My Simple Wyoming Life

Well I have been in college for what 2-3 weeks now (moved in on Aug 20th,2026) but should I really count move in day or the college kick off or even the weekend before the first day of college? My teachers thus far are amazing and I respect my main equine teacher for putting a verbal foot to butt with me when I all but gave up on myself due to one really bad night of sleep (only got 1 hr ouch!), but again thankful to her none the less!

I quite enjoyed last weeks intro to animal science class and the assignment, being able to round up a goat, sheep, pig or steer to put a halter on one was quite fun. I teamed up with an awesome person doing this class and we had to make a video on how to catch, handle, & halter our chosen animal (we both like sheep), however catching one the second time around was not easy and I for lack of a better term “ate shit” while trying to catch one and put the halter on. My teammate and I had a good laugh about the whole thing though and I enjoyed myself, albeit I was differently feeling sore for about three days after sheep wrangling!

I have also joined a simple laid back club that is not a high commitment club, because I do need to have some weekends off to go home and spend time with my kids and give where one else a break. I joined the colleges block and bridle club and I am pretty sure I got wrangled into it by the boss lady who runs it with the promise of free food and a possible trip to cattle con in Nashville, TN, which would truth be told be awesome! The lady who runs my club also put together a “dance” for this Thursday and they are going to do tacos before the dance and serve popcorn and donuts and rumor has it there is a $500 scholarship you get entered into for going. So I will be going to that, hopefully my teammate from my intro to animal science will be there because well I know them and unknown people make me nervous plus I have a hard time just going up to random people and talking.. Although I will admit I have seen people here at college with beautiful blue and purple shades of dyed hair and just literally blurt out I love the color of their hair that it’s pretty.

Oh, my college offers a gold cup; it’s a very nice insulated cup that is, well, gold, as the name implies. Granted, with tax it was $63, but you can go to the dining hall or the two other food places on campus and get free refills at the the fountain drinks machine. Here on my campus it’s like one cent shy of $2 with tax to just buy a fountain drink that is the same size roughly, so, if you buy what almost 32 fountain drinks at $2 each in one semester you could have just bought the gold cup and you would keep getting free refills in the last semester. However I myself did not pay out of pocket so to speak for the cup because I live on campus and have a meal plan the college has their own “money” called reshall dollars. Depending on the meal plan you get (19 or 14 meals) you will get $175 (19 meal plan) or $250 (14 meal plan) reshall dollars. So that is how I got my gold cup! They also have a popcorn bucket for $25 that once you buy it you can get free refills every weekday (because that’s when they do popcorn) at the main dining hall, I believe there is talk about giving the other 2 places a popcorn machine so you can get refills there as well. Again this is where the reshall dollars came in handy.

I have also been thinking back to the chickens I use to breed in the UK and how much hard work got re-homed, because I moved back to the US. So I have been thinking of starting to breed chickens again and trying to get my town that is literally middle of no where Wyoming to change their ordinances to allow 1 rooster per back yard flock. Again we are in the middle of no where Wyoming out town has less then 234 people in this town, there are quite a few vacant and run down houses not to mention places that look like junkyards, yet they have issues over how many chickens you keep and roosters. But yes Kevin its the small backyard flock with a rooster that “ruins” house prices… No, no it could not be the house across the street that look like a dilapidated crack house that causes issues with the house prices… But I am getting off track.

One of the highlights of my college week is just hanging out with the animals, specially the horses. I am also in the process of getting a ESA letter so I can have my cat with me while I am on campus, one does not truly understand how much an animal can impact their day to day life specially living with PTSD, anxiety and depression, until that animal is no longer with them. With all that said I am looking forward to this Thursday dance’s put on by the lovely lady that runs my block and bridle club and is a teacher in one of my classes.

Anyway I would like to get back into selective breeding of chickens and heck who know maybe start my own small poultry ranch, farm, whatever! Not to mention I would like a small orchard and berry patch