Remembering Brenda and Mac

Thursday April 23 2015

This spring, with the Sunflowers exploding over the Owyhee desert in riotous glory, I remember Brenda and Mac.


I don't know much about mules. What I do know came from just two mules: training rides on Melissa and Robert Ribley's tough and smart little Murrtheblur (he has over 3700 AERC miles), and from Brenda the pack mule in my Forest Service Sierra Nevada pack string. Brenda was the best mule to teach a greenhorn packer (me) how to pack. She was terribly smart and patient and forgiving.


Brenda loved big sunflowers (appropriately named Mule's Ears: genus Wyethia, sunflower family). She'd be tied to the end of the pack string, sometimes carrying a 200+ pound load, dancing lightly on her dainty mule toes, darting off the trail to snatch a mouthful of the yellow flowers, never pulling the slack out of her lead rope tied to the horse ahead of her.


She was about 24 when I left the Forest Service 8 years ago. I lost touch with her; the FS was thinking about getting rid of their whole string. I like to think she's still out there around Bridgeport, California, with her aging herd, treating herself to the delicacies of her favorite flower in the springtime.


Rushcreek Mac came from the Rushcreek Ranch in Nebraska. Steph Teeter got him when he was around 8 years old. He came as a working cow horse - he didn't know anything about treats or horse hugs. He was mostly John T's mount, but I got to ride him some 265 endurance miles over the years. He was turning into an awesome endurance horse. Mac even got overall Best Condition when I got to ride him in the 3-day 2013 Owyhee Fandango.

Mac loved big sunflowers (Arrowleaf Balsamroot: Balsamrohiza sagittata, sunflower family). If you didn't let him stop to eat his fill out on the trail, he'd artfully snatch them up as he walked or trotted by, doing the Mule's Ear Dance just like Brenda did.


Some girls wear flowers in their hair? Mac often had them hanging out of his mouth.

And then one day that summer, Mac showed up with the herd dead lame. Steph took him to the clinic where they found he had broken his left elbow. How the hell…!? Running and fell down? Rolled over on something? Playing too hard with Jose? That pretty much was the beginning of the end. He had a few months to heal up, to see if he might at least make it as a trail horse one day. He did get better, but the lameness would come and go, and that shoulder atrophied from his compromised use. He didn't seem to be in pain, and he certainly wasn't unhappy. But last fall, he suddenly became very lame again. Uncomfortable enough on that left side, that at some point you'd have to worry about him foundering in the right front foot. Steph made the sad but wise decision to have him put down, before things got bad.


I had enough days left to hang out extra with Mac, and spoil him with lots of treats and horse hugs. He didn't mind at all.

Steph took him to the clinic to be put down, but I kept some of his tail hairs. When Steph planted two trees over Rhett's grave, we put a few tail hairs with each tree, so Mac and Rhett could hang out together Over the Rainbow Bridge, eating treats and Mule's Ears together.

Maybe they'll run into Brenda out there.

Equine Paris Hilton Extensions

Tuesday October 1 2013

Mac went and lost most of his tail to a few short inches, from flipping it so much at flies.

So I made him a new one.

Thanks to our farrier Linda Black who suggested it to me!

The supplies needed: rubber bands for securing the tail braid, baling twine, vet wrap, and horse.


Mac and his sad little tail.


Very short and pretty useless!


Braid the tail, making sure to leave it loose enough from the bottom of the tail bone.


Secure the braid with a rubber band or 2.


There are different ways to do this, but this is how I did it: slip the strands of baling twine through the top of the braid so that they hang evenly.


If the tail is long enough, you can flip it up through the 'hole' at the top of the braid and back down the front (be sure you aren't putting any pressure on the tail bone), and start wrapping the whole shebang with vet wrap.


Also run the vet wrap at least once through the 'hole' at the top of the braid.


There you go.


Make sure you cut the length so he doesn't step on his new tail.



The perfect equine tail extensions - yet another great use for baling twine. Paris Hilton, eat your heart out!


 

Rushcreek Mac: The Character

Thursday May 30 2013

He had zero personality when he first arrived here as an 8-year-old from Rushcreek Ranch in Nebraska. Steph had gone to Rushcreek Ranch several years ago to do a story, and came home with the horse. "A real pistol," they'd called him on the ranch. Steph rode him at the Ranch and called him "an awesome mover."

When he arrived in Owyhee, Rushcreek Mac didn't know anything about hugs or pets or treats (he wouldn't touch carrots or horse cookies); he was a working horse - period. He opened and closed gates with you on his back with perfection; he did not react when you changed clothes on his back or tossed things from the saddle. He did what you asked: he stood until you asked him to move, he moved until you asked him to stop. He did his job and that was that.

At first he didn't interact much with our home herd - you could tell he was used to being in a herd and he was used to looking after himself and staying out of trouble, but he didn't put up with much guff.

It wasn't too long though before Mac started to blossom in the character department.

Pretty soon he wasn't ignoring treats, he was nudging my arm so I'd put my hand in my pocket and pull out the treat that he knew was in there, and hand it over. Pretty soon he started demanding carrots with just a look in his eyes.

Pretty soon he started playing with Jose (the Owyhee Social Director - nobody can resist playing with Jose!); and pretty soon Mac became the most ardent, feistiest, roughhousingest companion of the herd.

Mac and Jose played often and they played hard, biting, ripping hide, rearing and clashing, and finding toys to play with together. Masks were always a fine toy, especially when one was ripped off the other horse's head first.

Cardboard boxes and sticks and brooms made fine toys also.


He'd grab a feed tub away from other horses, and he'd reach out and grab one out of my hands as I was walking by.

He's the biggest Pig-pen of a horse that ever existed. Of course dirt shows up on grays best, but Mac doesn't just get down and roll - he'll roll a dozen times in a row, making sure he gets every single spot covered in dirt.


While Steph got Mac mainly to be John's riding horse, as the de facto endurance horse conditioner here, I did a lot of the trail riding and conditioning on Mac.

As it does with me and all horses, it took me a while to really figure Mac out. He went through some changes over time… first he seemed bored with the long distance riding and no cows; then he got a bit balky and spooky; then he became afraid of cows; he became a follower, and not much of a go-out-solo horse.

There was the time I did take him out solo, and he was trotting along just fine when a damn chukkar flew up out of a sagebrush right up his nose. Now I know for sure Mac would save his own hide before he'd save mine if it came down to a choice, and anyway who could blame him for spooking at an exploding chukkar like that… but I do give Mac credit for standing stock still while I, half hanging off his side and struggling to hang on and pull myself back upward before having to admit defeat and call it a forced dismount, clawed my way back on the top of Mac's back. He could have totally deposited me in the sand there, but he waited for me to climb back on top and settle into the saddle properly before we went on our way.

He'll scrunch up his chin and clamp his lips together when he's worried about something, like thunder, or trail gremlins. And while he might spook from something like an imagined cougar in a scary tangle of sagebrush, he's no dummy: he'll cut corners on trails (particularly on 2-track logging roads) - conserving the ground over which he must travel. He'll also cut off another horse while he's trotting along, preventing that horse from passing, to intimidate him.


Eventually Mac became a decent leader of a group on the trail, when it was his idea. Force him to take the lead, especially at the beginning of a ride, and he'll still balk and spook and jump and plant it; but later in the ride, when Mac decides he wants to take the lead, he flies, fast, sure-footed, no spooking, no messing around.


It's been several years since I've ridden Mac in an endurance ride; I got to ride him all 3 days of the Owyhee Fandango end of May. He was phenomenal! It was his first ride of the year and he covered the 160 miles over the 3 days, smooth and steady, and with that ever-efficient, effortless, all-day trot. The vets noticed his competence: Mac won the unofficial Best Condition award of the five horses that completed all 3 days of the ride!


While he's a fun ride, I never let my guard down on him. In the Fandango he threw a fit and almost went to bucking once when his stablemate Sunny took a different turn towards home; he almost spooked off a narrow hillside trail above the Snake River when some campers across the river fired off some gunshots (Mac hates gunshots); he bolted with me when the thunder canon-cracked from one of the scary storm clouds dogging us on Day 3 (neither of us like thunder!).

Mac and I are both scared of the storm clouds!

At the vet checks Mac grazed right next to where I was sitting down in grass, close enough to touch me with his nose.

When I tried to sneak away to get my own food he'd follow me. If I pulled out some peanut butter crackers to snack on while riding he stopped in the middle of the trail and turned his head to eyeball me and wait for me to share with him.


He's an entertaining Character, a fun ride, this Rushcreek Mac. And you can see by this bottom photo how impressed he is with himself and his Best Condition award.

We Are The Chosen Ones

Friday May 17 2013

"60% chance showers likely" doesn't hold much weight with me, when the forecast is for the Owyhee desert in the summer. The desert and I have been disappointed too many times. Most often any rain will hang over the Owyhee mountains and not quite make it down here, 6 miles away. I do, however, take heed any time there are thunderstorms in the forecast… there was a chance today, after noon.

Carol and I rode Zeb and Mac on a 20 mile ride this morning, with rain clouds over the Owyhees, but with not much fear of getting wet.

Just as we were riding down our last hill near home around noon at the end of our ride, the mountain rain was definitely coming our way; we were just starting to feel a few sprinkles. It looked like our desert might indeed get a little refreshing shower.

There were also two very dark and ominous blue clouds heading directly for us that I did not like the suspicious thunderstormy looks of.

Sure enough, as soon as I started untacking Mac at the house, it started raining. Mac finished his grain meal and I turned him loose just as the skies opened up with a Malaysia-like monsoon rain.

It DUMPED, hurling cascades of water and spitballs of hail. I huddled under a cottonwood tree, enjoying the saturated chaos around me, debating about running through the downpour to the tack room, when I was encouraged to take the run option by a cannon of thunder that cracked across the sky.

I half-sprinted, half-danced through the glorious bombardment of rain and hail to the shelter of the tack room, and stood at the door mesmerized, thrilled by the foreign deluge and torrents launched from heaven to earth.


The horse herd turned their butts to the pelting drops, heads to the ground, while the parched desert ground became lakes, rushing rivers, and floods.

As the dark storm cloud and thunder moved northward, new streams

joined old creeks

to swirl and twirl in a colorful rushing dance downstream.


The horses headed for their favorite dirt pile, to 'wash off' the rain with several celebratory rolls in the sand.





We all felt very special, horses and humans and desert, the Chosen Ones who experienced this delightful desert downpour.

Yes, this was my clean white riding horse

Fluffy Comes to Dinner

Sunday December 16 2012 

I named him Fluffy. What choice did I have?

He came down from the mountains in the falling snow. Food is scarce up there. Water scarcer. I knew he was on his way when the horse herd flipped out, big snorts, heads popping up over the brush high in the air, 

running toward the guest,

then away, 

then in circles, 

then away again,

then circling the wagons.

He bulled his way through a fence onto our acres, then wandered down the road toward the house looking somewhat bewildered at the horses' reactions. He was, after all, 4-legged just like them.

He was a young bull, 2 or 3 years old, not too concerned by a human on foot getting closer and closer, so either he's wise beyond his young age, or he's decidedly unworldly and innocent yet.

I waved at him to follow me, and he did, on down the road to the house where I opened the electric white tape fence for him (so he wouldn't just walk right through it and bust it). He passed through the gate, which I closed behind him since the horse herd was now hot on his heels, 

and he made himself at home around the house: a drink in the crick, morsels of green grass on the horse pasture (he popped through the white tape fence to get on there), hors d'oeuvres of green hay leftover in the wheelbarrows, 

picnic on the back yard lawn. It was a haven for a young bull lost and alone in a snowstorm.

He was itchy, oh so terribly itchy, and found the rough bark of our cottonwood trees excellent for scratching that thick fluffy head and thick hide of his. He looked so vulnerable scratching his itches.

He tuned in to my frequent visits and conversations; he puzzled over the horses' strange reaction to his presence in their reserved pasture. Tex remained on permanent high alert during Fluffy's meanderings, 

and on one occasion when Fluffy wandered back into the horses' grass pasture, the rest of the herd took sudden interest in him (especially with a sturdy wooden fence separating them), particularly Mac the former cow horse who is now afraid of cows.

Eventually the horses got bored with Fluffy and they went back to eating their hay. At one point Austin the crippled dog thought he'd go out and have a conversation with Fluffy before I called him off and sent him back up on the porch.

Fluffy had a grand time meandering the Owyhee rancho, grazing here, scratching there, making himself at home. I tossed some hay out for him in the front pasture - and opened the gate so he could come and go, so he wouldn't bust the tape fencing. He may as well stay for dinner, if the local rancher doesn't make it out tonight to fetch him home.

And then I started to wonder when was the last time I've had steak for dinner. Now, where's my knife and fork?