Ranch History Podcast: Episode 1

Episode 1: Introductions and Background

This post is the first in a series which is the ranch's first every Podcast series! Western Pleasure Guest Ranch is family owned and operated. Our history goes back over a century here on this piece of North Idaho paradise. To honor that history and to record it for generations to come, I am excited to take on the project of recording the stories of my Grandparents, Jim and Virginia Wood. In this ranch history podcast series, I will be interviewing my grandparents as they tell their stories about growing up, ranching, raising a family and living life on the ranch.

Transcript

Danielle: 00:01 Introduction of Danielle

Hello and welcome to this first-ever podcast for the Western Pleasure Guest Ranch, From the Horse's Mouth blog. My name is Danielle and I live and work here at the ranch. My parents are the owners, so I grew up here on the ranch. When you work on a family-owned operation, whether it be a ranch or any business, that means that you kind of have to wear a lot of hats and so I do wear a lot of hats. In the summertime I work as a wrangler, mostly working with the children that come and visit the ranch with the children's program. My other kind of main job is being the marketing manager for the ranch, and so part of that is that I write the blog on the website. I maintain the website and I love to write. Doing a podcast is definitely a new thing for me, but I'm excited about the possibilities that it brings in sharing stories with everyone who visits our website, visits our ranch, and I'm really excited about that.

Danielle: 01:07 History of Jim and Virginia Wood

I actually represent the fifth generation to live and work on this ranch property and I'm the sixth generation to live here on Gold Creek Road. My daughter and son are the seventh generation to live here on Gold Creek Road. That kind of brings me to the inspiration for wanting to do this podcast. So my grandparents, Jim and Virginia Wood are currently 90 and 91 years old. My grandpa and grandma used to run the ranch here as a cattle operation and there is so much story and background that goes with their adventures of running a cattle ranch in North Idaho and how they got here when grandpa and his family moved here when my grandma was actually born here. So her story is amazing as well and so that is my inspiration for wanting to do this podcast. It's to kind of give you a background and history for what our foundation is here and where we came from, where Western Pleasure Guest Ranch came from.

Danielle: 02:21 Why I'm Doing this Project

So I'm really excited to do this project because there's just an infinite amount of amazing stories that my grandparents have and they are more than willing to share. Then the other side of that is that having those stories recorded so that they aren't lost. I have a large family, my grandparents had four sons and a daughter. So we have a large family and just having those stories of theirs recorded is going to be amazing for our family as well. So I wanted to give you all kind of a little bit of a preliminary background on grandma and grandpa and their story so that as we get into this series and you're hearing their stories, you kind of have a reference point for where we're coming from with some of those stories. My plan is to start at their childhood and then just move forward chronologically through their lives with the interviews that I do with them.

Danielle: 03:23 More Specific Jim and Virginia History

So I want to give you a little background. Grandma, like I said, Virginia Wood was born here. She was actually born in Sandpoint but her family lived here on Gold Creek. She has an amazing story herself because her mother actually passed away when she was less than a year old and she was raised by her grandparents for a lot of her childhood. So that has a great impact on her story as well. So she has lived on Gold Creek Road. She lived on Gold Creek Road up until the 70s. So she has some amazing stories about life on the ranch and the ranch itself comes from my grandpa's side of the family and my grandpa is Jim Wood. He and his family moved here from Colorado in 1940. I'm also going to be asking him a lot about the backstory to that, why his parents chose to move from Colorado, what that trip was like and what it was like arriving here and starting this grand new adventure, this great new life here on upper Gold Creek.

Danielle: 04:35 My Gratitude for My Grandparents

So I'm really excited to interview them and get their story and share that with you. Their story impacts every single one of the people in my family. None of us would be where we are today if it wasn't for the fact that they put in the hard work, and made the sacrifices, and struggled, and fought and did all that they could to create this amazing life that they've carved out here in North Idaho. I just can't thank them enough for what they've done for our family, for me, because I am part of that family. It's just priceless. The work and the work ethic that they have and that they instilled in their children and their grandchildren. Their parents, so my grandparent's parents, had enough of a pioneer spirit that they came to set up life in a place that was unknown.

Danielle: 05:41 Conclusion

There wasn't a safety net. They didn't have a safety net to fall into. So it's just really inspiring, their story and what they did to get to where they are today. So I hope that you'll join me on these upcoming interviews where I will be interviewing my grandma and grandpa, Jim and Virginia Wood, and getting their story about their lives, about the stories of growing up and the stories of living life here in North Idaho. The challenges that they met, the joys that they had, the scares that they had, the fun that they had. I'm just really looking forward to hearing those stories and I'm so excited to share those with you. So until next time, we'll see you then.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and listen. I am excited to share this ranch history podcast series featuring my grandparents, Jim and Virginia Wood. If you have your own questions that you would like to have Jim or Virginia answer, please post it in the comments below and I will do my best to work it into one of the episodes. For more information about the ranch history and our family visit the About the Ranch page.