Hot New Sheriff in Town

 

Tuesday November 3 2015

(You can see he's got a sense of humor, too.)

This Hot New Sheriff Dudley

with his Assistant Deputy Cardinal (it's really The Raven!)

tracked 4 WANTED OutLaws 50 miles across the desert in the Owyhee Hallowed Weenies endurance ride.

He apprehended and deposed two at the vet check. He followed the other two over hills,  down washes, across creeks and through old homesteads, 

till they all ran out of gas after a 50 mile chase. 

The Sheriff turned them in, had a good meal,

then hung up his badge on a job well done.

He's not The Sheriff anymore, but he's still Hot.

See more photos and a story from the last endurance ride of the 2015 season here:

http://www.endurance.net/international/USA/2015OwyheeHallowedWeenies/

Have a Stormy (and Raven) Halloween!

Monday October 31 2011

From Stormy and The Raven!

Hula Hula Hula!

Sunday October 31 2010

Hula Dancers (Connie and me, Finneas and Jose - who pinch-danced for Dudley, and another girl and her horse), Argentinean Gauchos (Steph and John), Sponge Bob Square Pantses, a Sheep who kept shedding wool along the trail, a Blue Tiger, a Man in a Black Cape, a Peacock, a couple of Ballerinas in Tutus, a Real Wild West Cowboy and Cowgirl...


Those were some of the Hallowed Weenies riding along the Utter Disaster Trail/Oregon Trail on Day Two of the Owyhee Hallowed Weenies endurance ride. A lone survivor of the Utter Disaster bravely took pulses at the vet checks, and Daisy Mae helped with the timing.


We of the Pickett Creek Brigade were late getting started on the trail again - almost 30 minutes late today. "Are you guys going or not!?" roared Regina the ride manager. We scuttled out onto the trail, hula skirts and Argentinean dreadlocks flapping in the wind.

The Gauchos and Hula Dancers split up, so our horses would be more settled today. Jose was so light in his bridle this morning (though we went along at a faster clip more to his suiting), that after loop 1, much to his delight, he went in a sidepull the rest of the day.


"HULA HULA!" I screamed, whenever we spotted anybody on horseback. We frightened a few horses, who had apparently never seen Hula Dancing Horses and riders before. (Go figure!) Naomi Preston's Karlady pinned her ears at such foolishness when she met us later in the day.


Blue storm clouds and silver virgae dramatized the morning skies and snow showers flirted with the Owyhee mountains, but we dodged the rain all day. We followed a new trail along an impressive rim overlooking some more fantastic Owyhee Badlands,

with Castle Butte looming purple in the east

and the gray buttes along the Snake River floating to the north. Jose was impressed with the scenery, stopping on the hills to look around at the views.


Back at camp for the first vet check, Connie discovered her dog Ben Jovi had locked himself in her car, when she told him to sit, and he sat on the car keys and locked the doors. Jovi could not be made to sit on the keys again to unlock the doors, so Connie and several people tried to unlock the doors through a back cracked window with a lunge whip. In the end, the Ben Jovi was freed, and it was just about time to go back out on the trail.

18-mile loop two, the same old loop that takes us by the Snake River was the same old impressive. Always a different hue, today the Snake was a light silver-blue, reflecting the skies.

We caught up with the Man in the Black Cape, the Blue Tiger, and Lynn and Agnes (dressed as Lynn and Agnes) at the prettiest part of the trail.


The last 12-mile loop 3 took us across the highway into the backside of Oreana. Jose, as always, with his eagle eyes caught all movements in the distance and stopped to stare - trucks, cows, a tiny distant rider on horseback, and the Bates Creek drainage.

We hula'd back to camp as the sun threw our long shadows across the golden fields above basecamp.

I hugged my pal Jose, thanking him for another terrific dance.

(Note: Tani Bates won the 75 on day 1, and the 50 on day 2, both on the same horse! Congrats to Tani and CR Marjan Roars!)

Hula Hula!

Thursday October 28 2010

Dudley stood for his fitting for his Halloween Costume: he wants to be a Horse Hula Dancer! (If he does the 50-mile Halloween ride on Sunday... it's not completely confirmed yet.)




The skirt framework was measured, the first ribbons tied, Dudley helping pick out the next colors.




He actually looks a bit bored here.


We tried it out on the trail in the wind today, and Dudley thought it needed more ribbons.


We'll work on it tonight. (I might even be persuaded to go as a Hula Dancer, if only to wear a hula skirt to match Dudley's - forget the bikini top or coconuts.)

Hallowed Weenies Day 1: Fairies on the Prairie

Saturday October 31 2009

Just give endurance riders the slightest excuse to get together, and they'll do it. Add in a near full moon, and a chance to play dress-up, and you end up with the 2-day Hallowed Weenies endurance ride at the end of the season in the Owyhee Desert.

And with it being Halloween, there were some scary things to worry about on the 50 and 25 mile trails: Day 1 you rode by "Dead Cow Farm" - an abandoned and rather creepy dairy; by the Idaho Ecology site - the P.C. name for the toxic waste dump near the Snake River; on a sloped trail right by a barbed wire fence; over an old bombing range; and during hunting season. Day 2 you rode over the site of the Utter Disaster Massacre, and, since not quite all of the last bit of trail had completely gotten marked, some of us got lost out there, and it's still hunting season. Yeah.

But the creatures still came out in Halloween droves. There were Fairies on the prairie, many Come to Save the World - a Musketeer, a Crusader, Zorro, an Oreana Cowboy (wait - that was a REAL Oreana Cowboy - Shane pulled Mary's stuck truck out of the sand while she was off riding in the LD), a Star Wars Jawa ("I can't abide those Jawas. Disgusting creatures!" said C3PO - who can quote that entire movie with me?), a skeleton (the horse), a soccer ball (the horse) and referee, Gumby & Pokey, Michael Jackson (who worked as our in and out timer), Where's Waldo, a college graduate, two pink flamingos, Pocahontas, a clown, an angel, of course a devil (someone stole the devil's cape and became impromptu Little Red Riding Hood), monsters, a drunken man on a mule, and Argentinean vaqueros. Steph commented later, "These were ADULTS! - this is GREAT!"

Even the Raven participated, dressing up as a Cardinal! (Someone, I'm not saying who, actually made that bird a costume!).

The Musketeer came all the way from New York City (New York City!) to ride. Sandra Fratelliere rode Steph and John's mare Sunny on her first 50, and it was Sandra's first ride in the Pacific Northwest.

The two pink flamingos were shedding feathers their entire 25 miles... some day a BLM bird biologist will be hiking out there, discover some pink feathers, and be amazed that pink flamingos have inhabited the Owyhee desert! The feathers actually served an extra purpose; since there weren't an abundance of pink ribbons to mark the trail (commented one rider), the pink feathers served as markers for those in doubt of their directions.

And Day One was all-new Owyhee trails. Basecamp was Regina Rose's house down the road from Oreana. Riders took off south, across the highway, up Birch Creek wash, (had a vet check), did a loop through scenic Birch Creek Canyon, (had a vet check), and back home. The LD's hauled out to the vet check to start and did their two loops, through Birch Creek Canyon, (had a vet check), then did a shorter out-and-back loop to finish.

After the awful weather the week before (that is just one point of view!) of wind, cold, rain, and a bit of snow - the weather was just perfect (a unanimous point of view): cool and partly sunny all day, and minimal wind. And the sunset was spectacular.

And even more spectacular was the dinner (for the second night in a row), cooked by Oreana neighbors Amy and Shane and Jessica and Isaac Riley and a couple of their friends. The indoor arena where we ate sounded like the Riley fan club: "OMG!" "This is soooooo good!" "I'm coming back next year just for the dinners!" And the family came around making sure you went back for seconds. Which was almost impossible after the huge firsts they heaped on your plate, but I think everybody managed. And then there was the dessert... The food truly was stunning (both nights) after a long working/riding/outdoor day.

All the scary trail obstacles were conquered with no problems. However Gary Pegg's Tennessee Walker stallion Gus's Mountain Mack, in the middle of the 18-mile loop of the LD, colicked. There was nothing for Gary to do but keep riding him, forcing him to walk in - if he got off to walk, the horse tried to go down. Annerose Carlile and her horse stayed with them; as soon as they got Gus in to the vet check the vets treated him and stabilized him, and he got hauled off to a clinic, where he immediately went into surgery. Awful news for everybody.

And our horse Rushcreek Mac wasn't quite right after he finished the 50. After it got dark, he was standing off by himself, away from Rhett and Jose and Sunny, not eating, and looking dull. Steph went to get the vet, Robert Washington; he checked Mac out and found a small compaction in the colon, but nothing he was terribly worried about. Robert gave Mac some tranquilizers, and stomach tubed him with oil and electrolytes. John sat up with him in the dark and cold, until Mac suddenly snapped out of it. We kept him separated (and Sandra got up to check on him in the middle of the night), and he was fine in the morning.

Next day: I get to ride Jose!!!