Today’s prompt from #reverb10 is – “Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors). (Author: Ali Edwards)”

I’ve been dwelling on this all day. Honestly, I haven’t felt truely happy in several years. Life just hasn’t played nice. Between a divorce, the subsequent loss of the majority of my friends,  having my life turned upside down, the loss of my job, being diagnosed with an allergy that drives me crazy, and family issues it’s been a rough couple years. Picking a moment is difficult.

However, having accepted a job in North Dakota, I’ve been able to spend several hours in the saddle and on the back of a really agile horse. Who’s trained on a bosal, and who’s cowy. Just love that feeling. It’s been so long since I’ve enjoyed or even had the chance to get on a good horse. My life the last several years has been pretty restricted to work and when I’m on the farm we don’t use horses. We’ve had to downsize our cow herd substantially and with that went our horse herd as well. Signs of the times.

The moment I’m going to pick is when I first met “Mick” and that feeling of “oneness” you get when you connect with a horse and it just feels right.

Mick’s owner is my bosses nephews. He’s owned him for several years. Mick is 6 years old and a bay. Kind of blond colored bay. The day we went over to pick Mick up was a warm day in October, no wind, still sunny and bright out in the early evening. I’ll be honest. I wasn’t expecting Mick to be much. This stems from having ridden lots of horses on lots of different ranches, and by the time they are this age, they’ve been ridden by so many different people that sometimes they are a handful. Every horse has their own quirks, mannerisms, and personalities and sometimes you just don’t blend well together. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t usually work together to get a job done, so that’s what I’m used to having to do. Work together to get the job done.

Mick is… well… different. We blend. The minute I walked up to him I could feel it, and I’m pretty sure he could to. I could see it in his eyes, that soft doe look that a horses gets when they are comfortable and want you to touch them. The relaxed, bright eyes and soft nose nuzzle are really all it takes to make a person melt. Being around Mick reminds me of the many reasons I love this lifestyle and I just can’t seem to be away from it, no matter how much life pulls and turns and twists me in so many ways. Having Mick in my life now is so poignant and bitter sweet. He’s the type of horse I’ve always wanted. The kind I can ride, and learn from and with and frankly just connect with. So in reality, I don’t have just one moment that has made me feel alive lately, because every chance I get to spend with Mick is an alive moment.

Some things…just are!

Good Morning!

I meant to post this yesterday as part of the ongoing “Copper Hue’d Monday’s” series, but I was so wrapped up in looking at all the copper on Etsy, I ran out of time.

Enjoy!

Clicking on the image above will take you directly to my Etsy Treasurey, where the items are located.

What are your plans for Holiday decorations this year? Going with the old stand by? Or trying something new?

I’m going to feature the “Prairie Princess” design in today’s installment of “Story Behind the Design…”. This is actually a bit of an embarrassing story of a trip I made to Cody Wyoming April of 2008. Embarrassing, because I drank 1 to many “chardonnays” around people I’d never met, which I have a rule against doing, and I vaguely remember modeling my tee’s in front of a bar room full of people. But alas, I digress…

Prairie Princess is actually the product of a bar room conversation with two great gentleman from the great state of Wyoming. While I was in Cody, I was desperately trying to pimp UBetcha Apparel at the time, and if any of you know me, you’ll know I’m relatively reserved, so pimping my t-shirt line has been a challenge for me. However, every day I get better, and for this I’m thankful. I attended a c.d. release party in Cody in April of 2008 at the Irma Hotel. I knew NO ONE! Not a soul. Boy did I feel like more like an amazon woman then ever in my life. And me calling myself an Amazon woman is really just me saying I felt terribly out of place, tall, and freakish! Yike! So anyway, there I was, in all my Amazonish glory, trying desperately to chock down my nervousness and strike up a conversation with a group of people sitting at a table kind of in the corner of the room. One of the gentleman at the table was wearing a leather fringed frock coat and I thought maybe he was an extra for a movie or something. If I’d only known…

I take a deep breath, a swig of my crown and coke, and step towards the table…asking at the same time “Do you all mind if I join you?” Emphatic “Have a seat!” & “No we sure don’t mind” answers resound around the table and I sit down. A couple questions into the conversation I find out that one of the gentleman is Chris Turner (Ted Turners son…if my memory serves me right) and Ed Phillips who’s part of the Cody Nightly Rodeo. Great guys to strike a conversation up with. Chris Turner hosts a radio show on Saturday mornings from 9-10 in the Irma Hotel called Comfort Food. Unfortunately, when I looked the radio show up for this post, it looks like it’s on a hiatus. Which is much to bad, since it really is a funny show. I certainly hope they’ll be able to find sponsors again soon. So I chat with them during the launch party and get information about Cody and some great history.

The launch party sort of breaks up with everyone going to the bar area to listen to the artist sing some of his songs. I find myself seated at a table with several towns people and several people from the launch party…and they are all giving me ideas, advice and just generally helping me with UBetcha Apparel and ways to market the company. However, the drinks keep flowing. Crown and Coke number 2 goes down pretty easy, as do 3 and 4. So by the time number 4 is gone, I’ve got 2 more lined up, plus a shot. Now this post isn’t meant to be about my drinking habits, but frankly, when you have that many people buying you drinks, how do you turn them down? I’m not really certain how to politely not accept them, especially when they are already on the table in front of me. Somewhere along the line the word “Princess” is being used to describe me and women of the west and then “Prairie” is thrown in there and Ed comes up with “Prairie Princess”. I can’t remember the specifics, but I did write “Prairie Princess” down onto a business card, and that’s how it came into existence and onto a t-shirt, even though I can’t remember much else from that night. I do vaguely remember modeling the t-shirts for a bar room full of people…and changing shirts whilst in the bar……..

Shame on me!

UBetcha Apparel "Prairie Princess" tank with custom UBetcha Apparel tutu!

You can see and purchase the UBetcha Apparel “Prairie Princess” tee through the UBetcha Apparel website.

As I’ve mentioned on a few other occasions, I own a company by the name of UBetcha. I just recently started adding the word “Apparel” because without it, who knows what UBetcha really is, and I wanted to have a direction with which to work from as well as towards. Who’s to say UBetcha won’t one day become something more, such as a company that also helps rodeo athletes find sponsors or get noticed, but for now, UBetcha is all about t-shirts.

Several years ago I worked for a ranch and home supply store, selling feed, tack, fencing, bolts, plants, jewelry, home furnishings and clothing. It was great and I loved every minute of it. I gained a ton of experience and know-how and I spent almost 4 years with this wonderful company. Many of you may know the company as Murdoch’s now, but then it was Ranch and Home Supply, Big R. Shortly before going on my fourth year of working there, I moved. To Sheridan Wyoming. The gentleman I was seeing applied for and was given a job with Padlock Ranch, just outside of Sheridan in a small town by the name of Dayton Wyoming.

Enter, my actual cowgirl year.

Prior to this time I’d spent a lot of time as a farmer/ranchers granddaughter. We didn’t use horses though, and my life seemed empty without them. Yes, we had horses for riding for fun, but honestly, if you don’t have a job to do on a horse, I didn’t think you could call yourself a cowgirl. I still don’t think I’m a cowgirl. I’m somewhere in-between. I’m getting off subject, so let me turn it back around.

During the year I spent working for the Padlock and dating this great guy I listened. Hard! Because as we all know, cowboys have some inventive and lesson teaching sayings. I’m not about to divulge any of them in this post, because that’s going to come up in later entries. I’m just stating a fact. Cowboy sayings are blurted out throughout the day while working cattle or riding or doing any number of other things a cowboy does. So anyway, I listened. And I started to write these sayings down. And for what reason? I wasn’t even sure at the time, I just knew I needed to get them on paper. So many of them were so true and memorable I couldn’t help but to remember them, but others were heard less often and I wanted to be sure to remember them.

After a year of writing these down and compiling quite a list, we moved! I cried! I bawled! I stomped my feet and cursed the system and questioned my faith and I got mad and I’m not even sure I want to go into all the other emotions and thoughts I had. We made the decision to move. I wasn’t happy to say the least, but figured I’d better follow since the U Haul was headed back to Montana.

Enter, my “I’m starting my own business” years.

So, upon arriving back in Montana, I have this huge list of cowboy sayings. What am I going to do with this? About this time I decided to start college, and work towards an A.S.S. degree in Graphic and Web Design. Two years wasn’t enough to really have a grasp on most of the information, but it got me into the door of a local design firm, and I’ve been there for the last two years. We moved back to Montana in 2005. It’s now 2009. There’s a lot of time in-between and I’m sure you’re wondering what happened. Well, I’m not telling. Lets just say a lot of changes, and I’m no longer seeing the same gentleman. Back to the list.

The creative director and his wife, of the firm I’m working at, own a silk screen press. It was sitting in the basement of the office we worked in, gathering dust. Back in May of 2008, they sold it to me and for the next 6 months I taught myself how to use the machine, how to burn screens, how to order t-shirts, how to clean screens….basically a crash course. I made a lot of mistakes, but I learned a ton. Those mistakes are what brought me to where I am today, working on creating a line of clothing, branded by me, screened by me, shipped by me, created by me and sold by me.

There I was, with this machine, and a book full of cowboy saying’s. What do I do now? At the time, I knew I wanted to start some kind of business dealing with clothing, I just wasn’t sure how to even get started. I’m still not sure. I’m still not even sure some days I’m started or moving forward. I’m still learning. About that time, I was joking with a friend of mine about starting a screen printing company and I was really trying to search for a name. One day, during a light-hearted phone conversation with my friend, he happened to utter the words, “O YOU BETCHA!” and a light went off. Why not? I mean, there are crazier names out there for companies, and frankly, UBetcha sticks with a person. We all say it at some point or another and we all laugh when we hear it. UBetcha reminds me of a “go-to-attitude” and it’s bold and full of attitude, but at the same time can be made classy, sassy and utterly feminine. It just works!

Attitude? UBetcha!

Laton Alton Huffman

Evening all!

I was talking with a friend of mine today who mentioned the name L.A. Huffman. Not knowing who this was, I did a little research. Turns out, he was a photographer from eastern Montana during 1879 – 1931. Laton Alton Huffman arrived in Miles City, Montana Territory, December of 1879. He  had come to seek the recently vacated position of post photographer at nearby Fort Keogh where he was appointed post photographer, an unpaid position that provided a dirt floor log studio and an opportunity to make and sell photographs. He was 25.

There is quite a bit of information about L.A. Huffman located at a website dedicated to him. L.A. Huffman website. Additionally I found a website with several of his photos. They are wonderful. Probably some of the best western photos I have seen in a long time. Miles City Mueseum -  Gallery.

These are a few of his photos I’ve found.

If anyone has any other information or knows where I can learn a little more about him I’d sure appreciate any information. I will likely be taking a trip to Miles City this Summer to see what I can dig up. EXCITING!