Riding in Style: The Official Getup

Wow! You’re still here!!! If you’re reading this you are the loyalist of most loyal!! And I am excited to update you after wayyy to long 🙂 

Earlier in May, Cate, our cousin Audrey and I all traveled to Cushing, Oklahoma to “get fitted” for a long awaited Christmas present – a pair of real cowboy chaps. In the height of COVID, when we were out at the ranch often helping the cowboys, we quickly realized chaps made you the real deal. 

Thanks to our generous uncle Steve our dreams of becoming “official cowhands” came true. Hannah was also fitted and we waited in anticipation for the call saying they were finished. Henry, being in the prime time for growing, opted to wait a while to get fitted and use an old hand-me-down pair from the cowboys. 

Finally, in October we got the call and picked up our new stylish leather leggings! We were thrilled. 

Time passed until Thanksgiving week when we were finally able to debut and assess our new hardware. Further, we would also be assessing a new ranch in Sedan Kansas that we had not yet seen. Sedan is about an hour drive from Hominy, our typical stomping ground. 

The five of us trekked early in the morning to the headquarters, loaded a few horses and jumped in the truck with our foreman (the main cowboy on the ranch) Doug. Now one thing you may not know about new chaps is that they can be stiff. The zippers haven’t been run much and they haven’t been molded to your legs yet. What you also may not know yet is that once you get to the pasture you get out of the truck as soon as possible and hop on your horse without any delay. Being novice chap wearers, we were worried we would slow down the operation with figuring out how to put on, zip up and tighten our chaps… what were we to do? 

We soon confided our worries to Doug and he graciously said he would stop just shy of the pasture for us to lace up our leggings and be fully ready to jump and run once we got to the meeting place! God bless Doug!!! We were spared the beginner embarrassment and didn’t have to slow down everyone else.

We soon gathered, sorted and worked the cow-calf pairs and tested out our new gear. Of course, like all work gear, the pristine leather, quickly became soiled after some work. One could say we really broke them in. Needless to say we absolutely love them and are thrilled to now look the part we had been working. 

I sure am thankful to have experiences like these and for the people who make our dreams come true. Thank you all for making my dream of blogging happen too. Happy New Year to all of you!! You should hear back from me relatively soon… 😊