Notes: Random short rides behind my property. Blessed to be able to saddle up at the spur of the moment and ride out our back gate onto State Trust Land. It's the best way for me to unwind/de-stress and hopefully get away from the human factor. I've decided I am not cut out for public consumption. There are times when it's best for all concerned when I get my hermit on. Looking forward to longer hours of daylight.
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| Growing into his tack |
Notes: Worked with Drifter in the arena and round corral over at Crandall's. Took him for our first solo ride in the desert. He walks out really nice and didn't act buddy or barn sour even with Jack back at the barn talking to him.
Notes: Took a nice afternoon ride. Headed south beyond the power line to see if I could meet up with Blair and Cheri - already up on the mountain. I did not run into them but I found some cool rock formations and finally came upon their tracks on my way back off the mountain. Pretty rocky up that high but nothing Jack the mountain goat couldn't handle. Beautiful day...beautiful ride.
Notes: Hauled out Eagle Eye Road to Tiger Wash and rode east down an old two track. Not sure where it would have ended up....an old road to Tonopah maybe? While checking Tonopah out, I see it is home of the Palo Verde Nuclear Plant - the largest power producer in the country. Kind of cool...as long as it doesn't explode I guess.
I rode Drifter. He did awesome. This is the longest ride under saddle for him. His feet held up great.
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| Phil and Tank |
Notes: Finally made it to the corrals! I rode Drifter (no shoes) so hauled to the public access point to avoid twelve miles of rocky terrain. The ride from the spot we unloaded is only a couple miles from the corrals. I need to look into getting boots for him until he gets his first set of shoes. He has nice feet, but the rocks out here are sharp and plentiful.
The corrals were occupied with weanling calves. One had escaped so we put it back in and rode on up a ways. By the time we rode back by the corrals, the ranchers were there dropping off more calves. Not the friendliest duo. Maybe they saw our tracks milling around putting the calf back in and thought we were nosing around where we don't belong. Hard telling. I find some folks are just naturally sour.
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| Cindy and Jimmy |
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| Cheri - Me - Slick and our desert treasure |
Notes: Today was pilfer in the desert day. Blair and Cheri took us on a ride to the base of the Harquahala mountain range to a developed game waterer and an old mine. So far I cannot find the name of the mine. We milled around looking for cool desert treasures to pack home. Cheri packed a nice, intact kerosene can home tied to the back of Sprout and few other treasures. I found an old bottle with the metal lid still attached and a jar with its metal lid with what appears to be tobacco or coffee inside. Blair thinks is an old spit jar...but I'm going with coffee or un-regurgitated tobacco. I doubt any old minor would bother with spitting into a jar. Pretty sure they hock it right on the ground anywhere they happen to be.
It's pretty rocky up in the desert hills - but worth every step.
Notes: We took the colts out. We rode west - south west and looped back around behind Silver Bit arena to expose the colts to all the goings on over there. They are building a new cook shack. Drifter payed no attention to the jack-hammering and ratcheting going on. We rode around the arena and out the back through all sorts of horse eating obstacles: trailers, old tires, piles of metal fencing and other desert flotsam and jetsam. Drifter doesn't seem to spook at anything. I hope he stays that way and definitely hope that if the day comes he does find something to spook at, he doesn't break in half and face plant me.
We rode back the short distance on the road. I left Cheri and Blair at our crossroad and Drifter and I rode on home. This was our first solo ride ...albeit a short one of 200 yards to the tack shed...but it felt good just the same. I don't think I'd be afraid to ride him out alone anymore. He seems pretty solid.
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| (r-l) Holly - Dan - Blair - Cheri - Blair's monument - Slick |
Notes: A pretty fabulous Thanksgiving any which way you look at it. I turned out of the Tombstone shoot and stayed home and fed for Crandall's. Cheri and Blair Philippi invited me to their place for turkey dinner. They are my nearest neighbors to the southwest.
Holly Conti was down from Oklahoma for a visit and her and Dan P. joined us for a great smoked turkey dinner. I made an attempt at my first pie cooked in an RV propane oven. I figured it would need all the help it could get so I threw in a couple shots of fireball and tossed it in the oven. It turned out
After dinner we saddled up and took Holly and Dan on a tour of the state land behind our places. We took them around Burro Canyon and up the ridge to Blair's monument. Blair built the monument out of rock from atop the hill. I'm not sure what it's a monument too...but it's pretty cool. I added a couple rocks to the top and held my breath it didn't topple the thing over.
One of the best Turkey Day's ever.
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| Me and Holly |
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Notes: Quick ride after a great shooting practice.
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| Headed south toward the corrals |
Notes: Well, I almost made it. I have been wanting to ride to the "corrals" that are supposed to be tucked back in Dushy canyon against the Harquahala Mountains. Today I got about as close to getting to them without actually getting to them as you can get!
I was going today come hell or high water. My original plan was to ride Jack and pony Drifter and possibly ride Drifter back. It's pretty rocky in spots and Drifter is still barefoot so I opted to leave him behind. Besides - ponying can sometimes get you in trouble and since I was going alone, I figured why push it.
Two days ago, Jack was stove up pretty bad. I laid him off and gave him butte and by morning he was back to normal. He has a scrape on his right knee so I can only assume he and Drifter got to playing and Jack biffed it, pulled something or who knows what. Anyway - by the time I saddled up for this ride he was traveling back to his normal self.
I've never been to the corrals but from what I gather, it's about 5 or 6 miles from my place. Jack and I and the dogs headed straight for Burro Canyon cross country to cut off as many miles as possible. It gets fairly rocky in spots - Jack didn't have any trouble navigating the rocky terrain.
We rode west down the power line road until we came to a wire gate. We'd already been close to 5
The only person I could think to call that would know where to find me was Dave C. I never thought about getting a trailer in to pick us up. I suggest he jump on his side-by-side and bring Jack's boots to wear out. Dave said he knew were I was and would bring his trailer to haul us out. I was to meet him where the road I was on meets highway 60. I sent him a pin to my location just in case...
Normally, Jack's feet are good enough that he could have easily gone out barefoot. Since his ordeal last year, I'm not taking any chances. I walked him to highway 60 just as Dave pulled in. I think the dogs were more happy than Jack to not have to walk 7 miles back out.
I pulled up basecamp on my GPS when I got home. I was no more than 300 yards from the corrals. We will make it another day.
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| The cavalry has arrived! |
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| Drifter didn't seem to notice he was packing saddle bags for the first time |
Notes: Well..this was an interesting mix of horses and miles. Cindy started out to ride her little bay Jimmy and I intended to ride Jack first - and Drifter later in the day. Jack was gimping pretty bad and wasn't getting any better after a mile in. I took him back, gave him some butte and rode Jimmy for Cindy so she could ride Bugsy, her coming 4 year old. We rode about 8 miles. As soon as we got back, I grabbed a bite to eat, saddled Drifter and rode with Phil for another five miles. Drifter was feeling pretty spunky, but still did really well. The new hay we got is pretty rich and hot. I'm pretty sure I over-fed and may be part of what Jack's problem was. He also has a scrapped up knee that's a little swollen - so it's hard to tell. By the time I turned him out he was a lot better. Hoping/praying it's a temporary thing and he will be back at it in a day or two.
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Notes: A quick ride after a stressful day. I opted to go solo so I could get out of a walk and let my horse run for awhile.
On the way back, I reached down to get my phone and found the leather case was ripped open and no phone. It was close to dark. Thankfully, Jack backtracks pretty much his exact steps and we found it in the middle of the trail just before the sun set.
Hank stayed behind because his back had been bothering him. He gets stove up once in a while. He is fine now and back to normal.
I took a cool picture of the full moon since it was dark when I found my camera...but I deleted it so I'm posting a picture of this really yummy chicken I cooked instead. Actually, it's a Cornish game hen. Air Fryer Rotisserie is the bomb.
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| Cindy and Bugsy |
Notes: Crandall's are back for the winter. Cindy brought her new 4 year old palomino she calls Bugsy. I rode Jack so she could take her colt out on a ride outside of the arena. He did really good.
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| Photo from previous trip to burro canyon |
Notes: Finally...all caught up on my trail logs. Seems silly logging 2 miles here - 3 miles there. But...they add up and some days you just can't put as many miles in as you would like. It's starting to cool off so longer rides are more feasible.
I wanted to ride to the "corrals" I've heard about west of Burro Canyon. We sort of ran out of daylight and Phil is not able to trot or lope with his back/hips. We turned around and made it back before it started to turn a little chilly. We went from 80° nights to 41° nights in a matter of one day. Sweet!
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| Look Ma..no more cone of shame! |
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| Jack - Hank - Groot |
Trail: Aguila - behind Eagle Eye Mnt - powerline
Miles: 4.50
Riders: Self - Phil
Horses: Jack - Tank
Dogs: Groot - Hank
Notes: Hauled up Eagle Eye and rode North East behind Eagle Eye.
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| Phil - Tank |
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| Drifter at Fred and Cindy's place for roping practice |
Notes: Rode Jack and ponied Drifter. It's hard ponying him now that I can ride him. Just doesn't seem right towing when I could be riding him! He's coming along super nice. This photo isn't from our ride - it's a few days later. I took Drifter over to Fred and Cindy's for roping practice. He did great in a strange arena with a bunch of horses he's never been around. Next time we are going to push the calves around and see how he likes that.
Notes: Intended to go for a ride before the farrier showed up. Figured he'd be late. Wouldn't you know he was on time so we turned it into a short ride at a higher rate of speed. Left the dogs home so we didn't wear them out. Felt good to let him open up a little. My butt gets tires when you don't get out of a walk.
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| Haven't been taking many pictures so resorting to using what I have available. We ran most of this ride so here's a picture of Jack running. Epic. LOL |
Notes: Short ride on Drifter. He's barefoot and this area is pretty rocky so we kept it short.
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| I got Drifters tack taken up enough that it almost doesn't look too big for him...almost. |
Notes: Kind of silly to create a trail log for under three miles but when your riding your colt and grinning from ear to ear...you do what you need to do. :)
We practiced in the morning killing balloons on Jack and Twister and then rode our colts in the evening. Did a little arena work first. I've noticed Drifter is pretty quick...fortunately he's really smooth so when he kicks in another gear you just feel like your skating really fast. After riding in the arena, we headed out to the desert for a short ride before the sun went down. If it weren't for the increase in snakes out hunting at night, I am not opposed to riding in the dark.
The dogs went back to the RV while we were in the arena and didn't see us leave. I didn't realize they weren't with us until he got back and they met us at the gate.
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| Groot continues to make himself at home |
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| Yep...kind of like that |
Notes: Went for a quick ride in the evening after it cooled off a bit. It's been pretty hot the last week. I went on the roads which I usually regret. There aren't any llama's out here yet...but there is every other scary thing to give your horse a heart attack. Drifter apparently has never seen a pony. He jumped out of his skin when the neighbors came trotting up between the roping steers. So far, Drifters go-to when he spooks is to just skitter sideways at a rapid pace. I can handle that...hoping that doesn't change to breaking in two. He's fairly athletic.
On the way back, Jack spotted a big rattler crossing the road at the head of our driveway. He was all fours off the ground heading the other direction before I knew what was happening. I'm not sure... we may have vaulted over the top of Drifter....who didn't seem phased with the snake as long as Uncle Jack was between it and him. We waiting for it to slither off the road before we could continue on. I don't think Jack's feet touched the ground the last 300 yards to home.
