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Some days things just happen to work out right. I normally am a pretty humble person but yesterday I was able to gloat a little bit. I got a call in the afternoon from my neighbor. She had gone to pick up a horse and things were not going well. They had already spent over two hours trying to load him and were wore out trying. I know it took a lot for her to call and ask if I would make the one hour drive to help out. She asked if I thought I needed to stop at her house and pick up some drugs or was I confident I could load him. I chose no drugs. He wasn't a baby. He has been in trailers lots of times. He just grew long ears. It wasn't fun or particularly pretty but I did get him loaded. She then had to pick up another one and didn't get home till 10:30. The problem horse was supposed to come to my place but since it was so late I told her to unload him and I would take a trailer in the morning to get him. This morning I got there early and had him in the trailer all by myself inside of five minutes. My neighbor was ready to come out and help if there was a battle brewing. I took him home and unloaded and loaded him twice more. I felt a little bad she had to call me but at the same time glad she did have enough faith in me to call. The deal with this horse and others that should know better is not to be too nice. Nine times out of ten they just need to be tied off hard and fast and not allowed to pull anyone around or to break anything. People use lead ropes as tie ropes. I have seen a great many broken bull snaps and tore up halters. I use a 25 to 30 ft nylon rope. It is long enough that when it is run through the halter ring, around the horses neck and tied with a bowline, I can still take a couple wraps in the trailer. I can allow the horse to get slack if I want to but I can hold any horse, no matter their size with one hand. Generally they might set back a time or two and pull. I want them to. Funny thing is when they can't get away and nothing breaks, they will usually walk right in. No matter how hard they pull the bowline will not tighten on their neck and choke them and the knot can always be untied. The question I get the most from some of my friends that I have helped is how I tie a bowline. A good many years ago I was introduced to it in a cute way that always stuck with me but alludes others I share it with. Holding ath long end of your rope in your left hand, make a small loop over the rope to your left. That is the "hole". Then take the end of the rope( the part you would put around the horse's neck). This is the "rabbit". The rabbit goes up the hole, around the "tree" (long part of the rope) and back down the hole. I know that probably only makes sense to those that already know how to tie it. Best I could do with words alone.
Yesterday I said a last good bye to friend and neighbor. John “Mick” Buyer was a cow man. His family homesteaded in this area well over 100 years ago. He was raised around the land and livestock and a lifetime of hard work. We shared a great many laughs together. The stories he told of days gone by were many of the same ones I had heard from my dad's family, also from here. We also shared a birth date, December 12, although his was 23 years earlier.
There is so much I could say about Mick but right now it still hurts too much. Happy Trails Mick.
Hear, Here
As years go by we, as horse people, develop cues, words or actions that help us with horses. These things become second nature and we use them as part of of our interaction without giving it a thought. Sometimes the things we do rub off on others without us being aware.
One of the things I use is the word”here”. When I'm leading a horse that is tending to stray a gentle pull and “ here”. When I am loading one, “here”. Sometimes when I am shoeing one...well, you get the idea.
Anyway, my neighbor and I were talking this morning. She does dude rides and is around a lot of people. She had a hold of a horse and has taken to using my example. All of the sudden the person that was standing there kept getting closer and closer. Even though “here” was intended for the horse it works on humans equally as well.
This is a little something I wrote a few years ago. There have been a few other that have happened since but this is a start. Occurrences
I have never been a strong believer in the supernatural but there have been a couple of what I will call, occurrences, in my life that have left me with more questions than answers. Since horses are a part of my life I don"t think it is too unusual that both of these instances have taken place while on horseback. Then again maybe that's part of the answer.
The first occurrence took place more then ten years ago. I was among a group of riders that were riding up in the high country to check on cattle. I was in the lead on a certain part of a trail that winds its way around trees and along a boulder-strewn stream. After going around a corner I was out of sight of the others. There I came across a young lady resting along the trail on one of the boulders. I said hello, she smiled and I continued on my way. A few minutes later the rest of the riders caught up to me in a clearing. I asked if anybody had talked with the girl by the trail. No one had even seen her. There had been nowhere for her to go. I've been here for nearly thirty-two years and I had never seen anybody on that part of the trail before then or since. I kept this incident stored away but never forgotten.
The second occurrence also makes me want to question the first. A few years ago a neighbor and I went for a ride. It was a bright sunny day and the air was crisp with ice crystals from the several inches of snow that had fallen the day before. We were riding parallel, but a short distance from a fence line. We looked toward the fence and there standing on the other side were two small children, watching us. Two things stood out. There were no tracks in the snow and the horses paid them no mind. Horses make great watchdogs. They see things that we usually don't. Nature's self defense mechanism for their wild ancestors was to enable them to see the danger soon enough so that they could flee to safety. Either they didn't perceive any danger or just plainly didn't see them. We never compared notes on what we had seen. Recently while visiting the subject of what we had seen came up. Almost simultaneously we were describing the scene as if it had been the day before instead of three years ago. The type of clothes they had worn, the look on their faces and the fact that there hadn't been any tracks in the snow. Major chills.
If it had been just me I don't know if I would or could have believed what I had seen. Now I wonder, did I see that young woman before along that trail? Both were equally as real to me at the time. How can one be sure that the stranger you pass on the sidewalk and nod politely to or smile at, is real?
Even though I can see a 6 foot snowdrift out the north window as I sit here, it is sort of in mud season as well. The road in and out from the highway has melted, turned to mud and dried already. This is a good thing but not all the people around here are as lucky. I have to go and haul some hay this morning and as long as things are a little froze up yet I can pull a trailer into their ranch road. We are still 17 degrees now so maybe I will even be able to make two trips. Off I go.
So, yesterday, I guess I was bad. I have been a customer at Tack Wholesale for several years and I thought it might be a good idea to post a blurb about TW on their community forum. No big deal. Just a hey, check this out type thing. Bad idea. I received an email saying they would not tolerate any spamming or advertising. I replied saying no harm was intended and no gain was to be made. It was just friendly information. If they don’t like being friendly there are other places to do business.
I had an interesting afternoon. The neighbor asked me over to trim her Morgan stallion's feet, at least the fronts. Usually no big deal. This horse is one we got last June. He was a three year old and fairly gentle. From what I understand he has never been trimmed. Then she thought maybe while I was there I could maybe load him in a trailer he has never been in. I managed the trim as did the horse. The trailer was a breeze. When we got him last summer it was the first time he had ever been in a trailer. After loading a few times she brought out a show blanket. Another first. Got it on and then I loaded him while the blanket was on. What a champ. Two important things about all this. First, we are doing this in the snow and it is cloudy, cold and trying to snow more. Not the best circumstances to say the least. Second, in less than a week this horse is going to a horse e xpo in Denver. His first and hers. This is really crunch traing. Tomorrow...clipping 101...
Tags: Stallion Training
I wrote this a few years ago but it is just as valid now as it was then. Welcome to my world. I live in a world blending the past and present while trying to survive what the future will bring. I am the forth generation of my fathers family to be on this land. By tradition I'm bound to many of the ways of those who came before me, using the same tools and methods employed for over a hundred years.My skills revolve around my occupation. Being on the back of a horse isn't just a pasttime, but a necessity as well. Mending broken fences, tending livestock or just making general repairs are all part of daily routine. An old log house,heated from the winter's cold by a wood-burning stove is called home.
Along with the old,there is the new. A pick-up and horse trailer now cover many of the miles that a horses feet would have trod in the past. The house is old but it has made room for the new as well. The microwave and satelite dish have their places and most recently after a long,fought battle the computer made it's way into the family.
Who can tell what the future will bring? The best I can do to help ease into that future is to use an invention of the 1990's. A conservation easement. It allows a rancher to be paid,in one form or another for the future developement rights of their land and assures open spaces for future generations.
My world will never be the same as it was, for good or bad, but maybe there will be a little part of the world that will not be the same as the rest
It's my world.
Last summer I lost an old friend. He was only 24 when he passed away. This is a story I wrote about Skip a while ago. Just a Sorrel Horse
He was just a sorrel horse, one of many at the auction. I wouldn't have guessed then that he would be yet another part of my equine education. Hopefully my ongoing education.
The sale was an annual event that drew the attention of both sellers and buyers. Most of the horses consigned were registered Quarter Horses. The first part of the day was taken up with observing the horses and their pedigrees. Following a mid day barbecue, the sale began. That particular year most of the horses were selling at a fairly high price. A year later would be a completely different story, as the bottom would drop out of the horse market. However in 1984, they sold well. Despite the prices quite a few horses were withheld by sellers and taken home. I bid on a few horses but soon dropped out when the price went beyond my means. Finally a thirteen- month-old sorrel colt came in the ring. I bid more than I expected to, but I was the new owner of a Quarter Horse stud colt. Luckily I was able to find some neighbors that could trailer him fifty miles home for me. They had outbid me on another horse earlier in the day and were taking it home as well.
Once home my new education would begin. I had to learn about both the pleasure and the responsibility of owning and managing a stallion. If I had to have a teacher, Skip, his registered name is Skip Bug McCue, has been a good one. His wonderful disposition, evidenced by his large, kind eyes, has made my learning almost painless.
I started riding him when he was three and his training was quick and easy. He was basically an angel. Of course, part of my education was in learning to handle him when he was less than an angel. During the breeding season when mares are around and his hormones are raging things can happen fast. I do carry a couple of scars. He was just being a good teacher. A big part of my responsibility is being ever vigilant to keep other horses and people from being hurt. When he is in a pasture with his small harem it can be tricky moving horses in or out. Words cannot describe the instantaneous power a stallion can exhibit if he should think you are competition. I also have to watch for the errant horse that may have escaped from its owners and wandered nearby. Horses fighting across or through wire fences can be seriously hurt.
There is also a pleasurable side. After nearly a year of waiting, spring arrives to the galloping of new foals playing. All legs at first, they soon grow into their bodies and then into replicas of their parents.
Skip is now twentythree years old. He doesn't do as much cow work as he once did but he is still a good saddle horse. Half of his year is spent without any equine companions. He still gets treated to a few girlfriends in the spring and summer. Not such a bad life for just a sorrel horse.
Tags: Stallion Sorrel
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