Out to the Ranch

Rollie and Gina arrived yesterday afternoon so rather than let them rest up, we dragged them out to the Yaha Tinda for the day today. Longtime, well maybe even occasional readers, know that this is one of Brenda and my favourite places. We like to share it with a select few folks, usually those who call home somewhere far away, as it is getting to be pretty crowded out there already on the long weekends in the summer. There was a little method to our madness of heading out there right after their big travel day from Great Falls. My cousin Mike and our friends Harold and Diane Baldwin along with a couple of Mike’s other friends, Roy and Peggy from Valleyview, were out there for the weekend so we knew we would be able to visit with them and introduce Rollie and Gina. Well that, and use their campfire for cooking our gourmet meal. Tube steaks for everyone.

Here is a picture of Rollie and I that Gina took while we were waiting for the fire to get ready for cooking.

Sorry I do not have any photos of us cooking for our brides, to busy making sure the wieners were done to perfection to mess with the camera I guess. And oh by the way, thanks Mike for the grill, Mike made a grill just like the one in the picture for Brenda and I and had it with him on this trip. It will come in handy when we are in the desert this winter.

Before we invaded Mike`s camp we took a hike up to Bighorn Falls a little ways up the creek from the campsite.

The pictures above were taken from the meadows at the top of the falls and the one on the left is from directly over the falls and Rollie took that one as those who know me know that I am not going that close to the edge. Below is a shot of Rollie and Gina in front of the falls

And here is one of Brenda and I

Now here are a couple of Rollie up on the cliff face beside the falls, you won`t find me up there and it even gives me the shivers to watch my friend climbing around up there.

 

And of course we are not the only local folks who have discovered this great place. Long before we humans and our equine friends were frequenting this mountain paradise the Wapiti (elk) have been coming here to spend their winters on the lush grass. There was probably about 100 head in this group and the bull in the centre was busy keeping others from invading his harem.

 

Guess Who’s coming to Dinner

Well we had a great weekend visiting with Lacey, Clayton, and of course Miss Ella. The weather could have been a little better but all in all it was not to bad. We came home on Monday morning so the bus was back in its spot and everything set up by early afternoon. It has been a beautiful week here so we have enjoyed the weather and are looking forward to Rollie and Gina’s visit towards the end of the week. We had hoped that Mike and Janna would be traveling with them but apparently there was some snafu with the paperwork on their new motorhome so they didn’t want to risk crossing the border without everything in order. With the weather good as it has been it is hard to get a nice sunset photo, so I tried the other end of the day and got up early (5:43AM) this morning to a spectacular sunrise.

And here is a shot of the skies off to west a little later while I was out on my morning walk.

We are having company and here they are arriving.

Gina and Rollie crossed the border today and arrived at our place mid-afternoon. Rollie brought that big old Volvo through our narrow gate just like he had done it a thousand times. Although it had rained earlier in the afternoon the sun broke out to welcome our guests. They continued what is seeming to be a tradition when our American friends come to visit and brought a armload of butter for Brenda. She was pretty happy to see the butter and even more to see Rollie and Gina again.

As per usual in the RVing world, they traveled and we, well really Brenda, cooked, and she had a quite the spread set out for our supper, steak, ribs, cheesy potatoes, sauteed asparagus and of course no meal is complete without dessert. Today we had a choice, Brenda made my mom’s frozen lemon dessert, and of course her own trademark dessert, Frozen Peanut Butter Pie.

We had a good chin wag and tomorrow is a new day, so we will see what it brings.

Visiting Ella and More Mountains

Friday dawned bright and early with Miss Ella coming to spend the day with us. Her mother had to work and we managed to kidnap her for the day from her daycare so she could spend the day entertaining Meg and us.

After she took Grandma for a walk and spent a little time sharing Megs bed she did a little snuggling. That was Friday a kind of all Ella day.

Saturday we took a spin out the David Thompson highway west of Rocky Mountain House towards Banff National Park. We thought we might be able to find a new place to take our horses too. Not sure if that will happen as it is a little hard to get our outfit into some of the spots but there is some beautiful scenery out that way. Might take a little work to figure out where the trails are in this new country but then that is half the fun. Here is the view from one spot called Preachers Point.

On the way we ran through a burn on the east side of the Park boundary and it was already alive with regrowth. I am not sure whether it was a natural burn or a prescribed fire but nevertheless I am sure that Kootenay Plains at the head of the Abraham Lake reservoir is used to fire helping fashion the ecosystem.

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The shot below is for Rod and his comment the other day on our small square bales. In our country we bale them the way the market likes them. Bales that are fed to our local livestock are usually the large round bales, but the timothy hay we grow is in demand around the world and it is easier to ship the small square bales. They actually compress them down to about half the size at our local hay plant and then ship them in containers overseas and into the southern states.

Out of the Mountains

We don’t spend all of our time out west in the hills, sometimes we are just hanging out on the farm and watching the world go by. It is haying time here on the Northern Ranges, what with the cool spring we had it is a few weeks later than normal. It looks as if we found a window in the rains though. We got it off without to much moisture affecting it and 80% will go to the hay plant down the road. From there it could end up in Japan feeding some of those Kobi beef cows. We grow timothy hay and although it is great for our horses, the Japanese actually use it for roughage for their cattle and rely on grain for the rest of their nutrition.

What with two balers and a bale wagon it gets done in a hurry.

 

Along with the hay crop we have a few acres of barley to harvest also but that will be another few weeks until it is ready. The shot below is across the neighbours field to his buildings and also a sunset over those same buildings.

After a few days watching the haying work going on it was time to hit the road again and head for Rocky Mountain House for a visit with Lacey, Clayton and of course Ms. Ella. She is growing like a bad weed and her grandmother says she can walk forever. She has learned a new photo smile since we were here last time.

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And here she seems to be saying, “Hey, how do like it when the camera is always pointing at you.”

We are camped at the New Old Town Cabins and RV Park here in Rocky Mountain House. It is only about 1/4 mile from Lace and Clayton’s place and is a pretty nice spot. Our site is quite large and the neighbours appear to be quiet, in fact I don’t even think they are there, maybe they are just weekenders.

New Territory and a Little Smoke

Those who subject themselves to my meanderings on a regular basis know that a week or so Brenda and I took a trip south of Calgary looking for new horizons for us and our horses. Now we probably enjoy the new country much more than the horses but that is the price they pay for living in the lap of luxury for 6 or 7 months a year.

Wednesday afternoon we hooked up the horse trailer, loaded the ponies and headed south to the Etherington Creek campground. There is really just one great spot in that campground and we got it. It is big enough for the bus and trailer as well as our portable barn that is set up off the side of the horse trailer. It also has great access and about 200 feet of frontage along Etherington Creek.

 

Wednesday was a great clear day but after that the smoke from the wildfires in British Columbia started drifting in so most of the photo’s I took are a little hazy. Although the human eye can seem to edit out that haze and enjoy the stunning beauty of the country it is not so easy for the camera to do that, so I will apologize for the quality of the shots you will subjected to. Just remember in my mind they are crystal clear and pretty crisp.

Here are our mounts ready to hit the trails and see what kind of place this really is. It is a popular spot for snowmobilers in the winter so many of the trails are geared to their needs, old logging roads and seismic trails, in fact way back in early history this is the area where I started my career with Shell some 39 – 40 years ago. Most of these trails are of that vintage as the more recent, by that I mean the last 25 years, the work in this Eastern Slopes area has all been done by helicopter so the trails are almost non-existent and certainly don’t have anywhere near the footprint needed to host snow machines. The ridge behind the horses in the photo above is called Raspberry Ridge and the peak furthest to the left has a Forestry Lookout on top of it. In the photo below you can see that same ridge through the telephoto lens and there is a helicopter perched just in front of the lookout. It appears that there is a plan to decommission this site and move the equipment to a better spot so maybe they are there packing up. Whatever the reason the helicopter was there all day and only made one trip back to base around noon. Pretty expensive moving truck in my estimation.

We took about a 10 mile ride around a trail called the Baril Loop. Nice ride but mostly along those aforementioned trails.

Above are a couple of those hazy shots of the mountains and of course one fine crisp shot of Brenda. The border between Alberta and British Columbia runs along the crest of those mountains. The world always looks better between the ears of horse and this time is no different.

Below is a pretty common sight in the high country of western Alberta, we call them Forgetmenots, but they are actually called Harebells.

Last night I managed to capture the moon as it was rising between a couple of trees in our campsite.

Now that made me think about the moon rising back home and its position in the sky was pretty good to get both the moon and our windmill in the same shot. Here it is just before it hits the vane and helps us pump a little water.

I mentioned the smoke from those wildfires earlier, here is one of the side benefits of having the sky full of smoke that our friends to the west of sent our way.

Well the sunset on our trip, we came home a little early because Brenda’s horse has a slight limp and we thought she needed a little rest and relaxation as we are off to the Yaha Tinda in 10 days or so to meet cousin Mike back out there. That and the fact that our hay is cut and we wanted to get some put up in the barn before it got to much rain on it. Takes a lot of hay to travel all these trails.

Little Elbow

Today we loaded the horses and headed out to Little Elbow to meet our niece Caron, and her friends, Courtney, Sydney and Elizabeth. They were camped out there and we were going to join them on a day ride in the area.

This is an equestrian campground right in the centre of Kananaskis Country. It is a multi-use area so we ran into mountain bikers, hikers and even a few photographers lurking around. It is beautiful country and within an hour of the city of Calgary so on a nice weekend there are a lot of folks out enjoying the scenery.

Here is a shot of the whole group, in the foreground in pink is of course, Brenda, and behind her is Elizabeth and in the far back is Sydney, centre right is Courtney, and over to the far right is our niece Caron. The river we are crossing is a branch of the Elbow which supplies a large percentage of the city of Calgary’s water.

We headed out of the campground and down the Wildhorse Trail, although we didn’t see any wildies on this ride there was certainly a lot of sign around.

This is a look back up the river valley from an opening along our trail towards the campground.

Scouting Trip

Today dawned clear and sunny so we thought we should take a look around the mountain country south of us and see if we could find another spot to take our horses for a ride. We have usually gone to the Sandy McNabb Equestrian campground, down that way, but it is being refurbished this year so is not available for overnight stays. We thought while we were at it we would have a look for a place where we could get the bus in so that we can stay a little longer and enjoy all the comforts of our home while we are there.

First we ran down the Mclean Creek road and had a look at the Mesa Butte site, and although the road in from Millarville was good the site was a little small and it was unlikely that we could take a big rig in there, and I am not sure there are enough trails to satisfy our wanderlust for a week or longer stay.

After that we headed on down Highway 22 to Longview. Passing through Longview without buying some of their beef jerky is a major faux pas and we got two bags full to tide us over for part of the trip. Once we had that out of the way we continued on to Indian Graves campground and the trails there look great and we might be able to fit into a couple of their sites so it is a definite possibility. From there we headed over the hump towards the Forestry Trunk Road and back north towards Highwood House.

The shot above is the road into Indian Graves campground and the flowers below are a little farther down the trail.

And here is the view back down from the Hump towards Indian Graves.

We did find a site at the Etherington Campground just south of Highwood House that has a few sites the bus could fit into and a lot of old trails that might be interesting. Maybe next week we will head down and give it a whirl.

Tomorrow we are off to join up with Caron and her friends at the Little Elbow Equestrian Campground and have a day ride there.