Almost Gypsy Soul

It's something you always knew, just sometimes life gets in the way and it gets pushed to the back of your mind. Friends are my soul food! Unfortunately, last week I was reminded to NOT let life push this little piece of fact to the back of my mind, to love my friends, to let my friends know that I love them, to take a little extra time to send that email or text or pick up the phone and make the call, to spend more than is in the travel budget, to take 10 days 2 1/2 weeks off to drive what I'm going to refer to as the Giant Friend Loop Road Trip (GRLRT) instead of flying in/out in 3 days time, to buy the random gift you know they will love.   As I looked around the room, which was full, at the wake I realized how many lives this young man had touched so deeply in just 27 short years. The next day the sanctuary, the hall and foyer were filled with people wanting to pay their last respects to their friend. I am reminded to strive to be like Joe Don, to strive to be a

[Linking up with Julia at Black Tag Diaries ] I'm thankful........... that my job allows me to travel and take time off (especially in emergencies) that I have friends I can count on to take care of things while I'm gone, mostly keeping this baby alive and harvested for this cute little furry face for carpet shampooers to clean up said dogs insane shedding  a little patio that makes me feel like I'm in the country (minus the yelling neighborhood kiddos) beer, yep I'm thankful for beer What are you thankful for? PS. Don't forget to link up here at Almost Gypsy Soul on the fourth Friday of the month (tomorrow!) for Soul Food Friday! Let blogland know what feeds your soul!

The Jeremiah Johnson family is awesome! Completely down to earth folks that love family, God, ranching and hunting. I met Jeremiah Johnson and family when they moved back to Colorado to take on the lower ranch and barn manager at Waunita Hot Springs Ranch. The same place where they had met a few years before that while working summers there. When I first met them they had Rankin, who was 2 at the time. He and I were instant buddies and may or may not have had ice cream every night before bed that summer. A few years later, while I was still living in Gunnison, they added little Aubrie to the family and she sure is a Daddy's girl. She wants to do everything with David! Yet another family that took me in as one of their own. I will always treasure our friendship and to this day look forward to our visits, which are usually centered around camping and/or hunting. I try to make it down to Gunnison for elk hunting (which I have done an extremely poor job of the last few years) and the

Its my blog and this one is all about me! Prairie Princess  tagged me in this ABC's of me post she did last week, so I'm playing along! I'm sure you will learn more than you ever wanted to know about me! A. Attached or Single? Single (with a dog and a mortgage) B. Best Friend?  I have a few best friends, but Military Friend has been my friend since like forever and we just pick up wherever we left off.  C. Cake or Pie? Pie, wait cake ....no pie...strawberry pie that they used to make at Waunita Hot Springs Ranch, final answer. D. Day of Choice? Saturday, I have the whole day to do whatever I want, plus its usually Saturday that I spend on the slopes, boarding or on the lake. Plus I have Sunday to recover! E. Essential Item? Pod, I need background noise. F. Favorite Color? Green, I didn't used to say this, but then one day I realized how much green is in my life (too bad that wasn't true of my bank account too :)) G. Gummy bears or worms? Bears

"Okay, what's our back story?" "We're brothers a couple from New Hampshire. We're venture capitalists."  "I'm sick of that. Let's be from Vermont. And let's have an emerging maple syrup conglomerate." "Wait, that's stupid. We don't know anything about maple syrup." "I happen to know everything there is to know about maple syrup! I love maple syrup. I love maple syrup on pancakes. I love it on pizza. And I take maple syrup and put a little bit in my hair when I've had a rough week. What do you think holds it up, slick?" We didn't really crash the wedding, I had an invite, but Wedding Crashers  is an awesome title and it made you want to read this post to see if I really had the guts to crash a wedding. Well the answer is no, I do not have the guts to crash a wedding. It's wedding season! Up first? High school friend and home of fried spiders, turned my financial guru is getting ma

[Linking up with Stephanie @ Beautiful Mess ] I'm an Oklahoma State fan, you can't live in Stillwater for any amount of time and not love you some orange. I'd argue Oklahoma, but there is no doubt one of those "other" fans reading this who will try to prove me wrong. Now, I'm not a crazy fan, I'll watch a game, but I don't know every player on every OSU sports team since the beginning of time. I like my orange, but I don't (or never did) have season passes for any season. So I guess yeah, some would say I'm not a fan but whatever. Music Man is a Wyoming fan and he does know every players name for every team since the beginning of Wyoming Cowboys (and usually the OSU Cowboys) so it goes without saying he wins those fights, but I think that is mostly a guy thing (and Football Fan, Tiff) so again....whatever. Wyoming fans are pretty serious fans! I love watching Wyoming fans watch Wyoming football....its great! Ok so the real point of this

asking why......why did another full-of-life, salt-of-the-earth, one of the REAL good guys have to leave this Earth way, way too soon. He was a friend of so many, didn't know a stranger, one would be hard pressed to remember a time where he wasn't living life to the fullest or a moment where there wasn't a smile on his face. As I sat at my desk, trying to comprehend the news, I realize I couldn't breathe very well. It just doesn't seem real and I don't want it to be. Heaven got one of the good ones yesterday and he will be missed by so many. I don't know anyone who didn't like Joe Don. Photos via Facebook Rest in peace and know you are missed by so many. When I get where I'm going On the far side of the sky The first thing that I'm gonna do Is spread my wings and fly I'm gonna land beside a lion And run my fingers through his mane Or I might find out what it's like To ride a drop of rain Yeah, when I get where

But sometimes I just need to shut my mouth, not courage and not embarrassing bravery, just golden silence.

My heart breaks for Colorado and all those affected by the multiple wildfires. Yes,the Black Forest fire is very, very bad, but there are multiple fires burning throughout Colorado, let us all remember all those affected and pray for safety for everyone. Please take the time to visit Help Colorado Now to find out more how you can assist those in need. They have a link and summary of reputable organizations that are assisting in relief efforts,  if  you would like to donate to the cause. I personally donate to the Salvation Army because its online, its easy, I support their mission, approximately 84 cents of every donation dollar goes to help those in need and you can specify what you would like your donation to go towards.....i.e. Choose Colorado ! Throughout the last few days, I have had so many friends on Facebook offering to shelter animal, people, gathering supplies to donate, donating money, offering up prayers....anything they can do to help Colorado in need. Ple

[Linking up with Heather at Undercover Blonde ]   Your typical tomboy gets the hot guy story, old school like 1800s old school is The Icecutter's Daughter by Tracie Peterson. Its an easy read and not too corny. Merrill is a girl that lives in a houseful of boys after her mother passed away. She is quite the hand with the teams of horses that her family uses to cut ice blocks each winter in a small Minnesota town. She is also a quite accomplished painter that lands her an additional job in town once the dashing young Rurik arrives in town to help his uncle with his carpentry business. Of course there is wrench thrown into the loop making somewhat of a love triangle....pick up a copy at your library to find out who the third is! And with this book, I crossed off #30 on my Dirty 30 list (this is the progress that I made in my first 3 months)!

I grew up a farmer's daughter and I am shamefully admitting this is my first garden. Mom had a garden when I was younger, I remember "helping", but more than that I remember playing while Mom gardened. Hers was big.......mine is little.....Tylie doesn't like veggies! The beginnings of a farmer's daughter's city dwelling garden:   I scored some killer deals on my garden supplies! I got some MiracleGro (miracles will be needed for me to have a successful garden) potting soil for $2.99 per bag, regular $4.99 per bag. They limited me to 2 bags those....jerks. I also got some super cute tomato cages, a purple one and an orange (GO POKES!) one for $3.99 per cage, regular $8.99 per cage. Maybe the biggest savings was my tomatoes....gallon tomatoes for $2.99 per plant, regular $9.97 per plant! And I bought my tank from Mike while I was home for Memorial Day. My garden will grow (hopefully) zucchini, squash, cucumber, tomato, cilantro, spinach, jalapeno an

If you remember my warning to the young grasshoppers about wanting to fast forward their lives to "big kid" life. Well here is the product of big kid life. Gotta keep that place of employment exciting and rewarding. This is how ya do it! This is going to be a traveling trophy so each office that wins it will get to display this beaut in their office for 365 days and of course rub everyone else's face in their NAP shortcomings. And the winner(s) this year is............ A TIE! The Lincoln County office and Sweetwater/Sublette County office (that's my office!!!) tied at 15 Exhibit 21s for the 2012 crop year. That is the equivalent of 60 on/off dates for BLM and FS permits for one rancher. We recently had a mandatory training for our new software that integrates (or will integrate) all of our programs and databases into a single location and I was told that one particular office thought there should be a prize for the office that had the least number of E

Take this recipe, go to the grocery store and treat yourself.....TONIGHT! best.chicken.ever. Go on over to Pip&Ebby for the step by step picture tutorial recipe from the genius lady who came up with this recipe! If you want the quick version, read on! Step 1: Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Coat a 9x13-inch baking dish with cooking spray and set aside. In each of 6 defrosted chicken breast halves, cut a slit horizontally into the breast without going all the way through to the other side. Step 2: Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add: 2 jalapeno peppers, finely chopped 3 cloves garlic, minced Cook and stir for 2 to 3 minutes. Step 3: Add: 8-oz. package of cream cheese 1/4 cup cheddar cheese, shredded Stir until the cheese is melted. Step 4: Divide the mixture between the 6 breasts and spoon into the openings. Seal the ends and secure with toothpicks. Place the chicken in the prepared baking dish. I propped the breasts on t

Sweetwater County's high mountain desert is a landscape that allows sheep to thrive in a year-round range operation. Many larger sheep operations call Sweetwater County and southwestern Wyoming home....all year long, rain, snow and shine. Here I told yo u a little bit about a typical day on the trail at sheep camp. The big spring event before lambing starts is shearing, besides for lambs, the wool that the sheep provide is a large source of income for the ranchers. Many have contracts with the US Military to make clothing products for the troops. There are shearing crews that come and move from ranch to ranch shearing the large bands for them. They are similar to custom harvesting crews. The first range sheep shearing that I went to was out on the desert near Black Butte Coal. It is completely mobile, panels are set up into multiple corrals that hold the sheep until they can be sorted and pushed into increasingly smaller corrals and eventually into an alley way that leads

I'll admit, sometimes I buy stuff that I just don't need and then I get buyers remorse....but usually that doesn't come until after I've used it once or twice thus ruining the returnability of said "stuff". So what do you do with it? I could donate it and make some thrift store shopper a very, very happy person with an awesome find, but I'm greedy. I want cold hard cash for some stuff that is basically brand new and good quality. Sorry, but its true, I like cash! Especially now that I am on the cash diet, with my wallet filing cabinet . Anyway back to my "stuff", Little Sister, Little Sister's Boyfriend and I  headed back to Colorado for Memorial Day Weekend and we decided to have a Stars , Stripes and Savings : 1 Week Only sale on a Facebook Group Swap Shop site. Now let me tell you, I'm on several here in my new home and the one back home is WAY BETTER! Now the marketing major in me made up some way cute photos to help catch peopl

Today is the anniversery of a couple big events....Mike's birthday (my pops) and the Limon tornado that hit in 1990. First things first, HAPPY BIRTHDAY POPS! This article was on NBC news last week showing a little bit about how our little town banded together and rebuilt. We were so lucky that newly installed tornado sirens helped to spare the lives of all those in Limon this night. Looking back at the pictures in the article, its hard to believe that a little over 20 years has passed. And for the record, many years after the tornado, Dad was kindly asked to leave town to celebrate his birthday. I mean seriously has anyone else woke up to a scene like this from their birthday party? Mom and Dad were at the bar on this street, eating dinner. They, along with other patrons were in the walk-in cooler during the storm. The top of the cooler was sucked off, but no one was hurt. Afterwards, they all got shirts that said "Cooler Crew" on the back! Photos via Denver Po

Music man made me pine stools to match my coffee table that I got for Christmas. It probably nearly killed him to do OSU on here....he's a die hard Wyoming fan. So I decided that there were a few Pinterest projects that I wanted to give a try with hair-on hide. I was warned by several friends that hair-on hide stools weren't as good as they seem as the hair will all rub off. I went ahead and did it anyway....I still have enough hide I can recover when it all rubs off. So here is the finished product of my cowhide bar stools. And a project for the rest of my hide?......Can I master this one? Thoughts?

First things first.... .Click here to read the article by NBC News. Then remember that I now call an area that is approximately 70% public lands home. Yes, there is livestock grazing. Yes, there is recreation (4 wheeling, hiking, hunting etc) Yes, there are "wild" horses. After reading this article I was extremely saddened by the misconceptions held by so many. A few comments and thoughts from yours truly on the actual article (some are directly from the comment that I posted to NBCs site) and the comments that I took some time to read....which fueled me to make my own account on NBC News so that I could post comments....something that I never do! "Stallions and mare, beautiful and strong, guiding their young" The wild horses are thought of as "beautiful and strong" and an icon of the American West.   If we look at the definition of the very term....maybe the tens of thousands of horses that we have aren't really wild at all, but