Fall II

Saturday November 8 2008

Don't give up on fall here yet... while on the whole, the cottonwood leave colors were lackluster this year, there are a few trees right up our creek that, when the light hits them just right, flame up below the snow-covered Owyhee mountains.

Maybe the last cold snap we had (the one that dumped the snow) helped.

Steph swears she will spend the winter here in Oreana, but I have a feeling, that when I pick her up at the airport after a month in extremely hot and humid Malaysia and the hot desert of Bahrain, she just might unload her bags straight into her horse trailer when she gets home, throw her horses on, and head south to sunny and warm Arizona.

Absolute Redemption

Sunday November 2 2008

The other morning, I came back from a ride on a horse, and the rest of the horses were all in a tizzy, ears pointed up-canyon, noses in the air snorting, tails over backs, and butts backed up as close to the home fences as possible for protection.

Intruders!

Three cows!

It happened not to be the same 3 cows that we cowpokes, John, Connie, and I, failed dismally at trying several times to move out and toward Oreana the other week (see Cowpokes R Us) - but it was three more cows - two mamas and a baby again, and they wanted to get home to Oreana, but were stuck behind our fences.

So later in the day, we two girl cowpokes saddled up our horses - me on Cowhorse Mac, and Connie on Pretty Boy Finneas, hitched up our chaps and buckled on our spurs, and made a plan.

First, we locked our other cow-fearing horses in the hay pen so they wouldn't panic or interfere or try to escape out the gate we'd drive the cows out. Then we opened the gate we were aiming for, and went back and circled 'round the 3 cows, and gently drove them toward the open gate. Mac of course knew just what he was doing, and where to position himself; Connie thinks Finneas must have done some herding in a former life, or earlier in this one, because he seemed to know something about driving cows. However, I noticed he was right on the last cow's tail, like he wanted to rub his face on her - I think he thought the big black cow was his mama.

We really didn't have to do too much - the mamas knew the way home (every year, the cows make their way down from the mountains into Oreana - these just happened to come down the narrows of Pickett Creek Canyon, and they ended up on our land and were fenced in) and they just needed to have the way opened up.

We followed them as they made their way up and over the Tevis ridge, down into and across the Training Wash, up and over Steph's ridge and down into Blond Cow Wash. They followed Blond Cow Wash all the way down to where it intersects Spring Ranch Road. There the cows could have either turned down the road (and had a long roundabout way to get to Oreana, if all the gates were all open), or crossed the road and continue on toward Oreana. Without any more prodding from us, they crossed the road and headed straight to Oreana.

We called and left a message for Rohl that we successfully herded 3 of his cows toward Oreana, and they should be there shortly. Of course we didn't mention our failed attempt on horseback last week with the other 3 cows, and hopefully Rohl hadn't read that story. (John ended up rounding them up with a 4-wheeler and driving them up onto Steph's ridge where they found their way home.) So, now we look like real professional cowgirlpokes. Rohl even called back to thank us.

Heck, he may want to hire us after all, since we're pretty brilliant at moving cows.

(Aside: Of course, it helped that we didn't try rounding up a mean, smart bull that goes through fences, and it helped that we didn't separate the mamas and baby this time. And of course, it helped that the seasoned cows already knew their way home.)

Slaked

Sunday November 2 2008

From pure dust...

to pure mud...

We didn't drown, but we got enough rain to quench the thirst of the desert for a few days. The horses all got down and dirty in the mud/wet sand, the wet sagebrush smells heavenly.

If the drought/rain pattern continues, this will have to last us into next year.

It was glorious!

Glorious!

Saturday November 1 2008

Rain!

Drizzle and rain for much of the day. Which is great since it hasn't rained here along Pickett Creek in the Owyhee Desert since 1942, or thereabouts. (Well, OK, it's rained two days since the spring, one day in May and one day in September).

The insane dust we've had since 1942 (or, at least all summer, and then we had a 3-day respite after the September one-day rainfall), that explodes in the air with every hoofstep, has dissipated, and wet sand/mud is replacing it. So far just the top layer of dust is gone - the horse hooves still leave dry sand underneath, but maybe a few inches of dust and dirt will get wet if this precipitation keeps up - and it's supposed to shower all night and tomorrow.

Gloomy skies don't depress me at all, and they sure don't depress the horses.

Half-brothers Jose and Kazam were ripping around the place and having a jolly good time; Mac had a sensational roll. Steph, do you recognize your once-white horse? Maybe he was trying on his Halloween costume a day late.

Now it's time to go out and do a Rain-Worship dance - like Jose.

Fall

Saturday November 1 2008

Well, the colors haven't been brilliant this year, and we almost went from green leaves straight to brown leaves, but there's an abbreviated little surge of yellow and orange flames on the cottonwoods along the creeks here. The quail bush, rather disappointingly, didn't turn its deep red, but some of the trees are trying their best to make up for it.

The trees in the yard barely turned colors before dropping their leaves - I've really enough leaves already to rake into a big pile and jump into them from the roof... if I were so inclined to rake them all. It's more fun to kick them in the air as you walk through them, or to listen to them crunch beneath your feet. And the horses love to eat the ones that fall on their side of the fence.

But even without the brilliant colors, it's still my favorite time of year: golden sunlight, cool and crisp air, ice in the troughs some mornings, layered riding clothes in the afternoons, leaves falling in a breeze like big rain drops, soft and wooly horse coats that are oven-baked warm when you bury your fingers and face in them.

It's Halloween

Friday October 31 2008

Did you know, horses like to eat pumpkin? Connie carved one and we thought we'd set it out to see what the horses thought of it.

They wanted to eat it, is what they wanted. She had to rescue it.

She got Finneas to stand still a while and put it on his butt. Mac came up to check it out again, and I lunged to grab it just before Mac bit it and knocked it off his butt. It would have made a big splat, because it is a heavy pumpkin. Then Finneas took off - he didn't want anymore to do with any pumpkin he couldn't eat. Pumpkins don't belong on horse butts, thank you very much.

Then we got the dogs to pose with the pumpkin for a picture, which was no mean feat. It took some bribing with treaties. Then Austin almost got his head stuck in the pumpkin trying to get at the treaties. Later the horses got some pumpkin leftover treaties from the carving.

Happy Halloween!

The Purple Stickies

Tuesday October 28 2008

... are not a good sign when you have been gone all day, and they are stuck to your computer to read when you get back, and the writing starts with "Stormy has a big Owie..."

Damn - not again!

Wait - maybe Connie was kidding! Remember she told me a few days ago that Stormy had an abscess on his neck and I better go tend to him in the pen... and I ran out to find him with a present for me wrapped around his neck.

I skipped to the end of the Purple Stickie notes: "(Not kidding)"

Damn!

I skimmed the note: "crusted over... tissue... sweated it... bute... stove pipe leg..."

I ran out to see, and indeed, Stormy was in the pen, with his leg wrapped up below a stove pipe knee.

I took him to the washrack, unwrapped the leg and had a look at it - looks like he got kicked good (DUDLEY!?) - a rather deep cut under the knee joint. Connie cleaned it off well, so I just cold-hosed it some more, cleaned it again with Betadine surgical solution, and re-wrapped it in a furasin sweat with good pressure from the bandage.

He's not lame on it (yet), but he's going to stay locked up a while (AGAIN - just when I started riding him again). He sure didn't mind the doctoring and the sympathy from both of us, and I'm sure he's not going to mind being pampered the next several days.

HORSES!!!