After writing an article about a scrapbooking event at White Pines Ranch in Oregon, IL, I realized that I hadn’t really published any articles about this special place. What makes White Pines Ranch special? Well, for me, I worked there for nine years and lived on the ranch for almost five of them. For other people it is where they worked and/or had some amazing learning experiences through summer camp, girl scouts, the outdoor education program or horseback riding. Here is how living at the ranch came to be.
Going back several years, my husband and I were engaged, and were visiting his family in Northern Illinois for a weekend. I said I felt like finding a place to go horseback riding, so I looked in the yellow pages. I found the number for and called White Pines Ranch, making reservations for a ride in the afternoon. Arriving a bit early, one of the owners came out to talk to me and my fiancé.
It came to be that the ranch was looking for an instructor for their Outdoor Education Program, starting in the fall, and the woman asked if I would be interested in the position. My husband and I were to be married late summer and moving to the little town of Oregon, IL, and I didn’t have a job yet. I told Sue I was interested and would come back for an interview. So we had our horseback ride, which was fun and exciting for me since I have had a love of horses since I was a little girl. I also had a potential job in the same day.
I got that job as an Outdoor Education instructor and taught children from first to eighth grade about ecology, geology, aquatics, orienteering, team building skills, among other topics. I also was a camp counselor during the summer being responsible for kids staying a week at a time, taking them swimming, doing crafts, going on mud hikes, doing skits, and many other activities. I also worked in the kitchen and prepared pounds of food – and got to clean up after thousands of meals. I got to clean bathrooms after guests stayed – which boys are much dirtier than girls – there is no question in my mind.
Realizing I needed a break from teaching and managing large groups of children (school teachers deserve every day of summer break!), I was assigned to the work crew during the last few summers I worked at White Pines Ranch. I learned to use a chainsaw, drive tractors, build fence, take down fence, mow hay, and use a hammer quite well. I loved driving the tractors (a John Deere 4020 and a large International – can’t remember the model) and liked being able to complete jobs around the ranch without having to call for male assistance.
The BEST thing was getting paid to horseback ride. As mentioned earlier, I’ve had a love of horses for years, so getting to work with a herd of 70+ horses was an amazing opportunity. Getting paid to horseback ride was, hmmm, what’s the word – awesome! I would say probably 90% of the time was fun and enjoyable, with the other 10% was not due to really bad weather, grumpy people, and well, things just going badly. Working with the horses was also hard work and at the same time extremely gratifying. Grooming, saddling, assisting people on and off horses, educating them, talking them through situations while riding (I have some stories there!), unsaddling, feeding, and scooping lots of manure equals a lot of hard work and sweat. The bonus of that were fit arms, thighs and a flat stomach – I miss those days!
When the owners of White Pines Ranch asked my husband and me if we would live in the house on the property, we were honored and excited. We lived there for almost five years, acquiring two cats, a dog, and a horse of my own along the way. It was also where my two children lived during the early years of their childhood and gained a large, extended family. I was thinking about that the other day – how many kids can say they lived on a dude ranch? They were around horses, tractors, farming equipment, thousands of kids, fresh country air – all in their 200 acre backyard.
We still visit White Pines Ranch when we can and it will always be a special place in our hearts. If you are in northern Illinois and want to go for a horseback ride, stop by and have some fun. And when you pass that brick house on the right as you enter the property, that is where many special memories were created for me.
Sources:
Personal experience
http://www.whitepinesranch.com/pages/default.htm
