Date at the Smith Ranch

Saturday came with plans of more and more painting....only to find us too burned out to actually do any. We didn't have our sitters scheduled to come until noon, so we decided to make a morning of going out to the Smith Ranch. We took the kids out to visit Grandma Belle, Aunt Susan, Aunt Marcheta and Uncle Ricks. We had a wonderful time chatting away the morning while we waited for the weather to warm up a bit. We brought our binoculars for some bird watching and our guns for some gopher hunting.

I know, I know... I never thought I would be able to shoot any living thing with anything other than a camera, but when it comes to a ranch I am learning how troublesome these little creatures can be to cattle. They create holes that cattle step into unawares and break their ankles, essentially killing the cattle. The gophers also eat the grass, taking it from the cows..I think Ricks told us 20 gophers can eat as much grass as one cow.(don't quote me on that, I can't remember the numbers exactly) So in order to protect the herd a little gopher control is always in order.

Since we chatted away the morning with the aunts, we only had about 20 mins for the kids to get a chance to shoot the guns and bolt down to the barn store for the traditional "Mountain View Ice Cream run", before the sitters made it to our place in Cardston.

The kids each shot about 3 shells with Brennan saying "Again! Again!" (He was shooting into a hill of snow and loved to watch the snow shower everything once it was struck.)Then we had to run. We made it home to meet the sitters and drop off the kids. We grabbed our painting clothes and took off. Nathan suggested going back out the the ranch for a little while so we could have a turn shooting as well, then we would come back and paint.

For the next 7 hours we were lost in the world of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. We met up with Ricks and Cheryl (and Brandi and Kole were with us for the first hour or so). After sighting in the guns, and testing them out on the targets we were ready to go. And GO we did as we raced each other in the trucks back to the Ranch house for lunch. With Brandi & Kole on the back of Ricks' flat bed truck, and Nathan and I in the lead, I wasn't sure whether we were going to lose them off the back or me out the window first. I was officially scared and ready to kiss the manure covered ground by the time we reached the house.

We stopped for some amazing lunch with the Aunts and stayed to chat some more. Cheryl and I kept hinting at getting back out to do a little hunting while Nathan and Ricks were carried away in conversation. Cheryl and I finally stood up and started saying our good-byes in order to get the guys moving.

We loaded into the 2 trucks and made our way out to the fields to do some gopher patroling. I chuckled to see two trucks driving through the fields with a gun out each window...can you say "You might be a Red neck?"

I earned the nick name of "Sharpshooter", but I owe any shooting skills to Nathan's teaching skills and his work on sighting in my Marlin so well.

What an amazing day off and date time! I think it was the first time I have been out with Nathan without construction tools in hand. Can't wait for a repeat of the day!