Summer rolls along....

Borrowed a saddle from a friend so I could practice my English lesson today, Beamer did really well with his leads this time- of course, he knew I was shod this time.....

We have been having a bunch of thunderstorms which has kept things a little cooler- perfect weather, in fact, and some good opportunities for Sunday Stills tomorrow. I saw Huckleberries at the market, now I just need to figure out where to go pick them. Any ideas, Tara?

A few people have mentioned seeing double rainbows lately; we get them here quite often, and I saw another one tonight.

Camera has rain spots on it, sorry.

Two more weeks till our blogger trail ride, so far there are six riders, only me and Janice as far as bloggers go, can anyone confirm if they are coming?

Beamer and boomers

Yes, it's true; I took an English riding lesson on Beamer. I hope to go once a week when I can. Whether or not I continue with it remains to be seen, but I am learning some really good techniques that can be used riding western too. And AQHA does have Dressage classes in their shows now. I'm thinking that Velvet, who is going to be a tall girl, not short and chunky like her daddy, would make a good English show horse. By the time she is old enough, I just may have it figured out! If only I didn't have to wear those funny pants that show all your cellulite and lumps and jiggly areas, that is! I rode in a helmet for the first time ever, a Troxel Sierra ML, apparently, and I hardly noticed it was there- quite comfortable. I may just invest in one. I'm getting old and brittle you know, maybe I should get Kevlar for the rest of me too.....

Here is a photo of the young lady that rode Beamer after my lesson.

She rode him really well and looks better on him than I do. Making Beamer work is going to be really good for him, the boy is getting lazy and evasive; he worked really hard at not taking his right lead! Have to put the spurs back on next ride. Now don't get all uppity about spurs, I only apply them as needed, and with this horse, who is so strong and lazy, some equalizers sometimes help to get the message across.

This is more his style...

We had a thunderstorm roll through around 5 AM; I tried to get some lightning shots but was always a split second too slow.

It was rather a beautiful morning though, watching the lightning flash from cloud to cloud, then sometimes to the ground. There is another thunderstorm brewing right now, so I'm off to try for some good cloud photos for Sunday Stills- and comfort my scardey cat border collies.

Wordless Wednesday

Smoke in the Valley

The smoke of many forest fires fills the air , filtering into this valley from the north and south. The smoke lies on the ground and fills the air, making breathing difficult for some folks. There are no fires close by, but central B.C. from Williams Lake to the Washington border, the "inland desert" part of B.C. has many fires, estimated at around 400 fires. There are also fires in Idaho and Washington State.

We are fortunate to have a lot of dew here; it keeps our pastures from drying out, and hangs on the spiderwebs like drops of pearls in the early morning light. Most mornings I wear rubber footwear to take the mares out to their pasture.

By midday, the face flies are driving the horses to distraction. When I filled up the water tubs today they all came up to be sprayed off, although I did have to put a halter on Coyote Belle, she was happy to stand there and get a good soaking; all of them wanted their faces sprayed too, as long as I sprayed from behind. Even Beamer let me spray him as he stood in the shade of his pen.

Kai got to frolicking after his cool down, and pestered his sister.

She didn't get too upset though, and they all trotted off and buried their faces in the long grass as they went back to grazing.

I was really proud of Beamer today. We had some company overnight, and their 4 year old son got to ride Beamer; the first evening, bareback with me leading him; he sat really well and didn't want to get off. This morning I saddled up and rode first, then put the boy on and led him around. I showed him how to steer with the reins, both directions, and how to stop and back up. I didn't have to lead Beamer, just walked alongside and Beamer followed me as the young fella steered. Then I got on and rode double with him, and much to his delight we did a little trotting and some spins- he was hollering with glee as we went around; Beamer took it all in stride. Afterwards, the children were playing close to him with push toys and he didn't move a muscle. Love that horse!

There's a stranger in my house...

So this is my standard border-collies-playing-ball-photo-but wait! Who is that with them?

That is Miah, my niece's 9 month old Mastiff puppy that I looked after this weekend.

Ain't she cute, Diesel?

All in all she was a good girl, not as energetic as I thought she'd be after seeing photos of Diesel playing over at Gizzards and Calf Fries. Seeing her play with the collies was like watching a scene in both fast forward and slow motion at the same time.

Sammi had a grand time with her, they played for hours. Sammi would go underneath Miah, and if Miah lay down, Sammi would jump on top and pester her.

Poor Miah!

Well, they ended up being best of friends. I think Tess was releived to find someone else that would play with Sammi so that she could take a break!

Sunday Stills- grafitti

Today's challenge was Graffiti/Street Art. Now, Creston is a small town, well known for it's murals, and while they are street art, I don't think that's what Ed had in mind. So I went hunting for graffiti of the illegal kind, and I had a tough time finding it. What I did find seemed to me to be obscenities, and not something that I would put on my blog, art or not. Until I found this one, which I found rather chilling........

I think I prefer barnyard graffiti like this:

Guest Post by Bubby

The horses don't seem to realize that cats rule- even in the barnyard.

They get a little annoying,

They are kinda pushy, you'd think they are the bosses of the barnyard!

But I'll show them......

That you are nothing until you've been ignored by a cat!

Just Chillin'

Again today Belle was sweated up, and knowing that she doesn't care for being sprayed, I haltered her and took the hose into the horse pen. Once I sprayed her legs, she decided that this wasn't so bad after all, and the next thing you know, all of them wanted to be sprayed! I was happy to oblige.

Velvet even let me spray her face today, and Kai thought since the girls were all having fun, he wanted in on it too; check out this video.

Kai and pups update

Theo and Manny

When I picked up hay the other day I got to see Tess's pups, Manny and Theo (formerly Luke and John) They were happy to see me, especially Theo, I used to cuddle him a lot.

Theo and Tess

They are three months old now. Theo is most like Tess, with a shorter smoother coat than Manny, who wouldn't sit still long enough for a photo.

Yesterday was our hottest day so far, 33C or 91 F degrees. When I brought the mares in, this time it was Belle who was sweating so I brought her and Kai over to the hitching rail, and Kai stood tied for the first time. He did really well, no pulling back, just tested the end of the rope a little then stepped forward. All the daily leading he's been getting paid off, because when he would refuse to lead, I'd just hold the pressure until he stepped forward, then he'd get slack and lots of praise. So that translated well to standing tied.

Belle gets panicky with spray so she got a sponge bath- I could have taken my time and used the hose on her but I wanted Kai's first lesson at the hitching rail to be a good one. Belle enjoyed the cool water, and when I finished her Kai got a sponge bath too. I spent time grooming the baby hair off, and picking his feet. He was a very good boy! He really got Beamer's personality; he loves attention. His owner came over and he got a lot more lovin' as well as his 3-way West Nile shot. He was easy to vaccinate too.

The papers came back from the vet lab, Kai is officially a smoky black. On his papers he will be listed as a black, carrying one copy of the cream dilute gene. Perhaps one day AQHA will add smoky black and smoky brown to their list of official colors.

You can see from this photo that we managed to scrub quite a bit of baby hair off him, this was taken this morning.

Coyote Belle's info came in too; she is homozygous for the black gene, she can't have red based foals, and her basic color is bay or brown, with one copy of the cream dilute gene, which means that she is either a smoky brown or a buckskin.

The evening finished off with another amazing sunset, not quite as spectacular colors as the ones over at Life on the Rough String lately, but beautiful nonetheless.

Heat and flies

It was plenty hot and muggy here yesterday, and since Velvet had sweated up a little when I brought her in, I decided it was time for her first bath. Shower, actually. When I'm filling the water troughs, Chickory and Kai will come up to be sprayed, but Velvet is fearful of the spray. So I tied her to the hitching rail and slowly and gently introduced her to the hose. Surprisingly enough, she liked it!

The only time she really objected was the first time it hit her face- just like daddy, she wimped out on that, but was willing to stick her nose in the spray.

I'll have to do her more often, next time I'll get out the shampoo for that thick mane of hers.

I know that garlic is good for combating mosquitoes, but since I usually add it to grain, I haven't been feeding any- they really don't need grain right now, fat little things!- so I thought I'd see if they would eat it by itself. I buy jars of crushed garlic. I held out a spoonful of it, and Chickory ate it like a kid eats candy.

Kai and Belle had a little, and Velvet had some too; today Belle and Velvet weren't too interested. I hope they will continue to eat it like that, anything to help keep the bugs off. I'll be picking up another sulphur salt block for their pasture too.

Time to hook on to the trailer and go get some hay, it will be this year's crop. And I get to visit 2 of Tess's pups while I'm there!

Sunny Sunday drive

What to do on a sunny Sunday? Go for a Sunday drive! After Mass I loaded up the dogs and went for a drive along the eastern shore of Kootenay Lake. I didn't go too far as I"m battling a chest cold so I don't have a lot of energy. The dogs were full of energy though! I found a spot to park and took the dogs down to the water, accompanied by a few thousand mosquitoes. It was swat, throw stick, swat, throw stick, etc. but after 10 minutes I'd had enough, and we headed back.

I grew up on the other end of this lake and have many fond memories of summers spent swimming, and soaking up the sunshine on the beach. If I had driven a little farther I could have found a nice sandy beach, but at least there were no other people here.

I also found the spot where the oil tanker truck that I mentioned in this post crashed and burned. He went over some pretty high cement barriers, down a very steep embankment that has train tracks below it. Burned some nice trees too.

Sunday Stills

The rule of thirds is the challenge today. I believe these shots qualify.

A little fun

Beamer was getting bugged by the bugs tonight, so I thought I'd play with him to take his mind off his woes.

So I chased him up a little, in the glorious evening light.

He obliged, as always with one eye on the camera....

and gave me his patented suspended leap....

and made sure I caught a rear or two...

and his "OK, I'm all done now " look.

Love my B-Boy!

Go west part two

This morning I loaded up a bag of hay, some salt, minerals and grain for the mare, Chevy, and since Dirk is a vegetarian- information I found on his website- I made him a cheese, tomato and lettuce sandwich, some hard boiled eggs, a bag of nuts and a lemonade. I headed up the pass till I found them, then visited while Chevy contentedly munched hay, right on the shoulder of the road with traffic whizzing by at 6o MPH. I found out that she is 15 years old, a registered quarter horse, and that after this ride is complete she will be for sale as Dirk lives in Toronto. This is a seriously nice mare folks, tall, sound, and really good minded. She is sired by a grandson of Impressive and Two Eyed Jack, with a little Jet Deck thrown in. The ride should be about over in two weeks.

After visiting a bit, I found out that they were intending to camp at the summit, 20 km. up the road, a steep 8% grade on the last 6 miles of it. I took the horse feed up and left it in the camping area by the lake for them- on the way back I stopped to let them know where it was.

If you want to check out the website, it's called Go West Young Men.

Dirk plans to avoid the highway between Salmo and Christina Lake by taking a backroad that parallels the US border. I know that there is some lovely country down there along the PendOrielle River.

Hope they ride safe and sound!

Go West, Young Men!

As I arrived to work today, I saw a horse and rider preparing to head down the road. I talked to the fellow a while and found out that he is riding across Canada on his Quarter Horse mare, Chevy and has been three months on the road. His mare looked to be in great shape, she was busy grazing the lawn as we spoke.

He averages 30 miles a day with her has had her reshod 4 times, and had her vet checked recently with a clean bill of health.

Originally there were two men travelling together, but one dropped out for family reasons. This is Dirk Pfau.

Ahead of him is about forty miles of the highest mountain pass in Canada, the Salmo Creston Skyway. At the summit there is a rest stop, I'm sure he'll make use of it! There is a lake there, and some grass for grazing. I intend to take a drive tomorrow with some supplies for them.

A short time after he rode off, there was a storm front roll in with high winds and driving rain, strong but short-lived. I hope he made it to some shelter before it hit! I asked if he has a tent, he said he sleeps where the horse does, only underneath a tarp. He also said he'd never do this again!

An almost perfect evening

Life

Is

Good

Especially when I have good company to share a good meal with and a beautiful evening; my ex-sister in law and her family are visiting overnight.There are only two things to mar a perfect evening- my husband is working out of town so he couldn't be here, and then we saw this rather ominous cloud of smoke to the north:

Turns out it is an oil tanker truck burning , probably crashed on one of the really tight corners near Wyndell. Haven't heard anything about the driver yet.

Update:

I found out that the truck that crashed and sent up all the smoke was carrying transformer oil, which contains PCP's, and that all the oil burned up. The driver managed to escape, just in time, although he did get some burns. The corner he crashed on is an S corner near Sirdar that has claimed more than one rig, the second part of the curve doesn't have the right superelevation and so it's posted for a very slow speed which some truckers ignore to their peril.