First Trail Ride of '16

B-  Ranger!  My man... er.... horse!  How about you and your squad go for a ride with Juanita and me!

R-  Okay Beel.

B-  Allrighty then.  Lets get you brushed and saddled.

R-  Okay Beel.

B-  Juanita is riding Washoe today, and we will take turns towing Jesse.  It's beautiful out today!  Almost 70 degrees and the sun is shining.  I'm loving it!

R-  Okay Beel.

B-  You are sure behaving like a good horse today.  What's wrong?  Yesterday when I gave you your anti-worm medication, you were rearing and snorting and being a complete jerk.  Now you are doing everything I ask.  Even trotting up the hill!

R-  Today is a good day Beel.  No cold white falling from the sky.  The sun is warm.  No leg hurts.  No worm poison. Only good.

B-  Glad you are feeling well, buddy.  Looks like a tree came down next to the trail over the winter.  You know, it's been about 6 months since we have been up here on these trails.

B-  RANGER!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING  YOU IDIOT  ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?  HO!  HO!  I SAID WHOA!!!

B-   So WHAT brought that jumping fit on?

R-  Monsters Beel.  The monster was grabbing me from behind.

B-  It was a branch from the fallen tree, you nitwit!  It touched your tail!

R-  It was not there to grab me last time I was here.

B-  That was SIX MONTHS ago you twit!  Things can change over the winter!

R-  They should not.  New is not good.  Change is very not good.

B-  Deal with it.

B-  Look Ranger, all that snow on the mountain ahead of us.

R-  Let us not go to the cold white place.

B-  You got it, Buddy.  It would take us the better part of today to get up there, and we have guests tonight.

B-  It does look like we will have to cross a little snow left over from that last storm, though.

B-  What a nice ride today.  Thanks, Ranger.  I only wish you would stop freaking out when you see something that has changed.

R-  Beel?

B-  Yeah Buddy?

R-  Deal with it.

April Showers (In the Rocky Mountains)

Last Thursday the temps were in the 70's and the sun was bright and the horses were napping and the birds were singing and all was well with my little world.

On Friday, we had a full lodge of "scrapbookers" show up for the weekend.

On Friday, it started to snow...

and it kept snowing...

and on Saturday, it was still snowing.

By Sunday, it slowed down.

We had two feet of accumulated snow on the back deck, so we may have had a total of 3 feet fall and melt/pack down.

       (This is why buildings should have outer doors that open inwardly in the mountains.)

The lumps are SUV's.

More SUV lumps.

Sunday is the day that all of the gal's had to check out and go back to their lives down the mountain.   Digging out took some time.  Juanita and I were so glad we had a granddaughter up here working so we could help our guests man the shovels.

By the way, have any of you shoveled out your driveway and then watched the snowplow drive by and block it again with a wall of snow?  We had just cleared a path for the dozen or so vehicles in our parking lot when I saw the snowplow start coming down our road.  He turned off at the street before us.

I want to write him into my will.

By noon, the guests had managed to escape

.
This morning the thaw has begun, and the piles are shrinking a little.  But the icicles are growing.
The back porch looks dangerous to our dog.  She RAN to get to the yard, and waited for me to open the door before she came back.

Can't say as I blame her.

Stay warm.

Bill

Spring Again

Spring is beginning to show up here in the mountains of Colorado.  We are still getting some snow, but a couple days ago, it was mixed with some hail and some rain.  A good indication that we will soon be able to ride out mountain trails.

We have started to try to remove the extra layer of hair from our mustangs.  They are losing more hair than a middle age men's bowling league.  Wads of the stuff come off of them with the slightest touch.  Daily currying (is that how you spell the brush or the spice?) is causing mounds of fluff to drift around their corral.   The nesting birds will be ECSTATIC when they start construction.  Next year I'm going to save the stuff and start a side business selling horse-hair mattresses. 

And, just in case you have ever wondered which side of a horse has the most hair, I can tell you...

It's the outside.

Bill