Welcome To Black Mtn Dude Ranch!

My mom is new to the world of hunter jumper shows. She rode horses her entire life, but never set foot into the world of A and AA shows until I started moving up and we wanted to ride together. She was my trainer, my mentor, my coach. She was my biggest supporter and my hardest teacher, and she made sure I took care of my ponies and, most importantly, always had fun riding them. I have always been competitive though, so it was over the course of many years that I grew to love the show ...

I spend lots of time traveling around the mountains. Over the years, I have used many different methods to do so. Sometimes my mode of travel is dictated by the time of year, such as skiing in the winter and not in summer, and sometimes I change my mode based on whimsy and what I feel like doing that day, like riding my mountain bike or just running. All these different methods are great ways to travel to and through beautiful places, but one other mode of travel stands alone as the best ...

I learned to ride on a pistol of a pony named Peanut. He was a 13.2hh brown Paso Fino pony, with fire in his belly and a spark in his eyes. Always quick on the draw, I fell off of Peanut more times than I could count, but he taught me the importance of always getting right back on again. We still have Peanut, who is in his early twenties now, with a grey-streaked mane and a snowy forehead, and he enjoys his retirement simply munching on grass and basking in the sun. Peanut and I got ...

Earlier today at work I was looking at some things on Google Earth with a co-worker. If my boss is reading this, it was all work related. More or less. I promise. Kinda. When we were done with our work-ish project, he showed me the imagery of the lake he grew up on in Minnesota. After he showed me the islands he would swim to and the woods he played in, he said he wanted to see Black Mountain Ranch on Google Earth. If you haven't spent much time on Google Earth. It is simply amazing. ...

PART 4: LET THERE BE LIGHT Light is the most essential ingredient for taking photos. The word photography actually derives from the Greek ‘painting with light”. Light comes into your camera through the aperture passes through various elements where it gets focussed on the recording media. If enough of it falls on it over the time the shutter is open, an image results. No light, no photograph. Understanding light ranges from very simple premises to the very complicated, often involving ...