Surface & Surface Photography

This is Cowboy Way Ranch and Vacation. This year, 2008, Norm and Trish Brackenbury along with their large family are providing guided adventures for those to experience and feel a working cattle ranch in the prairies and hills of Westmoreland, Pottawatomie County, Kansas, on their nearly 1000 acre spread.

The first tour was a prairie burn on April 19, 2008. Also, this year there will be scheduled challenging horse trail rides and cattle roping. As guests, Preston and I were there to experience their side of life in a magnificent prairie burn.

To start the event, we were met at the entrance and began our adventure in a wagon ride pulled by a tractor to the campground where a Mulligan stew supper awaited. The stew had been slow cooked in a large kettle.

The hot stew was stirred by a special paddle and ladled up in cooking pots to eat. That’s the tradition.

The Mulligan stew is a tomato based stew with all kinds of vegetables and shredded meat. The excellent tasting stew was served with plenty of crackers and bread along with iced tea.

As we all sat around in a circle eating our pots of stew at the campground, Norm Brackenbury explained what was ahead for the prairie burning.

This was a new experience for Preston and I. The gracious Brackenbury’s and family were not only a joy to talk and be with, they provided a first hand experience of their way of life and the feel of up close prairie burn.

Preston and I will be posting more photos of the grand adventure throughout this week as there was much to do and see. The burnings were magnificent to behold and be a part of from evening throughout the night with a full moon overhead and coyotes yip-yipping. The Brackenbury’s does definitely have something going here at Cowboy Way Ranch and Vacation. There, one can experience an adventure so fully and vividly, one isn’t likely to forget.

For more about this adventure, please see Preston’s post: Cowboy Way Ranch and Vacation - Westmoreland, Kansas

Many more photos to come of the prairie afire, a sudden whirlwind in the burn, prairie fire lady, prairie fire cowboy, and the prairie blazing under a full moon…

Please see my post, Kansas Prairie Burn to learn more about the history and why of controlled burns.

Copyright © 2008 by Anna Surface. All Rights Reserved.