Owyhee Spring Showers

Tuesday April 16 2012

The Owyhee spring always brings the unpredictable weather: WIND, rain showers, sun, cold, WIND, thunderstorms, and the stealth snowstorm.


Twisted as I am, I was the only one on the whole crick who woke up thrilled to see a surprise layer of white on the ground this morning (possibly including the horses).

These are MY kind of spring showers!

Owyhee Tough Sucker I

April 6 2013

It was another lovely ride on my pal Jose, with good friends and great trails, under cool and cloudy and rainy and sunny and stormy skies, in the first local endurance ride of the season!

Jose vetting in with Robert the vet

An imaginative Owyhee trail marker

Steph and John up on the Hallelujah Ridge Trail

Jose doing his thang - observing the scenery and deep thinking

Headed to Wild Horse Butte

The Snake River

Steph and Rhett, me and Jose above the Snake River

We rode in an awesome desert-gulping rainstorm, enough to make the footing slick-snot slippery

And the sun came back out

And another storm cloud came!

See The Rest Of The Story and more ride pictures on Endurance.net:

http://www.endurance.net/international/USA/2013ToughSucker/

The Turquoise Bead

Friday March 29 2013

It's rather ironic that a person who's deathly afraid of lightning can't hear thunder. When I can hear thunder, it's already too late and I am much too close to the lightning. (And I can't always depend on my riding partners… they know I'm afraid of lightning, so they don't always mention it when they hear thunder, thinking they might be doing me a favor.)

With the absence of one sense, however, I have learned to use my senses of sight and intuition to recognize thunderstorms by interpreting the aspirations of clouds: by the color, the size, the shape, the intent.

Even the slightest inkling of a section of a poofy cloud of a possible thunderstorm, and my neck hairs are alert and ready to stand on end, and the cloud is guilty before proven innocent. I can now sniff out and spot a thunderstorm and its direction of travel two states away.

Knowing I like to read, and knowing I'm afraid of lightning, my aunt Carolyn sent me a lovely book, The Anthropology of Turquoise, and pointed out a part mentioning that traditionally the Navajo wore a turquoise bead in their hair to protect them from lightning.

Well.

Seeing that I have been caught out totally exposed in half a dozen terrifying (to me) lightning storms, and seeing that I still can't seem to avoid encountering lightning storms here in Owyhee on horseback, I contacted my friend PJ, who just happened to have some real turquoise beads, and she sent a handful to me and Jose.



I tied a tiny turquoise bead onto Jose's bridle, so that we never go on a ride without it.

But after riding Mac yesterday with 2 very suspicious-looking dark rain clouds near the end of our ride (but no turquoise bead on Mac's bridle), and after riding Jose today into another almost-suspicious rain shower cloud (with a forecast of 20% chance of scattered thundershowers), I got to thinking.


I wondered if a bead tied to the bridle would even work, or does it have to be tied to hair? If it does work tied to Jose's bridle, will the turquoise bead protect us both? Does the bead have to be in my hair? Does Jose have to wear one in his hair too? Or does it even work for white people anyway? (Or at least white people interested in and respectful of the Navajo culture?)

Further investigation says a turquoise bead was fastened to a lock of hair to safeguard against snakebite (which would also be handy here… I was almost bitten by a baby rattlesnake in Brown's Creek Canyon last fall, and I encountered a record 10 or so rattlesnakes last year).

It's already that time of the year with the unpredictable spring weather - wind, rain showers, heat, freezing temperatures, spitting snow, and thunderstorms.

I think to be on the safe side, I'll just dig out those other turquoise beads and add two more to my daily riding gear - one for my hair, one for Jose's hair. Between those 2 turquoise beads and the one permanently attached to his bridle, we might stay safe. Can't hurt, and it might help!

Batten Down the Hatches

Wednesday May 25 2011

Hurry Finneas, we gotta get going early to get 10 miles of trail flagged before the gusty winds and rain and storm front and possible thunderstorms get here!


My job is to mark the trail with ribbons, while Finneas' job is to sample the lush grass along the way. The grass is so thick in places that I can't find the trail we ride regularly. We have to do a lot of backtracking to either move ribbons or just pick a way through all the grass. Finneas doesn't mind because it means more sampling for him.


The wind is starting to blow stiffly as we top the sharp ridge above Hart Creek; and as we drop into our home canyon the wind is stronger. We get home just as the dust, then the rain starts to obliterate the Owyhee mountains.

The wind is gusting now, tending more towards gales. The horses have their butts to the wind and spitting rain, tails tucked under their butts, heads to the ground, hunkering down. Steph finally makes it back from marking trail on the ATV, exhausted from the wind, and frustrated once again by more trail sabotage.

By evening, gales are ripping across and through the two canyons - sure glad we are not riding up on the flats right now. The confused storm clouds spit rain. The wind swirls from the north and the clouds shove their way into the wind.


Then the wind stops. I step outside and see some rather unnerving-looking clouds, like nothing I've ever seen in southern Idaho before. Either I've been watching too many news videos of the awful tornadoes and devastation in the Mid-West and South, or these clouds really do look like they could harbor more than a thunderstorm. Streaks go one way, waves and bubbles move the other. I watch them a while, mesmerized and a bit nervous.

With the ride starting on Friday, over a dozen people have arrived already, running ahead of the storm. Hopefully the horses and trailers won't blow away, and hopefully I tied all those trail ribbons on the bushes tightly enough!

[Slide show here]

Owyhee Home Again

Tuesday April 20 2010

I'd just driven up to the home ranch yesterday morning, after two weeks away in California and Nevada, when Carol flagged me down. "Get changed! Karen's coming and we're going riding!"

I parked, unpacked my helmet and chaps and reins, caught and hugged and saddled Jose, and off we went for a ride. It was great to be back in the saddle after one whole day out of it! : ) And it was great to be back on Jose. : )


And Jose and his pals Rusty and Suz had a good time on the ride, because the ride was more of a Pig Out than a Work Out. So much grass has exploded out here in the desert in the two weeks I've been away, we just had to give in and let the horses feast a while. We did at least get a little bit of a workout in on the way home. Back at the ranch, I gave Jose a bath, he had a good roll, and cantered off to his herd.


So much more new growth and changes in Owyhee occurred while I was away.

Two babies at Lost Juniper Ranch next door: LJ Owyhee Crystal and LJ Owyhee Flint.


Stoney is on a mission to get back together with his girlfriends. It's that time of year.


The bird nests on Bates Creek are going great guns!

The eagle is on her nest! The other nests are all occupied, including a Raven nest, 2 red-tailed hawk nests, and this great horned owl nest. I thought I was looking at two adults sitting in the tree, but when I blew up the picture, you can see it's one adult, and 2-3 good-sized babies!


And today, a spring Owyhee storm front is blowing through - cold wind, gusts, rain, hail, thunder, lightning. The wind is howling and whirling about from all directions.

The three Hoodlums in the 'Pen are perturbed at the storm, turning their butts to the rain and hail, putting their heads to the ground, then rolling and running about, shaking their heads at the sky as if shaking their fists.

The other herd is spinning about like the wind, sprinting



and leaping before the gales, their tails and manes blowing ahead of them and sideways. Leaves fly upward, birds silly enough to try to fly are blown sideways through the sky, and tumbleweeds leap the pasture in a single bounce. A strong gust makes the horses wheel as one and all show the wind their butts. Then they leap off into another whirling dervish.



Definitely not a good day to be riding. : )

The newly sprouting leaves and branches sing harmony in the wind, and the wet earth and sage smell sweetly of home.

It's great to be back again.