They have what they call "grid roads" nearly every km running vertically and horizontally, which are all very well graded and to me look the same as the one you just turned off. Anyway we made it to the BBQ and back and if Perry got lost at any point along the way, I'll never know!

First duty on the ranch was branding which I was quite excited about. We got our horses and headed across to the ranch next door where Perry had some cattle on agistment. The 'chasing' process was quite interesting and now I know why Catherine says they have no stock sense over there. To their credit they did leave 2 men in the lead which Catherine tells me is the first time she has seem them do that. Well we got the cattle to the yards and then the "sorting" started. Not the best way to draft cattle, but we got it done in the end. There were a fair few motorbike turns happening on those horses though!

I'm glad I got to see some roping and they are definitely good at what they do! I didn't realise how easy they make it look until Catherine had a go!! There is so much that you have to concentrate on and with reins and ropes going everywhere it is a skill to be able to get a calf roped first go. To her credit Catherine ended up roping a few and no doubt if she had of been doing it since the beginning of the season would be pretty good by now.

With branding finished, it was time for everyone to have lunch and a few beers back at Little Rainbow. This turned into a fun afternoon and I think I found the Malcolm of Moosomin that day!! Everyone was really nice and I think Kristy is just as capable as Narda when it comes to feeding a big mob of people. I had taken a bottle of bundy rum over for Perry and his mates had no problems with polishing most of it off that afternoon!

That was Friday and that night Perry and Kristy headed to The Lake with the kids and Catherine and I were left to our own devices. We were planning on going to a country music festival in Dauphin on the Saturday, but as always happens things didn't go to plan. We had worked half the day and just knocked off when Perry turned up to say there was a bull in the neighbors cows that we had to go and get. So we run the horses in (which we had just let out into their paddock) and go to fetch this bull. That all went pretty well and we ended up loading the bull onto the gooseneck and took him to his rightful paddock. Was pretty impressive really because Perry just parked the gooseneck along the fence and Catherine and I herded the bull onto it. Don't think any of our bulls would jump on a gooseneck like that out in the paddock!!

Needless to say we didn't make it to Dauphin and instead went to The Lake for the afternoon. The Lake was not what I was expecting. Think we could learn a lot from these Canadians! They all take their trailers to The Lake and leave them there for the summer. And these aren't just any old trailers. The one we were having drinks at was air-conditioned with separate bedrooms for the kids and everything. Bit of an overkill really and Perry and Kristy had a trailer which was much more my style. Not sure how Andy would feel though if we all parked up trailers at the ski dam and left them there for the summer!

As there was nothing to do for the Sunday, we headed to the big smoke of Brandon and did some shopping (not that we needed to after being in Vancouver) and went to the movies for something to do. All in all was a good weekend off and we were ready to tackle work on Monday.

The rest of the week was pretty much dedicated to farming! We still checked the cows that needed to calve and did some pairing, but other than that, we were silaging. Everyone was amazed that Catherine and I could drive a truck and by the end of it Catherine was quite the trucker (think she will even have a truckers tan by the time silaging and harvesting is finished!!!). Can't say it is the most fun I've ever had, but it was interesting to see what a day in the life of a farmer entails. I worked out that mainly means fixing things!!

One thing that was pretty cool was we saw a big black moose! They are massive animals and very weird, but it was fun to chase!! We were just riding along the road (on 'dirt bikes' which Perry's boys are pretty impressed we can ride) and it ran along beside us for about 2km until it found a patch of trees to hide in. The poor thing was a bit puffed by this stage and was probably glad those trees came along.

Well, hopefully I haven't left too much out. I had so much fun at the ranch and it was great to be able to see the place Catherine is working at and meet the people she works with. Perry and Kristy are pretty cool bosses and I think she is lucky to have such great people to work for.

Well I think she managed to cover pretty much most of it…although one thing she neglected to mention was how funny it was watching her try to tag one of the calves. There were a couple of older ones, which took some running down and I think Candice was a little overexcited by the time it came to actually tagging them. No doubt I looked just as un-co the first time I did it but at least no-one was there to see!!! We also spent some time working with the young horses and managed to get a round yard set up. I am hoping to spend a bit more time with the young horses so I am glad we got that organised!!! Other than that I don't think she missed out on anything too important….oh and I'm not cheating, I'm just organised.