Saturday Ride

A friend came out for a visit and we decided to go for a nice, long, slow, ride to the top of our ranch. We saddled up Stormy and Sweet William and hit the trail. Do you see that lone tree in the golden prairie on yonder ridge? That was where we were headed. It is fortunate that the cows and the Caterpillar tractors make excellent trails for us to follow.

This is an amazing redwood tree we passed along the way. It starts out as one trunk, then branches into two and then a large burl connects them again. It is a very big and beautiful tree.

Often when I ride this land I think of the various people that once lived here. We have many Native American camp sites as well as a couple of old homesteads and a few places that are full of old bottles and cans left by the men of the camps who made split products from the redwood tree. Today, we traveled by one of the old homesteads and thought of the woman who sewed on this now rusted sewing machine. How very different her world was from ours and yet much of the scenery and wild animals that must have been the same.

While our ride was mostly for pleasure I did make sure to stop at every water trough along the way to make sure they were still flowing. This often means I have to tie up the horse and follow the pipe back up some draw to make sure it's end is still in water. During one of these hikes I discovered that some trees had fallen and I had to scramble and walk on them to get to the end of the pipe. At one point the tree gave way and I jumped and hoped that the ground wasn't too far below. It is amazing how much time slows down in moments like this. Luckily the branches below slowed my fall and all I got out of it was a little ding on my shin. When I make it back to the horses this picture below shows what I find. Nice. My friend got a nap in. Good for her. She did mention that she heard something crashing and wondered if it was me. Yea. The really bad part was that I was unable to get the water to flow. I even tried sucking on the pipe and all I got was a little dirty water and some earwigs. UGH!

Could there really be any better way to spend the day though? Not for this girl, or for me either.