By Patty Wilber
“If you have a job you love, it is not really like a job,” or something like that. This week was the saying sure fit!
Sunday was an 8-mile training ride with Back Country Horsemen at Golden Open Space. We split into two groups, but our total participation was 16 riders, 1 hiker, and 20 equine.
Here is our group climbing out of the canyon.
And here is LT leading the way.
Then on Wednesday, I rode two, then loaded Gette and Cocoa, and drove to Capitan, NM, where Gette and I got to work cows with Caleb Martin. I stayed overnight, worked again in the morning, did a trail ride in the Lincoln National Forest with Janae, her horse, and Cocoa, drove home, and rode two more. It was a grand two days! On that trail ride, we saw an elk butt and a herd of mule deer. They were quite small compared to the ones I see here. Cocoa had a panic attack when the deer herd bolted. But he came back easily.
I got some great tips from Caleb on boxing (like spend 50% of my driving and 50% cutting), good positioning tips on setting up to go down the fence. I got pointers on how to bump a slow cow, how to execute a solid open-field turn, and how to finish the open-field turn. I got good training ideas…like keeping my horse on the cow for longer periods of time and really focusing on being in position, rather than simply executing a maneuver or two. Now, I just need to get my cow flag to stop falling off when it goes around the corner so Gette can DRIVE it around the corner instead of following it.
But, I might have to fix that later in the month, because on Saturday, we are off to kayak near La Paz in Mexico, so there may not be a blog next week!
And speaking of fixing things, my bumper pull trailer will spend my Mexican vacation in the shop getting a new rear door since I managed to let the door swing open and then back it into the tractor bucket, bending the crap out of the door. Tractor was fine. Always fun to create completely unnecessary damage, all by oneself. Sigh.
Happy Friday, and I’ll most likely be back in two weeks.
