An equestrienne's travel adventures around the planet, or, a traveller's equestrian adventures around the planet (sometimes with a Raven, sometimes chasing owls). Just Ride - Anywhere!
The Fire Talk. Comes with summer and thunderstorms and from a spring and summer that produced highly flammable and prevalent cheat grass and weeds after an unprecedented winter of moisture.
The Fire Talk came up a couple of weeks ago as we helplessly watched our B.C. Canadian friends evacuated, barred from going in or out, or trapped on their place surrounded by fires (so far, they are OK, and back home, but the fires are still on-going.)
What would we do here?
We're 5 miles down a dirt road - surrounded by cheat grass-laden BLM land. Between 4 residences, we have 20+ 4 legged equids (and a passel of goats and dogs and such). (And, if you count the next neighbors, add 15 or so more horses, though they have some big dry lots.) The main way out is this bumpy 1-lane dirt road. An alternate way out is a much longer bumpier 1-lane dirt road that leads up to the Owyhee Mountains, and eventually off in different directions.
We have a big water tank on a trailer… but what comes out of that is not much more than a regular hose's worth of pressure. We've mowed weeds, but they're still growing and they leave dried stumps behind. We have plenty of green grass and trees around the house, and some dry paddocks. Plenty of water spigots around if the electricity is on. A small generator or 2. But what is all of this if a fire is roaring, and a 40 mph wind is blowing, and the fire creates its own weather and wind?
We have several horse trailers, either 2 or 4 horse trailers… but 1 trip with each would not accommodate all the horses.
It depends on where the fire comes from and how close it is.
And when. Daytime? Middle of the night? More than once,I've been startled awake by a thick, acrid smell of smoke. I've jumped out of bed and run outside looking, hiking, climbing hills… trying to see from whence a fire might be coming (it's always been from fires some 40 and more miles away, but you wouldn't know it by the heavy smoke smell).
And it depends on where the fire comes from, and how close it is - that will determine what we do. If we have time to haul horses - great. If we don't, then what. Do we just have to jump in our cars and flee to save ourselves? I've got a bag packed by the door. I hope I never have to grab it, but I know where my keys are hanging. Do we have time to round the horses up and chase them out? Where? Up our canyon? Out the back gate east? Down the main dirt road northeast? Up the dirt road west? The barbed wire gates are open and ready if we need to chase horses up or down the road.
Nothing says patriotism more than a July 4th parade. Nothing says JULY 4th PARADE more than the custom Oreana Fourth of July Parade. You won't see the it on television or Twitter or in the newspapers. You'll only see it by special invitation, and a few select people get the honor of observing every year.
Parade mistress Linda put on her 11th annual Oreana Fourth of July parade, starring her various menagerie: war horse Ted,
various dogs (Goat Dog, Coyote Dog, and possibly others; Henry refused to participate; Edna the donkey wasn't interested this year), and various goats,
tossing candy
to her throngs of fans.
Hercules the horny jackass was barred from this year's activity.
This year's guest star was Yvonne's donkey Marie who stylishly showed off her panache.
Hillbillie Willie the ex-racehorse Standardbred's got a lot on his plate right now. Since he's now a bona fide endurance horse, and is in training for his next ride, he's covering a lot of local desert trails, exploring parts of Owyhee he hasn't seen before. He even got a hill and a loop named after him the other day, Hillbillie Willie Hill, the climbing end of the newly christened Hillbillie Loop.
Last week he went Around the Block (a 16 mile loop up Spring Ranch Road to the base of the Owyhee mountains, and back down Bates Creek Road), where he got an up-close gander at the foothills of the Owyhees, and waded through a sprightly flowing Pickett Crick, upon whose banks he grazes (on weeds) daily.
This week he put his exploring hat on again, visiting the old Wagon Wheel homestead on Brown's Creek, and, with August, discovering a couple of new trails we can return to investigate.
That horse loves leading down trails, watching new sights and sounds and birds and bunnies and (once) antelope unfold in front of him. He's bold and sure-footed (surprising for such a tall, lanky horse) and interested in the scenery of the Wild West, because this is where he's dreamed of coming to his whole life.
That’s the first question I thought to ask, after I signed up for a Cowboy Mounted Shooting clinic. Or is it Mounted Cowboy Shooting. See? I didn’t even know what it was called.
I signed up on a whim, just because they seemed to be wanting more riders, and, since it was something new which I really knew nothing about, well, why not?
And since I really had no time at all to think about it or read up on it, I put it out of my mind until the bullet question popped in my head. No, a friend reassured, it’s some kind of blank with black powder.
Which you could still injure or kill yourself with. I might shoot my foot, right? (No quick-drawing involved, I found later.) Or shoot my horse’s ear? Or faint from the heat (in Scottsdale in June, mind you), fall off my horse and shoot myself? But, no real bullets. Right. Good enough.
All the sign up page said was, Experienced Riders Only, of which I suppose I fit into that category, and Helmets Okay, or something of that nature, of which I fit into that category, as I don’t get on a horse without a helmet. It didn’t say anything about being Calamity Jane, which fits as I don’t always hit the center of a target (or, indeed, the target) when I’m target shooting. It didn’t say anything about having to wear a Western outfit, which is fitting, as I am an endurance rider. Riding tights it would be, with my riding shoes and fringy half-chaps. After all, if the Pope came to a MCS clinic, nobody would expect him to ride in anything other than his Pope robes, right?
Since I knew nothing, at all, of this sport, I decided to dive headfirst into it with no preconceived notions (read: complete ignorance). I didn’t read up on it. I didn’t watch any videos, other than a quick re-viewing of the first couple of episodes of Bonanza, where the good Cartwright boys are chasing the bad guys on horses at full tilt and shooting, bang bang bang.
The clinic opportunity was a bonus at the American Horse Publications conference. About 10 riders, from all imagined disciplines participated. Ross Hecox, managing editor of Western Horseman magazine, led a photography workshop. Excellent - any faux pas by shooting newbies would be duly recorded!
Clinic took place in 101* heat (did I mention Scottsdale in June?), but under the covered arena at the Horseshoe Park & Equestrian Centre in Queen Creek, Arizona. Giant fans with air conditioning distracted me from the withering heat, as did the iced tea with a tub of ice cubes.
Clinicians Kenny Lawson (of the Silver Dollar Ranch in California) and Dan Byrd (of Cave Creek, Arizona), both World Champion Cowboy Mounted Shooting competitors, brought trained horses and a sense of humor and patience for us pleasure riders, dressage riders, endurance riders, hunter-jumpers and Western show competitors.
According to Kenny’s wife Leann, Cowboy Mounted Shooting is the fastest growing horse sport in the U.S. The Lawsons recognized this training niche and successfully train horses and people for this sport (and other disciplines).
In the clinic we first learned the basics of cowboy mounted shooting equipment and gun safety, before strapping on our own holster and .45 caliber single action revolvers (yes, plural; you use 2 pistols) and tried our hand at shooting while walking past the balloon-on-a-stick targets on foot.
“Technique, technique, technique, not speed,” the instructors stressed. “It all has to become automatic.” Draw, aim, cock-fire, cock-fire, (5 times), holster gun one, draw gun two, repeat.
The ammunition spray (my non-technical term!) is quite forgiving, proven by the fact that I hit 90% of the balloons I shot at. And, bonus, I did not shoot my foot or my horses’ ears! I only failed rather spectacularly (all day) at not looking down at my holster when I switched guns. “Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down,” Dan and Kenny kept reminding me. Of course I looked down, many times, because where did that hole for the gun keep going, anyway?
Next, racing (not!) the course on horseback and blasting at the balloons! The instructors followed each of us on the simple course, at a walk, or, when I wanted to get really adventurous, a jog. Bang! Bang! Bang! I actually hit most of the balloons. And of course looked down to holster my guns. But I looked pretty Bonanza-like, I’m sure, particularly in my endurance tights and purple helmet.
The funny thing about mounted shooting is this. We were all experienced riders. But the more we concentrated on shooting, the less we looked like we knew about riding, particularly me when I tried the roundy-round course. “Keep your arm straight, don’t cock yet, wait, fire at 90 degrees, wait, now.” Bang. “Watch your horse.” I was angling my horse way too close to the target. Correct the horse. “Stay focused on the next target.” Re-aim at the next balloon. Overcorrect my horse with my rein hand up high in the air. (Why?? I never ride like this at home.) “Pay attention to where you’re going, inside or outside the cones?” Correct my well-trained horse with just my legs, but forget I’m supposed to fire a gun. Oops, I already passed a target. Now my horse is steering herself inside the cones, since I am now giving her so many mixed signals, like a novice rider, that she has decided to help me out and choose her own path, and I pass another target. I’m trotting because I want to go faster than a walk, but that makes things come a whole lot faster. Now I can’t get the one gun holstered and have to look down (“Don’t look down!”) and then I can’t get the other gun out of its holster, and meanwhile I have figured that if I steer my horse outside the cones it gives me a little more time for shooting, then I accidentally signal her to canter, but then I can’t get a shot off because my thumb has slipped off the hammer improperly and did not cock, and, “Don’t cock your gun until you’re ready to fire,” well, you get the picture. And the pros do this at a sprint? And they have to execute a new and different pattern each time at a sprint??
I can see how the approach of doing it slowly, over and over and over, to establish the right steps and the right technique so that eventually everything comes automatic is the key, and I can see how this sport is addicting!
It was such a fun afternoon with some new friends and personable, entertaining clinicians, that I forgot how I hate the heat. And even though I rode like an amateur, I didn’t shoot myself or my horses’ ears. I can call my Cowboy Mounted Shooting day a success and hang up my revolvers. I’ll watch some mounted shooting competition on YouTube, and I’ll watch those Cartwright boys as they keep chasing the bad guys. And I’ll practice my riding skills on my endurance horses sans the guns!
"It is not for the faint of heart: a hundred hard-won miles of rock, dust, elevation, uphill (19,000 cumulative feet of climbing), downhill, (22,000 cumulative feet of descending), imposing mountains, plunging canyons, wild rivers, wilderness, extreme heat, suffocating humidity, effort, and luck - good or bad, all in various doses, across the Sierra Nevada mountains, in the dark and the light and the dark, all done within a 24 hour time limit. Time magazine listed the Tevis Cup as one of the Top Ten Endurance Competitions in the world…"
Saturday evening in Scottsdale, Arizona, my e-book Tevis Cup Magic: Taking on the World's Toughest 100 Mile Endurance Ride was announced the winner of the 2017 Equine Media Awards non-fiction book category at the American Horse Publications Conference. "You had me hooked from the first paragraph," the judge stated. "You have a fabulous, engaging writing style that grabbed [m]y attention and kept me engaged throughout the book.."
I was surprised to make it to the finals, and beyond thrilled to win. I was in good company among my peers. Thank you, AHP!
Dedicated to excellence in equine media through education and communication, American Horse Publications promotes excellence in equine media.
Tevis Cup Magic is available as an e-book (no hard copies, sorry!) on Amazon here.
And now will somebody please pass me the eyedrops, I can still feel the dust from the trail!
There was a little twist to this branding day. After lunch, a couple of cowboys mounted up and went in the Other Pen. Don's longhorns needed branding. Fortunately the longhorns are rather gentle compared to those mean ol' mama angus cows, and while it took some skill to stay out of their way in a smaller pen, and to rope those bigger horns while they were ducking one behind the other, it all went quite smoothly. Once a longhorn was roped, it just sort of gave up and didn't put up any fight.
Mo, the big black cat, is always getting in fights with some gray tomcat who keeps trying to sneak in to get his cat food. There's always a horrible yowling caterwauling ruckus when they clash. I run out to try to yell them apart. Half the time Mo comes out on top, and half the time he gets the crap beat out of him, but he won't stop (Audrey the Wispy Terrorist just avoids conflict, though knowing her, the tomcat is terrified of her).
I heard some awful caterwauling the other morning and ran out to see if I could find the cats. As I stood by the crick trying to locate them, this great horned owl flushed from a tree above me.
He may have been drawn by the ruckus… either for a meal, or else he's wondering what the heck is going on and would they shut up already.
He's beautiful and I love owls, but I hope he wasn't looking for a meal, and I sure hope he doesn't get Mo or Audrey!
Horses pretty much says it all: Horse photographer, writer, artist, horse rider, horse packer, carriage driver, hiker, birder, wildlife technician, trail builder, theatre sound engineer, world traveler, racetrack groom, clawhammer banjoista, owner of The Most Beautiful Horse On The Planet (Stormy), rabid obsessed endurance rider, and Tevis Cup finisher. But not all at the same time.
All photos, words and cartoons on this blog are copyrighted by me, The Equestrian Vagabond, (unless otherwise indicated), and can't be reproduced or used without permission. thanks!
