Cameras - Grrrrr!

I bought a new camera for the trip, so Bill and I could both get pictures while riding.  Yesterday, when we took off for our second ride at Ghost Ranch, I couldn't get the camera to turn on, so I stuck it in my pocket and decided to just enjoy the ride.  Good thing, because very soon the ride turned quite challenging.  I was riding Washoe this time so Bill could pony Jesse.  She's a  little better behaved when being ponied in rough country than Washoe.  She can handle any terrain, and will, without pulling her escort out of the saddle - and we were very soon in very rough terrain.  We never know what we will encounter when riding with this particular friend, and we were soon plunged into a deep, steep arroyo which was quite muddy from several recent rains. 

We got to practice a lot of evasive maneuvers back and forth across the stream bed, over shelves of shale, under low hanging shale ledges and sinking well over fetlock deep ooze, up and over steep banks to get around stuff we couldn't go through, then back down into the stream.  Now, Washoe is my horse that had some really bad experiences with water when he was young, taking us a couple of years to get him at all comfortable with crossing streams and rivers, even puddles, without going into a panic.  I must say, I was extremely proud of how he handled all this mess.  It did take a lot of two handed reining, so I figured it was providence that the camera wasn't working.  About the time things smoothed out, I put my hand in my pocket, hit the camera switch, and voila, it turned on and worked perfectly the rest of the ride!  I did get some pretty good pictures, so I was going to add them to the last blog, but guess what?  Again, the camera won't turn on.  As soon as I can get back to town, it's getting returned!  Hopefully, I can get the pictures downloaded first.

Our trip home today was uneventful, even with all the snow we had to come through.  There was a chain law in effect as we crossed LaVeta Pass, but we came across with no problems, driving in snow until just north of Pueblo.  The roads were wet, but got better as we got closer to home, until they were dry coming up the canyon.  What a switch; better roads higher up.  The horses were happy to be home...and so are we.

Juanita

Ghost Ranch, NM

The weather had turned blustery north of us, so we finally headed south - into New Mexico.  Back to a friend's place (she works for Ghost Ranch) where there is always a spare space and corral for the horses.  Our vet was great about changing our horses' travel papers at the last minute and we were on the road again.

We woke up the last two mornings to roosters crowing.  The neighboring cabin has a new brood of chickens, which turned out to be quite the entertainment for the horses, never having been around chickens before.  I got up to let Sophie out, was seen by Washoe who telegraphed Ranger, who let me know I could serve breakfast anytime now.  Oh no, way too early guys.  Back to the sleeping bag - for about 20 minutes, until I hear hooves pounding the ground, racing around the corral.  Sure, feed the horses so as not to wake the neighbor cabins.  I toss a bale of hay and find one of the neighbors standing there with his camera, laughing at the antics.  "Got great pictures of your horses running, kicking, bucking all around the field," he says.  I realize he has let the chickens out and they must have been chasing them along the fenceline, so I explain they have never seen them before.  It also sounds like they may have given the local coyotes a run, that were checking out the chicken pen/shed.  Good watchdogs.

Yesterday, we delivered a horse and picked up another one for the Ranch.  The exchange took place within about five miles of where Bill's mom lived, in the mountains outside Albuquerque.  It was great driving the backroads through the Sandia's and all the fun memories that went with the drive.  By the time we got back to Ghost Ranch, the weather had improved and was begging for a ride, so we saddled up Ranger, Jesse and the new guy, Casper.  May as well start right away getting him acquainted with the trails, since his job was being a trail horse for kids and large riders.  This guy is much bigger, over 16H and powerfully built, but really easy of manner.  He has a scar in the middle of his chest that prevents him from being a proper show horse even though he is a registered Appaloosa.

The ride was super, mostly wandering through the brush and canyonlands of the Ranch.  As soon as I get my camera cables located, I'll post some pictures.  We are planning on heading for higher country today, and taking all three horses.  Washoe hollered all the time we were gone, and showed everybody how well he can buck and move, but at least he didn't go over the fence. 
Juanita

Where are we going?

Happy anniversary to you, too, dear.

We started the annual fall evacuaton today; Estes is now back at Hall Ranch.  What a ruckus when we took her away from the rest of the herd.  I brushed her and made her look all pretty.  She kept asking "why?" with those big, soft eyes of hers.  She walked quietly into the trailer and stood nicely - until she realized she was the only one going.  By that time, the rest of the crew was hollering their heads off from the corral.  Where do you think you are going with that trailer, and not us?!  Estes was doing her part by whinnying and kicking inside the trailer.

Then, when we unloaded at the ranch, Estes decided she could follow me back home.  She was trailing right behind me when I left the corral.  I felt sad about pushing her away so I could shut the gate.  I thought she would be delighted at being back at her "other home".  Well, soon they will all be reunited again in a very large pasture to run in and eat all day.

Our trip to SD got changed to NM, due to bad weather.  SD has been hit really hard this last week (with cold and snow), and it doesn't look like it's going to let up, so we opted to go south, back to Ghost Ranch for a couple of nights.  A friend there is acquiring a new horse for the ranch to use in its program, and it needs some riding out.   A good excuse.  When we get home, the Mustangs will be released for the winter.
Juanita

GRV - Catalina State Park

October 17: Day 5
We’ve left Bucky’s about 7:30 am, after telling Andrea and their son, Jake, good-bye on their way to school. We are headed for Catalina State Park, 10 miles north of Tucson, AZ. We heard about this park from Carol Crisp (info@equineexplorer.com) who helped write “Riding Colorado”, books about riding the different trail networks in Colorado. She had stopped at the Lodge, looking for the Allenspark Trailhead a couple of weeks before we headed out. She said she and her husband wintered in Tucson so I asked about trails there and she told us about this park. She said it had really good horse camping facilities and one of the best trails she knew. I looked it up online and it did look nice, and was priced right.

We found the Park about 10:30 am and it was a really nice area. We paid $15 dollars and the horse area had 8 pipe corrals with running water, a manure disposal area complete with wheelbarrow and fork, and a newly built, concrete and solar outhouse. In the car camping area next door, they had a shower house with lots of hot water.

We got there and didn’t see any designated camp sites, so we parked and talked to the only other camper there, who was parked right next to the pipe corrals. He said they were packing up to leave and we could have their spot if we didn’t mind waiting for about an hour. What great luck. We put the horses in one of the spare corrals and talked with the couple while they packed up. They gave us lots of information about the area; they had been there 4 days. They lived in southern AZ, but were retired so they came up to the park a lot during the week when nobody was around. They were leaving because it was going to get busy according to them. She rode her horse and he rode his mountain bike. Quite a combination.

They had two dogs with them and a really nice horse trailer with full living quarters. He had made a dog run to fit under the awning from aluminum rails and orange snow fencing. The panels were even lighter than our PVC pipe panels. He could lift them to the top of the horse trailer with ease. Then they rolled up their outdoor carpet, tucked it into the trailer, loaded horse and bike and pulled out. We hadpulled into the slot and started unloading when several other vehicles started pulling in; some to camp and some to day-ride. We took the corral with the shade tree since we were willing to put all 3 horses in the same pen. I couldn’t believe how everyone thought they had to have one pen per horse, even the ones showing up with 2 horses in the same trailer! This meant some people had to leave their horses tied to their trailer.

Four different trailers showed up that turned out to be women friends camping and riding together for the weekend. One of them said she had gotten up at 2:00 am to leave by 3:30 with her husband to get dropped off here. It took them 8 hrs from their home in southern CA. He dropped her, the trailer and 2 horses off and headed for a men’s retreat in Socorro, NM. She said it was her first time at this camp; she usually stayed at a Paso Fino Ranch north of there, while he was at the retreat. Later her friends showed up. While she was waiting on her friends to setup, a trainer pulled up with 4 horses and a partner rider. They threw 2 of the horses into the 2 corrals next to ours and I thought we were going to have issues. The horses were really big Hanoverians and one was not particularly well behaved. Luckily they put her farthest away, but she was obviously a dominant mare and sensed Jesse right away, if the squealing and pawing meant anything. Then the two trainers just got on the other two horses and rode off, not saying when they would be back.

By that time we were settled and decided to go for a ride. We found the 50 Year Trail we had heard about and headed out. Bill and Ranger were towing Jesse and I was on Washoe. Jess was still pretty wound up about the other mare, and although she was behaving well, I didn’t want to chance another spill on my sore shoulder. All the horses took to the trail nicely and things were going smoothly until Ranger saw his first Saguaro cactus. Good heavens, what is that? It was a really big one, maybe 30 ft. tall, right at the edge of the trail, looking kind of like a very large man with his arms in the air. Bill said they looked a little too organic and threatening. We all figured it would not be a good thing to touch. Ranger was so interested in the Saguaro he almost backed into a cholla. I was laughing; Bill didn’t think it was so funny, being confronted by cactus from front and back, with everything in between covered with sharp rocks and prickly things that do not make for good unscheduled landings. Ranger did collect himself with dignity, snort at “the thing”, and continue on the path giving it as much space as possible. He got pretty good with them but preferred they be at a distance.

I had forgotten the map back at the trailer, so we just guessed at trail crossings and had lots of fun, knowing the horses could get us back if needed. We finally turned around and headed back since we didn’t know how to navigate the loop trail we had intended. By the time we got back, the “trainers” had packed up all their horses and disappeared, leaving dirty corrals behind. I just don’t get how they can be in the business of horses and be so rude as to not clean up after their horses. The other riders said it happened all the time. Maybe because it’s so hot, they figure manure dries up and blows away fast. It seems to be a desert thing.

We dug out the propane stove and had steak for dinner, finishing the evening off by setting up our own theater in the back of the horse trailer. After all the day riders left, we spread out into the pen next to ours, so the horses could at least roll or lay down for the night. They seem to really enjoy the hay cubes we have been feeding them on the trip. We watched/slept through MIB II and had a really good night’s sleep.

GRV - Robbed!

October 16: Day 4
We’ve been robbed!!! Well, OK, maybe vandalized would be a better way to put it. Bill walked down to the truck to pull it up to the corral for loading and found…5 donkeys happily munching all the bales of hay they had pulled off the back of our flatbed PU. They were sure they had found the mother lode of gold with our travel hay. There was one really large donkey that could have easily passed as a large mule. I suspect he was the gang leader in getting the bales off the truck. All you can do in a situation like this is laugh! (The ranch was gracious enough to replace the hay.)


Today we were to drive to Catalina State Park, outside of Tucson, AZ. We figured somewhere between 8 – 9 travel hours. When we crossed into AZ, we realized that our later start (donkeys) was going to cause us to get into the State Park well after dark. We decided to crash in on some good friends in Wilcox, AZ to spend the night. It wasn’t much shorter distance, being close to Tombstone, but we knew the roads and knew they would have an open corral for the horses. We called them and got a warm welcome, a nice home cooked meal and, indeed, a large pen for the horses. Bucky is actually the horse person that got us started in horses and we had a great time catching up on gossip.


Bucky and Andrea have 25 riding horses and hold the only commercial permits to ride the Chiricuahua Trails and the Cochise National Monument. They had bred four of their favorite mares last year, and our only regret was not getting to see this year’s foal crop, born in March. They had just separated them and taken them to a neighboring ranch for weaning a couple days before we got there.

GRV - Curly's Cabin

October 15: Day 3
It’s another beautiful morning. Although it’s still in the low 30’s, rumor has it that the high will be close to 60. We decided this is ride day, so we fixed a big hot breakfast so Mike can join us before work. The rest of the time he will be staying somewhere else, house-sitting for the directors while they are on a 2 week vacation.

About 10:00 am, we saddled up and head cross country, looking for a trail to a cabin that Elisa has heard about. We pass an old log house that was built for “City Slickers” when it was filmed on the Ranch. It certainly looked like the house in the movie. The colors are beautiful with the trees in full swing of fall; lots of gold and red trees standing out against the red cliffs and blue sky.

As we come over a rise, riding through the scrub, Buford launches himself toward us from one of the bushes at the side of the trail. Jesse, who has been looking for reason to romp, hopped about 6 feet to the side. (This is the new trick she’s been perfecting this summer.) I had just recovered a stirrup from a couple of her crow hops, and you guessed it. This time I didn’t stay aboard, landing on some hard rock and smashing my bad hip and sore shoulder…again. One of these vacations, I’m going to get to ride without being sore from a spill. The bruise on the hip was gone in about 5 days and wasn’t much problem except for sleeping the first night. The shoulder is going to take longer. (It's a month later and I'm still in a sling and swathe from my spill. Thanks a lot Jesse!)Poor Bill is going to be pulling and throwing two heavy saddles for the next few days.

We spend 3 more hours covering a lot of space and looking for the trail, finally finding a really steep slide hill that I didn’t really feel like negotiating with a hurt shoulder, especially since we didn’t know if the gate we were looking for was in this particular ravine or not. We backtracked a ways and then just did some exploring. The canyons and ravines were beautiful…and challenging. Sure glad we ride surefooted mountain goats. There aren’t many horses I would trust on the stuff we were traversing. We stopped for a short lunch and headed home. The horses certainly earned their roll in the dirt when we unsaddled.

GRV - 1st Day at the Ranch

October 14: Day 2
We woke up to rain, fog and 28 degrees! Wasn’t it supposed to be warmer here? We just poked around and chatted with Elisa…and fixed a killer breakfast from leftovers we had brought. Mid-morning the fog lifted and the rain subsided, so we wandered outside, closed off some gates and let the horses have a larger space to romp in. Wow, did they take advantage of that. Even though it was slightly muddy and slick, they had a great time bucking, racing and chasing each other through the three corrals. I don’t think Elisa could believe how wild they got as soon as they had some space. She decided it had been a really good idea to let them out for a while before saddling up. We never longe our horses before riding. In fact, only one of them even knows what a longe line is, but we do give them plenty of time to blow off steam if they’ve been cooped up awhile (like in a trailer for 11 hours the day before).

In the early afternoon, the sun came out and we headed out for a short ride. Elisa led us off across the desert to show us the Ranch’s one hour trail ride – with a lot of extras thrown in. We spent about 2 hours out going up and down gullies and trotting across a great high meadow. Elisa spent a lot of time on Washoe’s movement skills, moving him in different circles, doing a lot of transitions from walk, trot, canter, and especially stopping skills. A lot of time was spent on getting a willing backup and much better stopping. Now if we can just keep him tuned into this. I got a really nice, long running walk out of Jesse; she kept up with Washoe’s canter with no problem. We finished the ride with the regular “painted desert” route the guests get to take.

We spent the evening chatting with Mike, the housemate. He works for Ghost Ranch as an on-call maintenance guy while he’s finishing classes in adobe building. It was fun learning more about adobe construction and fantasizing about how to use it around the Ranch.

Ghost Ranch Vacation

October 13: Day 1
Yeah! Vacation has finally gotten here and boy, are we ready to head out. We finished packing up this morning with about 1 ½ inches of snow still on the ground, but lots of sunshine and in the low 30’s. The horses had gotten an early breakfast and hay bags were in the trailer. They seemed happy to get to be on the road again, also. We hadn’t planned on leaving too early because we wanted to get into Ghost Ranch, NM (http://www.ghostranch.org/) about 6:00 pm so we could unload while still light, but not beat Elisa there by too much. She was at a seminar in Santa Fe for the day.

Typical for the start of a trip, though, we discovered we had forgotten the fence charger, but we were already almost out of the canyon, so decided to stop at Murdoch’s and see if they had a reasonably priced one, since we were planning on buying another just for trips. They did have one in stock and we left with a new fencer. Now to fuel up out on the highway and be on our way. We had a very nice day of travel; good roads and no storms, with the temp going up to the low 70’s along the way. Everything was going well until a PU pulled up next to us just before Colo. Springs and said our trailer door was open. It had popped open on Tel and I on our previous trip, too. We pulled over and strapped the door shut, very thankful none of our good tack had blown out and caused problems for other drivers. That turned out to be the adventure of the day.

We pulled into Ghost Ranch an hour late, 7:00 pm, and Elisa had gotten back early, so she met us at the entrance to her drive with just enough light left to walk the horses to a little pen just across the driveway from her house. Jesse was so anxious to get out of the trailer, she broke her lead rope backing out. I don’t usually tie her in the trailer as she loads last on voice command, but Bill had loaded her and tied her. When we undid the butt chain she thought she could just back out, so she did and just popped her lead rope in two. We decided she would be the first loaded for a few times so she could get a review of waiting in the trailer. We pulled out whatever we needed for the night, took in the grocery boxes to stash in the fridge, and parked the truck and trailer in a field down the way.

There is a very old mare (supposed to be 37) that lives at the Ranch and roams at will. She’s almost blind, has rickets, and looks pretty decrepit. She sure came to life when she thought she was going to have to share her space with the young punk! She’s a grulla like Ranger and he took a shine to her. They spent lots of time nosing over the fence. She was not particularly fond of Washoe; guess he was too young. I think Jesse was a take-it-or-leave-it; nothing to bother about. They took turns all night swinging between squealing and snuggling their butts together at the corner where the pens met. It made for interesting sleeping, because the coyotes would sing, then the old mare, who was very hoarse by this time, would squeal.