All work & no play makes a rancher dull

It’s not all work…sometimes we have fun too.

Winter on our place usually means feeding the cows day after day in snow that seems to get deeper and deeper.

However, with deep snow comes opportunity.  Timmery, my wife, and I like to take a few hours from time to time and go up in the mountains and have fun.

That’s Timmery on her machine (called a sled) at Christina Lake in the Wind River Mountains above Lander, Wyo.

Sometimes the snow doesn’t have a decent base or the snow machine driver goes to slow or whatever, and then….

The machines get stuck.  Just as Timmery did in the above picture.  She always tells me that is why she married me…so I can help her get unstuck.  I get stuck plenty too.

A typical day of fun with snowmachines involves going to your local gas station and pouring money into the gas tank of a machine that will break down at least once a year.  Then a short drive to the parking lot to unload.

Here I am strapping down an extra gallon of “just get me back to the pickup.”

After a dozen or so miles of groomer trails you can usually find some untracked hills or parks to ride through.  This is what it is all about….fun in the deep snow.

That’s Timmery on the gas after crossing a little creek “somewhere” last weekend.  It is a “somewhere” because it is a secret spot only known by us and several thousand other locals.

When the gas gauge says it is time to quit we head for home.  Sometimes we pause and take a picture to share with everyone.  Then it is back to work.

From RealRancher Jim Hellyer – Lander, Wyo.