The Kid on the Ranch
by Jessi MaKenny
Airlines Magazine Lifestyle, June 2002

Jessi MaKenny lives at the Homeplace Ranch in southern Alberta. She is 13 years old, and enjoys spending the summers working with her family and spending time with the many visitors who vacation there. The Homeplace Ranch invites guests from all over the world to take a Canadian horseback holiday in the beautiful foothills of the Rocky Mountains. This is Jessi's story…

My typical day is generally fairly long. It starts at 6:00 a.m. and ends at about 9:00, 9:30 p.m., when I finally go to bed. Once I eventually haul myself out of bed in the morning and get dressed, I head outside to the corrals to help my dad and the two wranglers put out some oats.

Usually at about 6:45 a.m., the horses stroll down into the valley where all of the ranch buildings are located. They all know when to come down because they know that they're about to get their breakfast: oats.

The guests at our ranch enjoy waking up early and watching the horses trot in. Sometimes a few people will come out of the lodge to help brush them. As soon as the horses start standing around and fighting, we catch them. When we catch, we use a halter. All that is, is a series of ropes tied together in a way so that we can just slip them over their heads and around their ears to lead them. Each horse has a specific spot where it gets tied. After you work the corrals for a while, you get to know them off by heart. After the horses have been caught and tied, we start to brush. If you've ever brushed a dog, it's pretty much exactly like that, except that this dog is much bigger.

The next step is getting the horses ready for saddling. It's not a problem now, but when I first started helping out in the corral about four years ago when I was nine, I couldn't really reach the back of the horse to put the saddle on.

By now, it's 8:30 a.m. and the smell of bacon is in the air and the breakfast bell is ringing. The guests and I head inside for a delicious breakfast. After breakfast, I help the cook and the cleaning girl clear the table and clean the kitchen.

By around 9:30 a.m., I help the cleaning girl clean our eight guest accommodations. One hour later, the rooms are clean and it's time for a little bit of a break. That's when the three of us (the cook, the cleaning girl, and myself) sit down and have some lemonade.

The half day ride arrives in the corrals at 12:00 p.m., and we get unsaddled quickly and head inside to eat some homemade soup.

Well, the afternoon is usually dictated by me. Sometimes, if the day's gone slow and I can get a ride, I call my friends and we go into town to see a movie, play some mini-golf, or wander around the mall. This scenario doesn't occur too often, but when it does, it's a nice break. The full day ride comes back at 3:30 p.m. and the same routine of unsaddling applies to this ride as it does to the half day ride.

It's time to start cooking dinner. If it's Saturday or Tuesday, we leave the cooking to the wranglers. On those nights we cook over an open grill. The rest of the nights, we cook lots of chicken, pork, and beef. After we clean up, it's usually about 7:30 p.m. and that's when I like to hang out with the staff or some of the guests, play some horseshoes, or sometimes cards if it's raining.

I try to get back home by 8:30 p.m., but sometimes that doesn't happen. But even if it doesn't, it's all good.

— from Airlines, Westjet's Inflight Magazine