Maybe the best day ever!
Aside from the births of my three children and the day my husband and I reunited and he asked me to marry him.
I can’t include my wedding day because the guests bitched about my chosen menu (too cool for them) and we all got stuck in a blizzard in late April.
So, up at 6 a.m. again. Down to the main house for breakfast because that’s where you have breakfast during calving season. Poached eggs, creamed spinach and biscuits. Coffee, lots of coffee. Then it was off to saddle up the horses - I got to ride the owner’s dad’s horse, Roni, a beautiful tall roan, kind of a bay roan, because the owner’s dad had cows to feed and hay to move. Yay for me! What a great cow horse. All I had to worry about was staying on because he’s quick, fast, forward, strong and smart. He knows what to do when it comes to cows. I swear there is nothing I like better than riding a horse. Swear it swear it swear it. Is that wrong?
*A side note - I grew up with horses and we owned three when my kids were young. My cutting mare died ten…twelve years ago. I adored her. Our old guy died a couple years later and we sold my daughter’s four-year old paint her senior year in high school because she kind of lost interest - which she has since regained with a vengeance. I ride in the summer when we come up to our friend’s ranch, but that’s merely one week out of the year. I’ve been dumped so many times in my life by horses other than my own that I’m a bit cautious when riding a strange horse. I’d like to replace my mare but I haven’t for several reasons: 1. It’s very hard to find a horse to compare, although Roni is as close as I’ve ever come. 2. Keeping a horse in California, if you don’t live on a ranch, has become prohibitively expensive.
Anyway - today we actually had to cut out five cows from two different herds. Cutting five individual cows is a world apart from driving an entire herd. When I tell you that from my perspective today was heaven, I am not exaggerating. Loping across wide meadows beneath towering mountains and a chill blue sky, searching out the marked cows, separating them from their companions and driving them toward the far 0ff paddocks…Yum! We made three trips - one cow…one very nasty fence jumping horse charging cow from the front of the ranch, three cows from the backside and another trip to find one missing injured cow. The feel of powerful horseflesh moving beneath me. Sheer bliss. I get to ride Roni whenever I return. Yes….
