Reading for Riders

Welcome to the Bitterroot online magazine. From discounts and recent press to ranch videos and recipes and from tales about the first days of the ranch to helpful riding tips you will find all sorts of information in these pages. We hope this is a great resource as you decide were to go on a horse riding vacation or as you reminisce about your past experiences at the ranch. If you would like to share a story, images or a video from your visit we would love to hear from you. Happy trails!

Moving the Horses

Throughout the winter at the farm, we move the horses every month or two to a new pasture to graze. We throw open the gates, call them in high-pitched voices and lure them toward the open gate with a hay truck. They quickly figure out they are moving (literally) to greener pastures, and they soar…

Just Another Visit to the In-laws….

Last Tuesday morning Richard and I drove to Dubois for a Grazing Association meeting and a Forest Service meeting, with plans to stay the night at the ranch with Mel and Bayard. The East Fork Grazing Association consists of three families: the Foxes, the Finleys and the Lindsays. The association is allowed to have 300…

Branding Day!

Branding is a very social event in Wyoming. Ranchers often make a party out of branding day by having a cook-out and inviting friends and family to take part. These ranchers frequently ride horseback and rope their calves in order to brand them. Doing it this way requires a lot of people and some very…

Neck Reining 101

I apologize it has been a few weeks since I entered a blog post, everybody! I went back to North Carolina to see my family for a week, met Richard in Columbus, Ohio, for Equine Affaire and have been busy trying to get my life in order since I got back to Wyoming. To let…

Mission Impossible: The Hunt for Welsh (or Wild?) Ponies

The Stage: A 70 acre pasture filled with sage brush and native grasses, two shallow ponds, the perfect duck habitat for Bayard, and Russian olive trees galore: The Players: Hadley, Richard and Whistle. (Gupta’s role is to stay in the truck and provide a soundtrack of desperate barking throughout the entire mission. She doesn’t understand…

Processing the Heifers

On Wednesday Richard and I, along with Bob and Jim (the two men who work for us year-round at the farm), processed the heifers. To give you a feel for the day, you need to meet my “heifer processing” teammates (at least, you need to meet them photographically!).  And,  yes, “heifer processing” is unquestionably a…

Feeding the Horses at the Farm

Feeding the horses at the farm is a little bit different from feeding the horses up at the ranch in the winter. For starters, we have about 150 horses in the field, rather than 30, so that means a lot more hay piled on the truck! I normally feed the horses on  my own when…

Sold, Boys!

On Saturday Richard and I attended an important community event: an auction. Around here, auctions typically indicate the death of a farmer or a rancher (to distinguish: a farmer raises crops, while a rancher raises livestock), a retirement or a foreclosure. Some people attend auctions to purchase farm equipment, some to see what the going…

Pirate’s Story

Pirate is about to be five years old, and she happens to be one of my personal riding horses, an Arabian mare of CMK bloodlines. She is “sabino” in color, which is quite unusual. She is steel grey with white legs, a white blaze on her face, and a splotch of white on her tummy….

Trailer Extrication…or Excavation?

I must admit that I was not present for The Great Trailer Extrication of 2011. I was busy getting ultrasound on my knee at a physical therapy appointment. BUT, I did extract a promise from Richard to photo-document the event, and I think he did a very good job. Mel and Bayard returned from India…

Visiting Neighbors…Almost

I woke up on Sunday to see grey skies and heavy snow falling outside my window, not the ideal weather for the outing Richard and I had planned. John Finley, a neighbor of ours on East Fork Road, bought two tons of alfalfa hay from us for his cows. Richard agreed to deliver the hay…

Castle Rock

The combination of cold weather and slow recovery from surgery has got me reminiscing about active moments in warmer weather. One of my favorite such memories involves climbing the legendary Castle Rock this past summer of 2010. Castle Rock is a beautiful landmark near the ranch, an outcropping that earns the name “Castle” even from…


All content and images © 2024 Bitterroot Ranch | Licensed Permittee of the Shoshone National Forest