Hours Before Winters Return

I took one horse, and the dogs up on the ridge east of our place. I saddled up around 3:30pm. High the day before had been near 80 degrees, but the prediction was for rain by late afternoon, so I had been watching a bank of clouds that had been building in the southwest. I scurried around, finished mowing the lawn then loaded up for the 3 mile drive to the launch sight.

I unloaded everyone then rode about a mile along a dirt road that runs just below the crest of the main northeast southwest ridge Then we left the road for a grass covered row of hills that string together to form a lower branch ridge.

The dogs were pointing pairs, and small covies of gray partridge along the way. I was heading for the far end of the ridge to where it drops off into the rolling hills of the Palouse. This would give me a nice view of town, and our little ranch.

When I got to the crest of the last hill, I dismounted, hobbled the horse, and removed the bit so he could graze while I looked over the view.

I could see three plumes of dust from tractors were my neighbors doing some spring farming ahead of the next rain.

I called Marylou on my cell phone, told her were I was, and she said she could see me, a dot 2 miles away on the nearest foothill.

After 15 or 20 minutes I caught a flash of lighting out of the corner of my eye in the cloud bank to the southwest. I also noticed rain streaks under the clouds. Between me and the clouds was my barn where I needed to be before the storm got to it.

The warm T-shirt afternoon, soft breeze with distant lighting, and an occasional low moan of thunder all gave the feeling of comfort with a slight backdrop of drama. Ten minutes after I had gotten the horse unsaddled and fed the first few drops of rain rattled the barn roof.

 This was the view of our barn and house.

   

Spring Feeling

We have had a few days in the last couple months that hinted  spring was on its way, but today and tomorrow will be by far the best so far this year.  I feel like I may once again have something to offer in my blog.

I have been riding almost every day all winter. On some days I have been confined to a 30 X 30 ft. open area in the middle of the barn. At least it is out of the wind and rain. I often worked on leg pressure control. At one time the bay could pivot on his front feet 360 degrees, and side pass reasonably well. He could also stop hard, and haunch turn pretty fast. This was ten years ago when I thought team penning might be in his future. I took him to a few pennings to get the feel for a congested noisy arena, but I never did compete on him. Things changed and trail riding became the focus of our adventures together.

For the younger dun, all this turning, circling, stopping, and backing was a new experience. He was pretty confused by it all at first. Just when we were making a little progress, a stretch of better weather would come along and we would head back outside.

To stay out of the mud, we were usually limited to back roads, or abandoned railroad grades. The farthest we could go in one direction was two miles. So out and back would give me about an hour and a half in the saddle. A little less than half the time I would just lead the horse so that I could get some exercise myself. Much of the time I would take both horses and both dogs. Yep, a real dog and pony show. When the trip included a visit to the bank or the post office, which is a half mile away in town, we could cause some commotion. My youngest dog made it clear to the teller window a couple times before being chased out of the bank.

After April 1 it is illegal to have dogs in nesting habitat. That's when I started hauling the whole gang up to McCroskey State Park. It is probably the least developed state park in Idaho. It is, in essence, a gravel road that runs 17 miles down the ridge line of adjacent wooded hills. There are three small campgrounds and three picnic areas scattered out every so often. It may be the only state park that will allow wood cutting and dirt bikes.

When the snow melts back enough to open the road, it gives me a nice place to hike and ride. I never go up there on the weekends, because that is when the iron horses ( ATVs and dirt bikes) show up. It is like going to a music festival where there are all different kinds of musical experiences to be had, and they all seem to co-exist simultaneously, then the rock band shows up and cranks it up wide open. While they stay, everyone else leaves in disgust. In other words, it is very hard for any other nature experience to be very meaningful within two miles of a two stroke engine at 2500 rpm.

Near Spud's head you can see Farmington, WA, lying at the base of what the locals call Jack's Mountain. That little clump of trees above his hip is our place along the east-west road that runs out of town.

 This picture is to show what is in the shotgun scabbard. It is one of those grabbing divices which are usually used by people with a limited range of motion for picking objects off the floor, or high overhead shelves. For me, it is used to collect discarded pop and beer cans along the roadside. I can often fill both sides of my saddle bags with crushed cans in an hour. It is great training for the horse. I stop, dismount, draw my weapon, ground tie the horse, walk away, bag my quary, compliment my horse, put my weapon back in the scabbard, gather up the reins, and climb back on. Someday the grabber will be replaced by my shotgun, and I will be putting a gamebird in my saddle bag.

The McCroskey Park road runs along that ridge that is skylined in this picture. By the way the name of the road is Skyline Road.

Today was Saturday, so I went to the ridge that is on the northern end of the park, but just outside of it. This area is more open and offers a good view of the town of Farmington and our house with the barn.