Empire ranch

(Isn't she beautiful?)
Last weekend our family went out to Empire Ranch.
Back in my day we knew ranchers. They came to the church and would often times let us (my sister and me, my brother never had interest in playing with farm animals) come 'help' on the ranch or ride horses. Didn't matter which church, in OK ranches are fairly common.
In AZ that's another story. And being military, we don't have many opportunities to meet the few ranchers that are here. So we drove a solid hour through the beautiful desert to go to the Empire Ranch open house. Plan was to show the kiddos what life is like in the middle of nowhere!

So we put Karis to work.

Shhh! Don't tell her it's work - she was having a blast!

She liked the wheat grinder best.

She was shy at first.
And the girl says she loves horses.
Would like to buy one.
I don't think the military would issue one to us though.
Which means we probably won't be getting one soon.

Within a minute or two she got the courage to put her hand on it's back.

Silas just ran up and got friendly!

You can tell my kids haven't been around horses much, huh?
And ranches? Yeah, I get it.

I know what you're thinking. The answer is yes.
Trees that big actually do grow in southern Arizona.
On a ranch. In a wash.