The Making of The Homestead: The Beginning

I just realized that before I start to dive into wedding details (blue this, flowers that, rings this, hair that) I should tell how The Homestead came to be. Meaning, I should tell you how Cowboy H and I came to be.

Cowboy H and I met two decades ago, when I was, well, when we were little. He rode his stick horse down the street to meet me every night wearing his Grandpa's cowboy boots. And one night, we rode off into the sunset together and bought the Homestead. We were ten.

Just kidding! (But have you ever heard Chris LeDoux's "Thank The Cowboy For The Ride"?? Well, go listen to it. Now!)

Anyway, Cowboy H and I really met at a special little place in the desert (at least its special now). Here's a look:

This is the actual day we met. How sick/gross/love story is this: some random person took this picture of us together on the very day that we met. Later on, that person came back out to the stables and dropped it off, for some reason that we will never know. We have no idea who the person was.

Focus. Back to the story. Cowboy H was working (and living) here and I came for the weekend to work as well. It was the weekend of Frank Bogert's Annual Birthday Ride. I was helping a couple take care of their driving ponies they had brought to participate in the festivities with. Cowboy H was Frank's personal attendant that year.

After the ride, Cowboy H invited me to join the other wranglers for ribs (excuse me, where are the ribs? oh, they're gone? oh.) and such. By the end of the day, numbers were exchanged and I went off to my hotel room to shower and sleep. Since I had worked a 10 hour shift at my emergency pet hospital then driven straight to the desert and worked all day, I was pooped.

However, I met with the wranglers at... wait for it... Denny's (with a bar!) for dinner that night and was invited by them to come out and ride the next day. And thus, my stint as a part-time wrangler began.

A sweet (innocent, friendly) relationship also began between Cowboy H and I. Seriously, that was it. You see, I was engaged when we met. Engaged to be married. Married to someone else. Gasp! The horror!

So, I would drive to the desert on the weekends, ride the ponies, eat some dinner with Cowboy H and crash out in his room while he slept on the porch. Meanwhile, my relationship with my soon-to-be (and my family) was crumbling.

I'll spare you all the details, but somewhere within those months, I realized that I should not be marrying the man I was planning on marrying. I called off the wedding. And the relationship. I then retreated to the mountains and taught stinky pre-pubescent immature boy scouts how to ride horses for 3 months. I needed a nice long breath of fresh air. You know, clear my head.

Through it all, my relationship with Cowboy H deepened. And blossomed. And budded. And flourished. And, and, and... basically, sparks flew, fireworks exploded, flame erupted. And then we rode off into the sunset and got married.

The end.

P.S. The day I met Cowboy H, I knew he was the man I should be marrying, but never imagined that I actually would marry him. (Uh, hello? You were marrying someone else then, remember? Oh. Yeah. That.)