Bill and Juanita, owners of Allenspark Lodge B&B, are living their dream...

running a successful business and riding as often as possible.



Friday, May 2, 2014

I Went to Prison Today

This is Bill.

This morning I went to prison.  Colorado's state penitentiary down in Canon City.  Our oldest daughter and her husband took me.

They took me to get my opinion on who they should try to have released, and bring home with them.

The Bureau of Land Management has a mustang holding facility at the state pen, and runs a wild horse training program using the inmates to help train and care for the animals.  The BLM rounds up the overages in the wild herds, and tries to get homes for them.  My mustang, Ranger, was held in this program for a bit.  He hadn't been worked with though, as he was already a cranky old turd.




We arrived at the front gate with a list of "dos" and "don'ts".  No knives or other weapons, cell phones, radios, cameras, green or orange or camo or grey shirts. No cleavage.

No knife?  Arrg!  I walk with a limp if I don't have my Leatherman on my belt.

The no camera thing was hard.  I blog, and pics make the post.

Cell phones as contraband?  No problem.  I don't have cell service at home, so I rarely carry the thing.

Shirt colors was something of a problem for me.  It seems if you go by shirt color, I usually dress as an inmate or guard.

No cleavage?  Let me check.  Good to go.

Just a few sacrifices were made and we went to jail. 

After signing a round of documents, a bus picked us up in the parking lot and took us into the prison grounds.  It was...odd...riding in a vehicle with heavy tempered glass windows and steel door panels welded to the inside of the doors.  AND WHERE THE HELL IS THE DOOR LATCH!?!  HOW DO WE GET OUT OF THIS DAM... The nice lady came around and opened the door for us when we got to the horse pens.

We walked through a series of pens, being mugged by the 3 year olds and being run from by the new arrivals.  By the time we got to the 4 year olds' pens, the feed truck had gone through.  We were looked upon with mild interest, but...food...don't you know.  We went through the geldings' pen first, and at least one contender stood out.  But when we got to the mares, it was pretty obvious we had a winner.

The horse that chose our daughter, looked up from her hay and walked over to us.  By us, I mean our daughter.  "Hi." the mare said.  "Pleasure to meet you.  Sure is a nice day today, isn't it?"  She gently nuzzled the kid a minute, and then walked off to get a drink of water.  Her tag said #7888.


 That's one.

  At the water trough, another horse dribbled a good glob of water on #7888's head.  So the little mare walked back to her chosen person and asked, "Can you give me a hand with this?" and didn't quite wipe her face on the kid.  Then she visited with the rest of us for a moment before heading off to eat again.

That's two.

When the little mare wondered over the third time to see what we were doing, we quit looking at other horses.  Our kid started the paperwork, after shooing away two other potential adoptors that had been brought over by staff to meet this nice mare, #7888.  "Mine" she said.  "You were two minutes too slow."

"Skeeter" will be delivered sometime this week to her new home on the plains of north central Colorado.

Ranger will be baby sitting for the first week or so, until she settles in.  He's been through this before.

Bill

15 comments:

  1. THAT is freaking awesome!!!!!

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  2. Aw. That was da bomb diggety! Made me tear up and everything. So happy for you KID!

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  3. **grin** love this version of the story!

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  4. It sounds like Skeeter picked a very fine family! Congrats to all!
    I bet it is pretty weird going into prison. It seems pretty intimidating. Of course, you described it so well!

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  5. Yippee for the squashed sperm horse! So glad she is such a great communicator :)

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    1. (My daughter's description of Skeeter's blaze)
      http://gundiva-talesfromthetrail.blogspot.com/2014/05/skeeter.html

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  6. Thank goodness for your art skills because it's going to be a really long week until there are pictures of her to be blogged!

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  7. It's just a good thing I had a pre-picked name, otherwise "Money Shot" would have been a name contender. Of course, I'd leave it up to Nebalee and Mr. Nebalee to explain that name to the nieces and nephew .

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  8. I just wanted to post that I enjoy your blog. I work part time (but really,... it's full time) at a stable and I just enjoy horse stories. I have just gotten my blog up and running. (Too new to even share yet). Anyway, keep upi the good work and great pics.

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  9. Jennifer, if you work at a stable, you might enjoy my book, TALES FROM THE TRAIL. It's a collection of short stories from my time as a wrangler. (And welcome to the blog!)

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    1. Thank you! I will def. check it out. :) There are many stores I have already (even though I've only been working there officially a year it feels like forever with the winter we had... plus there are enough horse happenings to keep like VERY humorous). Thanks again and keep up the good work!

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    2. You will definitely be able to relate. All it takes is one season (or even one week) to compile your own stories :) Let us know when your blog is live, be sure to give us the link so we can follow.

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    3. Will do! Exactly... one week really is enough (horses walking up steps and into tack rooms like they own the place, a mare that normally has a mission to kill me standing perfectly still for me to clean a puncture wound... ) Never a dull moment. :)

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  11. So awesome remembering this story!

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