Ahh it finally feels like Spring huh!? We had a few beautiful 70 degree sunny days around here this week – but are preparing for rain and maybe even some SNOW coming in for Easter weekend! We’ll take some precipitation to water our pastures and won’t complain.
My birthday is on April 5 (next Monday) and we’ve had snow fall around my birthday or Easter here before – the mountains can be unpredictable until mid-May or June…. but even at that we have been known to have freezing nights below 32 degrees any day of the year.
I am excited to get some starts planted for my garden next week. We are working on plans to LANDSCAPE the yards around our little house and the big house – I am so ready for that! We are planning mostly grass and putting in irrigation. I am going to put my garden in up above the houses in the flat space up there that backs up to our water ditch. I’ve had my garden up at camp a few years and down by the houses (in a few different places!) and I am looking forward to having the garden close to the Test Kitchen this summer.
I usually plant lots of tomatoes and hot pepper plants (seranos, jalapenos, thai chili are some of my favorites) and will plant a big herb garden along with some squash, pumpkins, melons and other veggies. I might add a little berry patch and a lettuce garden this year too. In the past I’ve always planted my lettuce in wooden pallets flat on the ground filled with soil and the lettuce comes up between the slats. It works pretty well!
I also have big plans I am working on talking Heff into… we have an old aluminum grain silo on the ranch that we bought used with some other equipment, but it ended up being a little too rusted out to use for grain. It’s been in our “scrap yard” for years – waiting for a project to to move on to the actual scrap yard! I had ideas for a silo-inspired bar at camp, but we already have such a great set up in the camp kitchen we don’t really need another structure. I am going to try to dismantle it enough to use the rounds from the storage section as raised beds for my garden – but we will have to see if it works!
HORSES & RODEO
The girls have been riding a ton and really improving their horsemanship and roping skills so much. JJ has worked hard with her horse Stretch and it’s pretty incredible to see their progress together.
Stretch is a beautiful quarterhorse we got for me but JJ took him over and started teaching him the ropes in her favorite rodeo events. He’s a lot of horse (in a great way!) and we considered sending him to Jaylee for the semester to help get him more trained in rodeo events for the girls.
JJ (she’s 10 now) decided she was going to work with him everyday and train him herself – and she stuck to it! She’s had hard days and a few frustrated moments but she’s stuck with him and now they are an unstoppable pair.
Crusier is also doing fantastic and getting acquainted with the other horses. I am looking forward to some warm days to start riding more often! He’s such a beautiful horse and we are so happy he joined out herd.
Maisie is looking at another rodeo horse she has used a few times and loves – and Francie is going to try a new horse as she’s outgrowing good old Martin, but Tess is waiting in line for him and he loves Tess!
We got to attend a rodeo competition this weekend and the girls rocked it! I’ll save all of those updates for a rodeo post next up 🙂
COOKBOOK #2
I’ve been working behind-the-scenes on my next cookbook! I can’t believe we are diving into cookbook #2 – but I am really excited about this project. My first cookbook, Five Marys Ranch Raised Cookbook was a long and involved process – but seeing it on store shelves and in your homes is so worth the effort!
The second book will be centered on Family Style cooking and based on seasonal full menus – with lots of inspiration and even some fun and simple entertaining based DIY’s! Oh and lots of cocktails, always cocktails. 🙂
I have a great recipe developer co-author, Jess, working with me to test and re-test and re-think all of the recipes and menus. She’s coming out in a few weeks to work together in person in the Test Kitchen and we are planning the first big seasonal photoshoot for the cookbook in May up at camp with a whole team of photography, stylists & editors.
I learned a lot making my first cookbook – it is a two-year minimum undertaking and a huge commitment! But I’ll say it’s a lot easier the second time around when you know the process a little better.
BOOTS & BANGLES – SCHOLARSHIP!
Our 4th episode of the Boots & Bangles : The Small Business Sisters podcast released on Friday. We will release a new episode every other Friday this season and are excited for the upcoming episodes. This time we talked about the value in starting as an entrepreneur at a young age or at least starting before you think you are ready. Start TODAY!
The episode features my Beginning Business Boot Camp course and Young Entrepreneurs Boot Camp – a 15-lesson step-by-step guide to starting a business! If you commit to a lesson a day, you can have a solid business up and running in just two weeks. I promise, YOU CAN DO IT! 😊💪🏼 The episode blog post shares a $100 off code for either course – good through April 15. Join us!
We are also offering a really fun ASPIRING ENTREPRENEURS SCHOLARSHIP program for two aspiring small business owners to help them get started!
Apply here – and two winners we choose will be granted :
- $500 cash each to help launch their business idea
- Registration for Beginning Business Boot Camp for Young Entrepreneurs
- A mentor call with Ann and I with both winners to talk through their ideas and help them with direction and launching!
We are so excited about this! Applications close April 15, 2020.
CAMP FIVE MARYS
We are getting ready to open CAMP Five Marys soon too – always my favorite time of year. We are HOPING to be able to offer you some guest stay options sometime soon!
We usually put the camp kitchen back together, dust off the vintage rugs, pull out the couch cushions and bring out my favorite china and silverware for summer dinners and entertaining with the best view around looking out on our ranch.
We also put up 8 Montana Canvas wall tents and a few Shelter Co tents and outfit then with custom-made rustic beds Brian designed and welded, premium mattresses and cozy flannel sheets for those cool mountain summer nights. We have a great outdoor shower under the oak trees and bathrooms made to look like outhouses with real flush toilets. It’s just the BEST place to be!
We don’t have any guest stay events planned at camp yet… but stay tuned to our email and text updates to be the first to know when we do! We’ve hosted these weekend retreats for the past 4 years at camp and they are just so much fun. Here is an album with a bunch of photos from CAMP over the years.
Five Marys Custom Meat Co
Construction is well under way and the concrete trucks showed up this week to pour the pad! It was super complicated to get all of the utilities dug and planned for before we could pour the pad – and the big freezer needs special insulation and special coils underneath it to prevent heaving and permafrost underground and cracking the concrete. We’ve learned so much planning this build!
It’s a start – and we are hoping this build happens pretty quickly to get us operational very soon!
SUMMER INTERNS!
In other big news is we are opening up SUMMER INTERN positions!
We have an application link on our JOBS PAGE HERE and applications close this Friday April 3. Interns typically work in our Farm Store helping with shipping operations, inventory, making boxes, labeling cuts, organizing and some hospitality help at camp for photo shoots, guests, cookbooks shoots, and some help around the ranch too.
Here is our JOBS page with more info and the link to apply. We have a long-term, full-time, competitive pay Ranch Hand position open too!
And did you catch my Carhartt Spring Picks Post – there are some really cute ones this season, in all kinds of new colors!….
including the Limited Release “Friends of Carhartt” hoodies, tees and beanies. Don’t miss them!
Oh and if you are looking for a PUPPY UPDATE – I wrote a whole post the other day with all the details on these little chunky pups!
Pup-Date post HERE – we are just loving this experience raising these cuties alongside Bitsy. She’s a great momma and these girls are fantastic mother’s helpers! It will be hard to let them go but we have good homes for them and will be keeping one on the ranch too!
Here’s to another great week!
XO
Mary
I think Bitsy had 10 pups, right? And the last one (runt) died. Did something happen to one of the other pups? The pups are so cute and loveable. The 4 Mary’s are so fortunate to have this experience.