What’s up with Willow

When I left off a week or so ago Willow was lame, well not much has changed here with regards to that. The vet was out today and it appears that she may have some soft tissue damage on her left fetlock. We have her set up with a sweat wrap and she is on a regime of anti-biotics and some bute so hopefully we will see some improvement over the next couple of days. It seems that maybe she has a cactus puncture or some bruising on the bottom side of the joint. We are hopeful that it will work itself out given a little time. But as I find out you will find out, so on to what we have been up to.

This weekend was gymkhana weekend here in Thunderbird Farms and seeing as how Willow is my secret weapon, she actually knows the barrel pattern, I was horseless for that event. I did take old Blue up and get him a little exposure but as it appears the timer in the arena times things down to the thousandth of a second but has no calendar feature so we opted out of running any of the events. So the photo’s below are some of the quicker folks who ran there.

TACC Gymkhana VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

As I was proof reading today’s offering I noticed that the young lady in two of the above photo’s was TACCs Queen and coincidentally Sundays ride captain, CC.

Sunday was TACC’s Poker Ride so Blue and I headed out to join that ride for the day. Took us about three hours on the ride and then another hour for eating the great pizza lunch they brought in.

We rode out Vekol Wash and back from the arena so we didn’t have to use the trailer as Dogpound South is just a five minute lope away from the start.

Alamo Lake State Park

This Friday we were off to Alamo Lake State Park to join a bunch of our AZBCR friends on a little ride on the weekend. It was a pretty long haul out there, took about 3.5 hours. This park is pretty close to the middle of nowhere here in Arizona but there seemed to be a bunch of bass fishermen heading here to. We found our spot and got things set up so the horses were comfortable and then sat back and watched the rest of the folks pull into camp.

Brenda had whipped up some of that good Taco soup and we shared a bowl or two with the Rogers and Modahl’s as the sun set over our camp.

Saturday morning we were up early and enjoyed watching the sun rise before getting ready for our day’s ride. Then life intervened, Brenda’s horse Willow was a little lame so riding was out of the question for her. I stripped the saddle off her and put her back on the highline.

Here she is looking like she is being left behind

Brenda decided to stay in camp and Blue and I had a training ride as he gets a little agitated when his buddy is not there. Took a couple of miles to get him settled down but eventually he straightened out and the rest of the 19.5 mile ride was pretty enjoyable. We saw a lot of country and went around the lake crossing the NE end at coincidentally “Brown’s Crossing” and heading back along the north side looking for a slot canyon we had heard was over there. We ran out of time before we found it and had to head back to camp for another great potluck dinner, this one with a little Thanksgiving flavour, turkey, ham and all the trimmings.

Alamo Lake State Park Ride VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Here are a couple of pictures of our friends “K” on the paint mare

and our leader of the day Dave and his mule Earl.

Sunday with Willow out of the lineup we let the others go on a short ride while we broke camp and headed back to Dogpound South. Looks like Willow will spend a little time on the injured reserve list and we will have to see how things turn out before our next ride.

For those who like to look at all the pictures of the ride here is a link that should take you there.

Alamo Lake State Park ride

Beaver Creek Trailhead

This weekend we headed north to Beaver Creek, just a few miles from Sedona. We were meeting a bunch of our horse folk friends there and planning a ride out on Saturday. The forecast was for cool and rainy weather, but luckily we got the rainy part out of the way, for the most part, on Friday evening while we were sleeping.

Saturday morning dawned without a cloud in the sky and not even a breeze blowing. We got saddled up and ready to go and although it was a cool morning we looked to be in for a great day. Our trail boss, Frank, led us out onto the Bell Trail and over a saddle into Beaver Creek and the headquarters of the V Bar V ranch. We passed up that beautiful valley and then took a hard left onto the White Mesa trail. It was a fairly steep, especially for our slightly fat horses, and rocky trail that led up another beautiful draw. Eventually we scrambled out onto the Mesa. It looked like a great spot for a ride, scattered junipers and long grass waving in the breeze. Well pretty soon the sun went behind the clouds, the breeze picked up speed and became a pretty stiff and cold wind and that grass was growing in a bed of rocks and cactus that made for tough footing for the horses. We headed generally back towards camp looking for an old trail that would lead us down off the Mesa. We did manage to find a warm sheltered spot to break some bread and once we warmed up a little we got back on the move. Eventually we did find that old trail, although we had to ride through a short snow squall, and started to drop down into the valley again and out of the wind. It was a little warmer but by that time Brenda had got quite a chill so she spent the rest of the day trying to thaw out. Great scenery and wonderful company as usual though!

Brockett Trailhead to White Mesa and return VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Once we got back we got the potluck dish ready to go and then headed down to Frank’s camper and his propane campfires, no woodfires allowed here, where we had a feast as usual. Folks think we are a riding club but we are really an eating club that rides. Who knew that there would be so many fabulous cooks amongst all those riders.

Sunday we hooked up and headed home and boy that heat felt good as we came down the hill into Black Canyon and the north end of the valley. Now to get loaded up for next weekends adventure.

On the non-riding front I found a pool in Chandler that is open for a couple of hours a day just for lane swimming so I am managing to get in a swim or two every week.

If you would like to have a look at all the photo’s I took on our ride this weekend follow this link

Brocket Trailhead to White Mesa

Week One @ DPS

Well I left off last week as we ran out to get some dinner and connect to the internet down the road at our local Bar and Grill. After using Rand’s internet and devouring our dinner we headed home for a good nights rest. Monday was time to get ahold of our own internet provider and get things rolling there. We also brought in some feed for our horses to hold them over the winter. We had some trouble with our Canadian Satellite dish so had the Directv folks hook us up to their system. Holy Smokes! After only having the TV hooked up for a couple of hours we were already sick of the political commercials, I can’t imagine our friends having to watch that nonsense for months on end. Makes a fellow appreciate the short election cycle back home. Maybe the best reason ever for non-fixed election dates.

Halloween night we delivered some candy to our neighbours kids and then headed down the road to Paula and Harvey’s Feed Store for a little community gathering, great food and even better visiting with our Dogpound South friends.

The rest of the week was spent just loafing about and getting a few miles on the horses.

Blue at DPS VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Friday we got our Canadian Satellite up and running so now we officially have 500 channels of TV from two of the wealthiest countries in the world and still there is nothing worth watching except maybe for Heartland on Sunday night.

Brenda has been scouring the country for “bargoons”, as our friend Rick calls them, and managed to find a trunk that we couldn’t live without from Tanya’s 4G Ranch and a morning spent hitting the garage sales with Jill and Stasia brought a few more things to our place. Our home is looking a lot homier now and we have re-homed a bunch of stuff that we apparently couldn’t live without.

Sunday our riding friends the Modahl’s and the Roger’s arranged for a little ride through Desert Hills to help with our conditioning. Pretty flat but a little sand, some rocks (it is Arizona), and some fellowship. The horses handled it fine and I am sure that now Brenda has a new hat she will be better next weekend when we head north to the Red Rocks of Sedona for another ride.

		Anthem Trailhead to Pioneer Village VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Last night a disaster of epic proportions hit our place and Brenda’s Macbook up and quit. No big deal I thought, we have a spare PC netbook along with us, so I figured no problem, WRONG! Apparently if you are a Mac person you are unable to transition up to the PC platform without a lot of wailing and remonstrations. After discovering that the Apple store is closed at night and doesn’t have an emergency service number, the nerve, we managed to wait until the door opened at 10AM this morning. We were there at opening and luckily they were able to fix it up and get Brenda back on line without to much delay.