We stopped by the Mexican Kitchen in Vegas for a late breakfast before loading the truck up with hay. We had carnitas, papitas, beans, posole and sopapillas with honey. I had green chile. Dennis had Christmas (red and green chile). All washed down with iced tea.
A white van pulled up outside the big picture windows. We watched as one man after another poured out of the van in a what seemed to be an endless stream. "Oh, look," I told Dennis. "It must be one of those church groups." We see countless First Baptist Church vans in Northern New Mexico at this time of year, many of them headed for Glorieta. I still didn't get it as approximately 15 men came into the restaurant, pushed some tables together, and began ordering lunch in Spanish.
I continued to be clueless when after we paid our waitress and left her a nice tip, we passed another 6 or 7 young hispanic men waiting outside the door as we were leaving. They stared at us with dark, level eyes.
I took a look at the van, wondering what church all those men were from. The license plate was from Mexico.
My husband had a good laugh at me in the truck as he explained to me that, no, all of those nice young men, all twenty plus of them crammed into a white Chevy Van labeled American Tours weren't members of the congregation of the Southern Baptist Church in Dallas.
Here I am with that nice mare from the pasture next door and her little colt. She's a very good momma. She keeps a good eye on her little one, but I notice that she also lets the little fellow roam and romp. He occasionally gets in trouble with the other broodmares, who put the scamp in place pretty quickly if he is even moderately annoying.
Which, of course, he is.
It's amazing to me how one horse can stop another in its tracks with a flick of a nostril, the look in an eye. Especially the effect of such subtle physical gestures on a colt. Imp that he seems to be, he minds his mom and the brood mares as far as I can tell.
Baby animals are such a wonder. And then again, so are our own children.
My 9-year old son C. and the very very new colt in the pasture next door. This little colt will let me near him and allow me to touch him, but I can tell he is just a little leery of me. When C. approached him on this beautiful March Saturday, the colt frolicked away a few steps, all full of himself. C. was very disappointed and turned to walk away from him, saying, "Oh, mom, he's not going to let me near him." Just as the words were out of the little boy's mouth, the colt stopped his frolicking and turned towards C., ears pricked forward, tail flicking, full of interest. He took a few steps towards my son who was still walking away when I said, "Look, C! He wants to see you!" C. turned back towards the colt and walked towards the little fellow, who stood very still and seemed to welcome C.'s interest. He and C. remind me of each other. Long legs and all.
We’re going. In 2008. You ride 125 miles with 25 other horsemen and women through some really historic country. Fort Sumner to Lincoln, I think. Through private ranches. Some nights you sleep out under the stars. Other nights, you get to bunk in the ranch bunk houses. You don’t have to pack in either. Apparently there’s a truck that meets you at each destination with your gear. The trail organizers pack your lunch for you and cook your dinner over an open fire in the evenings.
So, it’s not exactly roughing it, but luckily I am no purist. Neither are my horses for that matter. I’ve been working on teaching a few of them to hobble. I’ve actually approached the whole process with some trepidation. Tying up two of a horse’s legs just scares the living daylights out of me, frankly. I’ve got a good trail training book with lots of good how-to information from a wrangler.
Apparently our current governor, Richardson, made this ride in 2005. I’d guess he did it to promote New Mexico tourism.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
The Trail of Billy's Last Ride - A ride to remember. Spend 7 days on horseback, riding the 125- mile trail that Billy the Kid rode after he escaped the jail in historic Lincoln, NM. Start at Lincoln and end up at his grave in Fort Sumner, NM. The Trail of Billy's Last Ride exists to preserve history and the Western lifestyle. With historically correct reenactments, story telling, safe horsemanship and professional contacts, we strive to empower host ranches in their endeavor to offer a true Western experience, while preserving lands and landmarks. First come first serve, the ride is held at the end of April annually. For lots more information, contact Rex Buchman at bbuchman@nmsu.edu or call in Fort Sumner, NM (505) 760-6442 or (505) 355-2381.
For about six weeks, I've been looking forward to attending the International Women's Writing Guild workshop in Santa Fe. The title of the workshop is Owning the Past: Writing Your Story and Her Story. I'm working on non-fiction book about horses, women and spirit. Some of it is a memoir. The morning workshop agenda included talks like Starting from the Center: Knowing Yourself, Archetypal Actions Versus Small Indignities, and Creating Historical Fiction from Your Experiences.
I just found out that the workshop has been canceled. Here I've been envisioning for sometimes spending an entire wonderful day talking with other women writers. I am, in a nutshell, tremendously bummed out.
It occurs to me that this might be some kind of commentary on my needing to get out a little more.
Now, who would have thought? The Hackney is on the endangered equine list.
My first impression of the Hackney horse was at the Tulsa, Oklahoma fair. I was in kindergarten, and we lived only a few blocks away from the fairgrounds. My mom and dad took my sister and I to the fair and because I was a seriously horse-crazed child, they made sure that we spent some time at the horse shows.
I loved to watch the elderly ladies driving those flashy Hackney ponies around the arena. My memory is of senior woman with gray blue hair in a blue chiffon evening dress, resplendent with sequins and rhinestones sitting in a slick little rig, gloved hands holding the reins and driving whip, ice blue scarf billowing along in the wake of that Hackney's big trot.
This is the story of one of the over 400 horses rescued by the United States Equine Rescue League, Inc. Get our your kleenexes. Bryce is a clydesdale stallion who was rescued and adopted by a USER member. USER goes out to farms and talks to horse owners about the care of their animals. In the cases of abuse and neglect, the horses must be seized and then rehabilitated.
My sister, who has a background in law enforcement, used to do this type of animal rescue work in Georgia. Unfortunately, she also found that upon investigating allegations of animal abuse, they often discovered incidents of child abuse as well. She was surprised to find herself also needing to make a few calls into Georgia child protective services.
This is Buzkashi. A bunch of horsemen (I doubt they let women ride horses in this barbaric country) fight over a goat carcass. The sport is originally from Central Asian Turks who spread this sport throughout the region from Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and hence later on to the British. Maybe this is how the British got the game of polo? This doesn't look much like the game I've seen played down at the Santa Fe Horse Park with the polo pros.
This is an interesting little piece from The Belgian Draft Horse Corp. of America--Reasons for the Draft Horse Renaissance. I think I own a draft horse for reasons #3 and #4. My Percheron is definitely a crowd please. People oooooh and aaaaaaaaah at the handsome ebony fellow. Visitors to my little ranch, especially of the non-horse variety, find such a gentle nature on such a big, powerful looking jet-black horse to be almost incongruent. They look at me askance when I tell them that his nickname is "The Big Boo" or just "Boo Boo". I gues he doesn't look like much of a Boo Boo at first glance. But after you get to know the big lug, you would agree that the nickname is completely appropriate.
1. A growing ecological awareness that some of the tools and methods of modern agriculture is destructive, causing many to seek alternatives, among which is the draft horse as a source of power
2. An economic crunch that makes home grown power, that runs on home grown fuel, which in turn enriches the soil in the form of manure, reproduces itself plus providing surplus for sale, and appreciates rather than depreciates for the first half of its life, look better and better.
3. Their beauty. The draft horse at his best is a spectacular beast. Once booted out at some fairs for being behind the times, they are now welcomed back as crowd pleasers. More increasingly big commercial firms are also looking to the Belgian hitch as an advertising vehicle.
4. Nostalgia plays a role, albeit a minor one. Increasing numbers of horse-minded people are finding their pleasure horse in the form of a team of Belgians. Their good disposition and willingness to work make them great favorites on some of the small part-time "sundowner and weekender" type farms that continue to increase in number.
I love this vid of two little boys riding this enormous Belgian mare "Rowan". It just makes me smile. As do draft horses in general. What gentle souls they are. I am sorry to say that these beautiful giants are on the endangered list too. I have vaulted on Belgians. Actually, it's because of my experience vaulting on draft horses that my love affair with draft horses began. Did you know that the Belgian horse has the most direct lineal descendants of the "great horse" of medieval times?
I have had during the last year the opportunity to vault on a handsome Irish Draught horse named Shakespeare. But I had no idea until I began researching endangered horses, that these beautiful horses are indeed in need of conservation. Shakespeare, the only Irish Draught I've ever known, is a gentleman. He's carried both me and my daughter with great care during our vaulting practice. I have to literally reach over my head to grasp the handles of the vaulting surcingle. He is one tall boy. I know he's my vaulting coach's treasure.
Irish Draft Horse Society of North America. "The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations classifies the Irish Draught (ID) horse as an endangered breed due to the declining population size. Falling purebred numbers, combined with a serious threat of genetic erosion, suggest that the ID population is in urgent need of conservation. Genetic diversity is an important component in the consideration of conservation strategies and measures of genetic diversity are becoming widely used in breed management systems. The Irish Draught Horse Society must now identify and preserve its rare bloodlines and explore the genetic resources available to preserve the broadest possible genetic base."
The ancestors of the Canadian Horse came to Canada in 1665 along with the French settlers. In 2002, The Canadian Horse was officially recognized as the official horse of Canada. The Canadian is often referred to as the Little Iron Horse because pound for pound, he can pull more weight than any other kind of horse. A recent genetic similarity study demonstrated that The Canadian is a close cousin to the Morgan. There are approximately 4,000 registered Canadian Horses. The Equus Survival Trust lists “Le petit cheval de fer” on its list of endangered equines.
When I was a girl, one Christmas I got a copy of a book entitled "The Love of Horses". The front cover was covered with white horses running through the sea. I still have the book to this day. It's one of my treasures.
I was the most taken by the photo of the Akhal Teke stallion, though. His coat was an iridescent gold, and to me he looked like royalty. I had no idea that these fabulous horses are endangered, with approximately 300 in the U.S. and 500 in Europe. These beautiful horses are originally from Turkmenistan. They were used as war horses originally and were valued because they could cross long distances with little food or water.
This is a nice little vid that a horse owner over on YouTube took of adding a new horse to the herd. When we added thoroughbred Shilo to our then herd of three, which consisted of an Arabian mare, and Andalusian mare, and an elderly POA gelding, we were not prepared for the sparks that flew! We introduced the thoroughbred to our friendly and easy-going Andalusian, who had lived by herself for so many years before I bought her that she loves everyone. That one was easy. Then we introduced the beautiful thoroughbred mare to our old POA gelding. He arched his neck and made throaty huffa huffa sounds, very happy to meet her. I think it was love at first sight, because over the year we had her, they became fast friends.
Then we unleashed my husband's Polish Arabian mare. She flew at the poor new horse like an attack dog. Ears pinned, hindquarters churning, tail flying, sparks shooting out of her eyeballs. I never thought I'd describe an Arabian horse as a pit bull. But that's exactly what the hot blooded girl transformed into.
After that, we became smarter about the introductions and kept the new horse separate on the other side of the fence for at least a week or two, so the first meeting in the pasture wasn't quite so dramatic.
When A Tough-As-Nails Rodeo Champ Leaves Her Ranch To Switch Places With A Suburban Social Butterfly Their Families Buck And The Dust Flies, On ABC's Wife Swap
It's grit versus glamour this week in Ridgely/Corrao, as rodeo barrel racer Cowgirl Jen trades families with luxury-living hair stylist Kim on Wife Swap.
Yes, I admit it. I watched this week's Wife Swap.
And now you know that I have a tendency towards some low-brow television. We sat around the den laughing at the hairstylist who screeched at the sight of some horse manure in the barn aisle. But, I’ve got to give the lady credit, she did shovel horse shit and even rode a horse for the first time in her life, bareback.
If I signed up for Wife Swap, I'd like to be sent to a house of a wealthy socialite woman who spends all of her time hot tubbing at the spa, working with a personal trainer, getting her nails done, having her hair and makeup done, having a daily massage, shopping at fabulous fashionable stores, and dining out. It would be like a mini-vacation. I suspect that you'd have to tell the producers that you were radically opposed to that sort of thing in order for them to send you to such a place. I'd probably wind up on a hawg farm in Arkansas ...
From Channel4.com Jen Ridgely and her husband Randy, a professional bull rider and steer wrestler, keep tight reins on their two young children, who do chores around the ranch when they're not in school. In their family rugged independence, hard work, competitiveness and frugality take precedence over romance and leisure time. The Corrao family, meanwhile, are bred on "la dolce vita". The children do just about whatever they want around the house, set their own bedtimes and even write on the walls. Can hairdresser Kim cope with shoveling horse manure morning, noon and night? What does "Cowgirl Jen" make of the lack of discipline and structure in the Corrao house?
Bringing up two heeler puppies (sisters) has almost driven me to distraction during the long winter months. In between vowing that I will never have two heeler puppies at the same time again, let alone sisters, I have really enjoyed the look on my husband's face each time I tease him and tell him that I'm planning to open up a Blue Heeler Rescue Ranch. If that's the case, he growls, then one of us is going. And I suspect that he doesn't mean himself.
Now that the weather has warmed up a few degrees and the days are a tiny bit longer, I have suddenly become aware of the fact that I am inextricably a part of a heeler dog pack. When I go to the barn, Lila Jane and Red Dawg stick to me like glue, sometimes so close behind me that I don't realize they're actually following me. I call and call for them until one of them bumps me with a nose like, "Uh, we're right here, you blind and deaf girlfriend." If I go inside of the house for a drink of water, they wait right outside the door, pressed against it. When I take a horse out for a ride, they trail right along at, yes, you guessed it, my horse's heels. In the morning when I let them back inside the house from doing their business, and no one else in the house is awake yet, we wrestle in a pile on the floor in front of the woodburning stove. At night when I take a bath, the heeler pups come to check on me, hanging a blue or red head over the edge of the tub to see if I'm all right, but not too close or for too long for fear that I'll suddenly recognize that they are in need of a good washing.
The three of us are tied together like a group of climbers summitting a peak. We are entwined like a bright red ribbon braided into a horse's mane. We are bound together with something even more sticky than the sap of a pinon tree. I've been a part of a family and part of a horse herd for a long time, but I've gotta tell you, I'm liking this heeler dog pack thing.
The kids and I make another journey through the fence at the back of the pasture where the broodmares are. We're going to take another look at that new colt. Well, actually a second look for me, a first for J. and C. And they have their marching orders from me. You stay right beside me. If any mare gets nervous or aggressive, you get right behind me. She'll have to get me first if she's going to get anybody.
The brood mares are drawn to us like magnets. We are quickly surrounded by relaxed, tail swishing quarter horses quietly asking us to pet them, please. Being surrounded by a small herd of pregnant mares could be slightly nerve wracking for many, but my kids, who've been around horses since the day they were born, are simply delighted. The boss mare, who has a shining ebony coat and a windblown forelock that nearly covers her jet eyes with the long lashes, inspects each one of us thoroughly.
"Hello, Momma," I tell her. "We've come to see the baby."
And then I hear my kids' collective intake of breath as we spot the colt. He is curled up in the dry winter grass on his slender stilt legs, tiny hooves tucked beneath him, his mother standing watch. She allows us to approach her and rub her neck. She closes her eyes, enjoying the attention. We stand a respectful distance away from the colt, until I am simply overcome by the desire to touch him, and walk very slowly towards the tiny horse, one foot carefully in front of the other, gauge the momma horse's unconcern, and then bend down slowly, every so slowly, to touch his downy fur. And he lets me. I grin like an idiot back at the kids.
One by one, we take a turn at petting the little fellow. Then he pulls himself up to all spindly fours and cavorts, frolicks, gambols in the buffalo grass. The colt turns towards my nine-year-old son and lets out a high-pitched whinny, approaching C. with his neck outstretched, until he is sniffing the palm of my son's hand.
The pasture next door is filled with brood mares. They grow rounder and heavier with each day. They are all quarter horses, I think. I count nine. They stare at me solemnly with their dark, liquid eyes from the other side of the fence. Sometimes one will sidle over for a good back scratching or a little conversation. I am most acquainted with the boss mare because she shoos the others away from me. Needless to say, we've made friends.
One day, there were no foals in the pasture, and then suddenly there is one. As if out of thin air. A colt. I saw him first when he was only a few days old. He is all legs and energy.
My husband and I sneaked through the fence at the back of the property to get a closer look at the little fellow. The eight pregnant mares trailed along behind us as we wound our way through the pinon trees, wondering where momma and baby could be. And then we saw them. The colt teetered on his unbelievably long legs next to his mother's flank, eyeing us inquisitively. The mare seemed happy for the company and strolled over to greet us, her little one in tow.
Dennis rubbed her head and then placed a hand lightly on the colt's rump as he skittered by, all ears and legs and flash of tail.
A horse colic and the nature of the universe - Part 2
All day long, the health of our beloved mare hung in the balance. I wondered if I prayed and asked for her to get better, if God would care. It's been a long time since I've believed in a God that cares about the personal minutae of my life, let alone a little Arabian mare.
Yes, I believe in God, I just think he may be a little more remote than I'd been led to believe in my previous church-going life. Yeah, yeah, I know that somewhere in the Bible it says that the hairs on my head are numbered and that a sparrow doesn't fall that God doesn't know about it and care.
But-- Too many bad things happen to good people. And good things happen to bad people. Of late, I don't see much rhyme or reason there.
Is it all a crapshoot? Maybe that's too harsh. I know at least that it's unpredictable. A wild and wooly reality in which we find ourselves, spirits in the materia. And one of these days, we'll return to the place from which we came.
In the meantime, it seems that I have forgotten how to pray.
Good news to report, though. Miss Morningstar is on the mend. Now my poor husband just needs to recover from a day of heavy worrying.
When I went down to feed the horses on Monday morning, I found my husband's Arabian mare lying on her side next to the pasture fence, her head sweaty, neck and chest drenched. She was shivering in the frigid mountain air. Eyes half closed, the usually full-of-piss-and-vinegar Arabian horse was like a pale reflection of herself. Almost a ghost. It took me a few minutes to coax the little girl her her feet and up to the house.
By the time Doc arrived, Miss Morningstar was doing better. She'd only been running a slight fever, and we'd covered her with a polar fleece sheet to fight off the chill. Doc seemed to think that she'd had a colic during the night. I imagined the little horse out there beneath the white hard stars with the temperature so cold it nips with shiny, silver teeth, not feeling well, probably wondering where in the hell we were. And all she could do was hunker down and wait through the tummy ache until the morning.
Dennis stayed home with her all day long, never leaving her side. I called to check on her mid-morning and was happy to hear that she'd pooped and had some water, was even nibbling a little hay. As I left the house for work that morning after going down to the barn to say goodbye to husband and horse and see if they had everything they needed, all I could think of was the worry lines furrowing my husband's face. If anything happened to that mare, I thought, he'd just be crushed.
And so on this March morning, we faced down the age-old question of life and death, eye to eye with an Arabian mare. Having a herd of horses, with their propensity for hurting themselves or each other or catching something floating by in the air, I sometimes sense the old dread question hanging around a little too close for comfort, like an unwelcome visitor.
The mare in question was known around town as the Hell Bitch. Call had bought her in Mexico, from some caballeros who claimed to have killed an Indian to get her -- a Comanche, they said.
~ Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry
The Hell Bitch has got to be one of my all-time favorite literary horses. She could canter for miles without getting tired. I remember reading in Lonesome Dove that she actually bit a pretty good chunk out of some poor, unsuspecting soul the moment he turned his back on her.
I'm actually glad that I've never had a horse like her, but she always stands out in my mind as one of the most fascinating horses I've read about.
I got a Roomba this weekend. Anything that automatically vacuums my floors for me without tiring or complaining ... well ... sigh ... what can a girl say?
I'm in love.
And this has gotten me to thinking. Do you think anyone has thought of developing such a robotic device to clean up horse manure? I mean, can you imagine? A slave robot sweeping every corner of your pasture until it's sparkling clean. Perhaps even programmed to clean up immediately upon the horse's production of a big, steaming pile of gooey green horse poop on the ground? It would have to be small enough to vacuum the manure from stalls too. Or possibly that would be an attachment or another model altogether. It could come in different sizes, depending upon what size horse you have. Miniature. Pony. Cob. Horse. Draft.
Ooooh, I think I'm onto something here. What would we call it?
A Poopa? A Manu-R-oomba? Horse-Shit-o-Roomba?
I'd better call the patent office quick before some other savvy horseperson beats me to the punch. I know ... when unicorns fly.
The front of the barn is flooded in sunlight. I'm sitting on one of the 800-pound bales of Timothy grass, awash in a sea of gold, soaking it up like a sponge, eyes half closed, sipping a cold hard cider. The bottle's got a picture of a woodchuck on the front. I'm smiling to myself, thinking that's pretty darn funny--Woodchuck Cider. My husband's come down to load up the round bale feeder with one of these big bales. He's jangles the keys to the tractor.
"Come one," he says, "let's go."
"Nah," I'm feeling lazy, but don't quite fess up in the face of all of that industriousness. The horses after all just polished off their big bale a little while ago, so they're not exactly starving. "Let's just sit for a minute and enjoy the sun."
He hops up on the bale next to me, not requiring too much convincing. Sips his beer. We don't say anything. Boone the barn kitten sneaks up on us. He lands in the patch of sunlight between us, purring up a storm. Rubs up against Dennis. Then me. Alternating back and forth between the two of us because that way he gets his furry back scratched real good.
The sun is warm on my face. I scooch up next to my husband, put my arm around him, head on his shoulder, close my eyes--all the better to breathe in the scent of soap and sweat, hay, horses, pinon. The hens scratch in the dirt at the foot of the big bale, making happy chicken sounds. Almost like earthbound doves cooing.
This is the weekend of my 6-year-wedding anniversary.
We may go dancing to celebrate. There are a dozen red roses in a beautiful vase here on my desk as I type this. The seven years I've known my wonderful husband have been some of the happiest of my life. He helped me remember that there's a lot of beauty to be had, that there's a friend I can count on and someone to share my dreams (and who'll even egg me on given half a chance), and how to find a sense of peace in the midst of the things that are out of our control. He loves me like I am. He helped me remember how to dance and sing. Oh yeah, and he makes me laugh.
Here's to getting my fill of the heavy horses this Sunday afternoon!
I attended the draft horse show at the New Mexico State Fair a couple of years ago. My family members fidgeted and sighed as they dutifully sat with draft-horse daft mom in the bleachers while these magnificent animals glided by, pulling carts, wagons, increasingly heavy loads, carrying riders on their backs. I did get dragged off to the other exhibits and the carnival rides at some point. Then we strolled through the barns and spoke to the draft horse people. I was amazed at how willing and eager people were to talk about their horses. (But, then again, I do wonder why I was surprised, because I love to talk about mine.) This year, I'm taking two full days off and attending the draft horse show sans fidgety family members.
I will not budge. I will not fidget. I will blissfully sit and watch.
Just as the ranger from the Questa District promised me over the phone earlier this week, the envelope she’s mailed contains neatly folded maps of the Valle Vidal.
I spread them out on the dining room table. Smooth the creases in the paper. Imagine the map to be a sprawling plain alive with herds of American Buffalo and elk. Wild turkey dot the grasslands and roost in the low branches of the pines. A mule deer drinks from one of the clear, cold creeks marked by a squiggly line that bleeds off into a smudge mark at the bottom of the page where I've spilled my tea, her ears twitching as she lifts her head. At any moment a bear or a mountain lion might roam by.
Valle Vidal means The Valley of Life. The 100,000 acres in the northeastern corner of New Mexico is virtually unspoiled. Although I haven't seen it yet, this clearly delineated piece of geography beneath my index finger on the map is reputed to look like the west did 100, 200 or even 1,000 years ago.
I've read somewhere that signs at both of the Valle Vidal campgrounds warn, "Buffalo Are Wildlife." I wonder how my young Percheron horse Toby, who seems about as big as a buffalo to me, would react to seeing one of those massive hairy beasts. Would he freeze in place like a statue on four pillar-like legs, snorting and blowing through his nostrils, shuddering beneath me in excitement? Or would he merely glance at the bearded giants as we passed by, too eager to explore all of that wide-open space?
You’re supposed to need some orientation skills if you intend to roam this expanse of wilderness. It says so in the literature the ranger sent along with the maps.
There’s a glaring absence of any hiking trail legends. That’s because there’s not any. If I go to the Valle on my own, I might get lost. I’m no backwoods woman by any stretch of the imagination, and I would possibly wind up being one of those fantastical news stories on CNN. You know, the one about some poor fool who’s been lost in the wilderness for days after what was supposed to be a two-hour trek into the woods? Usually she’s found after several days of on-the-edge anticipation and increasingly shrill testimony from family about how God works all things for the good, even if they find her crumpled in a heap at the bottom of a canyon. In all of my years in Northern New Mexico, stories like this come too close for comfort.
The father of a brother-in-law is lost in the desert for days while antelope hunting until a local sheep rancher finds him, very alive but very thirsty.
An old family friend crashes his small airplane into the peaks during a snowstorm. His Labrador Retriever is the only survivor. Rescuers find the puppy whimpering beside the wreckage.
An elderly acquaintance, a newly widowed woman who has just spent a small fortune remodeling a beautiful historic adobe because she’s at a loss without her husband, disappears during an afternoon hike in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains with her three adopted mutts. They find her body over three weeks later. I still think of the woman sometimes, although I barely knew her. Images flood the memory gates against every shred of my will—I see her cold and disoriented from hypothermia, curling up in the pine needles and the aspen leaves, hunkering down for the rescue party, too exhausted to go on, finally falling asleep as the mutts snuggle closer to her shivering body which eventually doesn’t shiver any more.
I think of the bleached white bones of a deer beside the high and winding trail we rode up to Lake Johnson last summer.
I think too much sometimes.
I’m pretty sure I hear truck tires on the gravel driveway outside, thinking that Dennis might be home early, but my heeler dogs aren’t barking so it must be my imagination on overtime. My husband is the kind of man you’d be fortunate to get stranded with on a deserted island or a treacherous high mountain pass where the wind howls and moans, if that type of thing has to happen to you. The man knows his way around the wild places and has the skills and the moxy to get everyone home safe and sound. Because of him, and not because of any particular skills that I have, except for my ability to ride a horse and make a pretty tasty sack lunch, I can begin to make plans during the late winter season for a summer horse camping trip to the untamed Valle.
A red heeler dog is wriggling beneath my knees, whining, eager to go outside and torment exercise a horse or two before it gets dark. Her sister places her freckled paws on my knees and stares into my eyes, silently pleading. I’ve been too long with my papers apparently. I rub her head and put the maps aside for when Dennis does get home from work.
And then I find myself sitting down at my computer, searching the internet to see if the local community college is offering an orienteering class this Spring. The heeler dogs lay down at my feet, sighing pointed, heavy sighs tinged with disappointment and then resignation until finally they fall asleep and dream of chasing whatever wild things haunt their canine imaginations.
Perhaps they are poised within the ample shadow of my Percheron horse Toby, staring with him in wonder at the buffalo.
