JANUARY 12, 2014 ~ Events in the Desert!

After seeing so many bands of beautiful wild horses the day before, I kept my expectations low; I was so grateful for the events of Saturday, that Sassy and I were planning on doing more riding for a change (instead of photographing.)   :)

That being said, you can imagine my surprise when we had to wait about 15 minutes before being able to drive into the parking lot and park the trailer!!  Why??  Well, there were two different bands of horses wandering around in the parking lot.  I jumped out of the truck and started clicking away while David waited to be able to park.

The first lovelies I noticed were from LITTLE BOB's band!!

The first magnificent horse is, of course, LITTLE BOB himself.  Next, we have SCARLET (the youngest filly) with her friend, SHELBY.  Following is SCARLETT with her mama, LULU, and last but certainly not least, is FAWN.  SHELBY and FAWN are the newest members of this band, both are mares, and both are gorgeous, just as LULU and SCARLET are.

As this band moseyed out of the parking lot, we saw these guys (who were in a different area, but still in the parking lot) move over to where LITTLE BOB and his family had been exploring. 

These magnificent stallions are VIRGIL and MORGAN, 2 of the Earp Brothers.  This was the first day I noticed that WYATT was no longer running with his home boys!  I wasn't sure where he was, or if it was temporary or permanent yet; I just knew he was nowhere in the vicinity.  As they meandered out of the parking lot, David pulled in the trailer and parked it.

We brought Sassy that day, of course, and Maverick since Chase enjoyed the desert the day before.  I started out riding Sassy, and it didn't take very long at all before she found a band of wild horses.  She seems to think it is her "job" to locate them for me; she knows the drill all too well!  I'm so glad I learned about ground tying; when I'm out riding alone, I can ground tie her and feel pretty confident that she'll stay right there while I'm taking pictures.

Good thing she's so patient also!  This band she located I'd not seen before; let me rephrase that.  I'd seen a couple of the horses, but this was the first time seeing these particular beauties all together in a specific band.  Sassy patiently waited as it took me a good hour to watch and photograph and video these creatures!!!!

I was enjoying watching the dynamics of this band, which is partly why I took so long photographing them.  The stallion shown first in the above collage is, MIDNIGHT, and he is the lead stallion.  There is one other stallion, and also a colt; the rest are mares.  None of them seemed skittish or spooky; they were all very curious, however.

I loved watching them graze, as they chose to do so on the side of a little hill, quite different from the other horses I've watched out in the desert.

Now, you'll notice some interesting behavior in this last collage (just above this paragraph).  I learned from watching that the lead mare is the rotund gal seen in the left side of each photo.  I use the term rotund affectionately, as she is due to have a foal very soon!  The colt you see starting to walk in front of her was seeming to be testing the boundaries.  The pregnant mare is the Matriarch, meaning she is THE lead mare, and is definitely the mare the others do not want to get on the bad side of!

Apparently the colt hadn't learned that yet!  LOL  Even though the Matriarch has her ears pinned to her head, he continued to walk where he thought he wanted to go.  Take a look at the second photo; she is now looking at him in addition to still having her ears pinned back.  The expression on her beautiful face made me smile; she's looking at him as if to ask, 'are you kidding?  You're ignoring what I'm telling you???'  He doesn't even notice!!!  Typical male.    ;)

Ouch!  Are you looking at the third photo yet?  Poor colt!  He (hopefully) just learned a lesson; the Matriarch will not be ignored and/or disobeyed!  When she tells you to stay put, well, I guess she means it.  He received a nasty nip on the side of his little neck.  Oh well, it's for his own good; she is watching out for his welfare after all!  Kids ~ human or animal ~ they're still just kids!    :)

The desert seemed very quiet that morning, moreso than usual, despite the fact it was early morning.

After I finished taking pictures and videos of MIDNIGHT's band, Sassy and I started riding over toward Foxtail.  We crossed the river there and explored some areas we hadn't ridden in yet!

Here are some photos of the interesting terrain, views, and structures we came upon!

As Sassy and I were exploring, I happened to look down and saw something very curious.  I saw the skeletal remains of what looked like a coyote's head/mouth with the teeth intact!  I jumped off Sassy, and started taking some pictures; I just found it interesting because there was still some hair on the remains.  All of a sudden I noticed a couple other items; I found dog license tags, and a clip that looked like it belonged on the edge of a harness or leash.  That's when it hit me that these remains were not from a wild coyote; they had to be from someone's dog!!  I still did take photos, and I'll upload them here (they are not gross or distasteful.....), but I made sure to leave everything where Sassy and I found it all.  If that was someone's pet's final resting place, I wanted to leave it as undisturbed as I possibly could.  Here's what we found:

Now, this is obviously a mystery that won't ever be solved, but I sure would love to know how, who, when, why, where, etc. etc. etc.



Sunday, January 5, 2014

So, yesterday was one of those rides where so much happened, I'm kind of at a loss as to where to begin.  LOL

Let's start with Sassy.  We'd been riding for about 6 hours when it felt like she was limping.  Of course, I jumped off her and checked her legs.  I did find a small cholla cactus stuck in her right back leg, so I removed that and gave her lovies and climbed back in the saddle.  We took, rather "she" took about 2 steps, and her front knees buckled!  She did not fall, however, but she certainly stopped walking.  I jumped down again, and she held up her left front hoof.  As I took the hoof in my hand, I could NOT believe what I was looking at.  All our horses have had stones or debris "stuck" in their shoes at one time or another, but this was more like a boulder!

I patted her and told her I was going to fix that immediately.  Reaching in my saddle bag, I grabbed my "trusty" hoof pick.  LOL  As you will see in the pics, the hoof pick was anything but trusty in this situation.  Try as hard as I did, the hoof pick was no match for Mr. Boulder.

I grabbed my leatherman and went to work.  It took me no less than 10 minutes of sitting on the ground, holding her hoof and doing my utmost to dislodge the "hoof crippler."

Here's probably the most amazing part of the experience, at least for myself.  Sassy completely stood still, and not one time did she pull her hoof away.  ??  Seriously, is this normal?  A few weeks ago, she'd gotten tangled in barbed wire and had several significant cuts in her back hoof.  Some of you will recall that escapade from my accounting of it on Facebook.  There again, Sassy stood perfectly still and let me do what I needed to in order to stop the bleeding.  I've had people tell me that "horses do not think" because their brains are factually the size of a standard size can of corn.  Hmmmm, the brain size analogy may be a fact, but I respectfully disagree about horses actually thinking.  Somehow, some way Sassy knew in those instances that she needed to stand absolutely still for me to help her.  (Ok, if I'm fantasizing, let me have my fun please.)    ;)

Here are the pics of that ordeal:

It's a good thing she was due for new shoes, right?  I'm happy to report she had her new ones put on this morning, and she's a very happy camper.

Speaking of the Sassy girl, I'm on my way to feed her.  When I get back, though, I have a couple more stories to add!  I think I may really like this blogging "thing!"    Don't let the trails get dusty while I'm gone!   ;)