Stuck into winter

Written by Tom

I’ve been quiet on the blog for the past few weeks as I’ve been away filming the Big Horn Sheep rut on the outskirts of Yellowstone. It’s been a great start to the series but unfortunately for us, we picked one of the coldest weeks I’ve ever known to be filming. 

Up close & personal with the sheep

We were filming in a steep, wind swept, snow-covered canyon in minus 30c for seven days straight waiting for the sheep to start fighting. Fortunately for us they did eventually start rutting which involved hours of the rams sizing each other up, kicking one another between the legs and then suddenly head butting each other when we weren’t looking. It was incredible to watch and once they got started, they seemed to blank out their surroundings which allowed us to get within just a few meters for some incredible footage.

Deep Pow!

Outside of work we’ve been trying to get out on the slopes as much as possible. There was almost a foot of snow last night and I headed up for a morning’s snowboarding with a buddy of ours whilst Shell sadly had to work in the florist.

It was awesome finally getting stuck into snowboarding the famous powder (pow pow!!) of Jackson and now I understand what all the fuss is about. It’s great fun if exhausting on your legs but after the first powder day of the season I’m hooked and looking forward to getting back out on the mountain on Christmas day!

Christmas lights Jackson Style

Jackson has started filling with tourists for the holiday season and everything is looking very festive (much to Shell's delight!). Every building seems to be lit up and despite today being the shortest day of the year, you wouldn't notice it with all the illuminations around town. With Christmas just around the corner it will be the New Year before we know it and we're currently planning a few ski trips to neighbouring States to make the most of the winter. But first, Shell has booked us a table for Christmas dinner at the Four Seasons in town so watch this space for the next update.

Christmas at a Jackson Florist

written by Shell...

So as most of you know, I’m not one to sit around with nothing to do, so I’ve been making myself useful in the lead up to Christmas at a local florist shop in town. Here are my main learnings from the shop so far:

Dozen Red Roses- Jackson Style!

-          -  No shop in Jackson is complete without a shop dog! Ours is called Jack and he welcomes every customer at the door with a wagging tail!

-           - The way that flowers are designed here is very different from what I’m used to back home, hand tied bouquets are almost unheard of, and instead, our main business is short stemmed arrangements in mason jars or short vases. This means that no effort is required to unwrap the flowers or arrange them in a vase on receiving them!

-           -  It’s very common here in Jackson for people to leave their houses unlocked, and when out, people are happy for us to enter their house and leave the flowers on a table for when they return!

            -  Presentation is everything! My gift wrapping skills are fast improving, and here ribbons are used on everything, from arrangements, to gift boxes, to wreaths.  I’ve been rubber stamping gift bags (childhood memories!) and taping ferns onto presents. Let me tell you, we do gift                                                            wrapping in style!

So in the last few weeks it’s been Christmas overload. I’ve unpackaged and ‘ribboned’ about 60 magnolia wreaths that were then shipped off to clients all over the US. I’ve spent several days with my hands in soil potting up amaryllis and paperwhites, and I’ve been merchandising the store as deliveries of different Christmas gifts just keep on arriving. Within 2 weeks of working at the store I’m on first-name terms with the local Fedex driver!

Plenty of space for Santa down that chimney

I’ve also had the opportunity to work on some larger festive projects, as we’re often called on to provide decorations for local shops and businesses. We also spent a few days at a beautiful home installing their Christmas decorations. Just to give you some idea, the Christmas tree took 8 sets of lights and I couldn’t reach the top, even when using a step ladder. My favourite part was decorating their enormous fireplace with these beautiful pines and ilex berries- even if I did have a slight allergic reaction to the foliage- I’m allergic to Christmas it turns out!

The weather here is definitely causing more challenges, one of which was when I spent probably the coldest day of December wiring pine cones onto a garland outside one of the shops in town. At -20c I could only last about 5 minutes at a time with my gloves off, thank goodness it’s got a bit milder in the last week and 2c feels almost tropical now!  

proud forager!

Enough about work, but sticking with the tree theme, here’s a picture of me with our Christmas tree after me and a friend drove into the forest and hiked to find our own perfect trees whilst both our husbands were away. I would love to be able to say that I cut it down myself, but in fact, all hail my lovely friend Joanna for being brave enough to use a chain saw! I’m pretty proud of our girly adventure and our little tree is the perfect size for our mini condo!

Most festive antics to follow soon…

Thanksgiving!

Written by Tom...

This week was Thanksgiving and came with the opening of the Jackson Hole ski resort. One of our friends is writing the blog for the Jackson Hole resort and managed to score us a couple of free passes to the opening day!

The 'Ice Queen'

We rather tentatively got on the slopes in the morning, Shell testing her new skis and I had no idea if I could remember how to snowboard. There’s always a doubt that you’ll remember how to do it but after a few turns we were off! It’s pretty amazing to be able to ski in the place where you live and we had an awesome morning on the slopes.

Fortunately our buddy Ryan is compelled to review the local restaurants for his blog so we ended up grabbing lunch in the slope side restaurant of the Four Seasons. If anyone ever comes to Jackson to visit we’ll take you for a drink up there!

Then off we went for Thanksgiving dinner at my boss’s house. It was great with all the Brain Farm team coming for dinner and everyone bringing a dish along too. I’m lucky to work with a really friendly crowd who are all around the same age as us. The food was incredible with a giant smoked turkey, roast ham, 4 types of mac and cheese plus the richest mash potatoes I’ve ever eaten. Needless to say we all went home incredibly full and I didn’t eat again till the following evening!

Spot the beaver!

This week Shell and I also went down to the local beaver pond, which we’re planning on filming for the show. Shell’s really loving looking for (and sometimes finding) the wildlife over here. To be honest I didn’t think we’d see any beavers but as we rounded the corner we found two hard at work fixing their dam! Their pond was frozen over but you could see the channels they keep clear around the edges as they busy away before the snow comes. It was pretty cool to see and hopefully we’ll have some luck when we come back cameras rolling.

The snow's starting to come down tonight so all the signs are good for an awsome season in the snow! If anyone wants a place to stay and to hit the slopes in Jackson then just give us a call.