Eye Spy

Wednesday February 10 2010

I like to say that Jose has Elf Eyes, because he spots things while out on the trail that I'd completely miss. He always sees deer herds before I see the white butts turn and bound away. Once, on an endurance ride, he spotted a coyote on the side of a hill as we were trotting along. I couldn't see anything. Jose kept wanting to stop and look. I even let him stop and look and I didn't see anything. I told him there was nothing there, and I urged him along the trail, and he agreeably trotted onward while he kept looking at the hillside. The coyote blended so perfectly into the brown brush and dirt, and I only saw it when we were within a hundred yards of it and it moved. Jose's found deer antlers and feathers and obsidian. He even found a GPS once. I've got a box of his treasures.

On today's ride, he first spotted twenty sage grouse when they flew up from the sagebrush. Must be a new lek there!

Next: a cow in the sagebrush... a cow? Perhaps it was a bull? We didn't want to get too close, because that's probably what it was. Some bull obviously didn't read the cow-lander to realize he should have come down out of the mountains four months ago.


Next: the mother of all deer antlers - and two points are even broken off.
I strapped it on the back of Jose's saddle pack, but as we trotted, it would poke him in the butt and make him swish his tail. I ended up carrying it the rest of the ride. It was heavy enough to know I'd get one big headache if I had to wear a pair of these on my head all the time. No wonder they shed every year!

Next - a stash of calcite crystals. We've ridden by this spot many times, but only now, after a certain amount of snows and rains, the mud has eroded and crumbled away and the crystals have chose to reveal themselves. I picked a few up for Jose.


And, of course, always, Jose notices and treasures the views of this spectacular country that we ride in (particularly from high spots). I always wonder what goes on in his head as he gazes at the world spread out around him.

Herdus Rompus

Tuesday February 9 2010

Finneas

and Dudley

come running from up the canyon when I call.

I open the gate and let them run down to the house, where the Owyhee herds mingle in a romping dance - two steps, mad sprints, pirouettes, bucks, leaps; all turning on a dime as a flock and dancing back the way they came, the ground shaking with thunder.




(And look at that old Thoroughbred racehorse dig in and run!)

Too Ride

Sunday February 7 2010

Our horses weren't too motivated to be out on the trail today.

They hadn't been ridden for a week, so both of them let us know just how slowly they could stroll on the way out, and, that they just might feel like bucking under the right circumstances. Whichever horse followed let the rider know there could be a cougar somewhere behind us, and, well, what do we humans know? We can't smell what horses smell. Perhaps there was something in the air or on the ground.

We did a slower ride to cut down on the bucking potential, but added hills and sand washes for a good workout.

Despite our horses not being particularly in the mood, the day was not too hot nor too cold, too wet nor too dry, too windy nor too foggy, too muddy nor too dusty. A perfect day for Owyhee riding?

Too right.


Fresh new badger hole!

Surprise

Friday February 5 2010

I was totally unprepared for what I woke up to this morning: another two inches of snow!

An absolute surprise and delight - for me and the horses.

It took only the slightest spark from Jose to get the herd romping and wrestling in the snow. What had been a pristine sea of white covering the ground quickly became a churned up mess, from the sprints, spins, rolls and earth digging (Jose).

Owyhee Spa

Wednesday February 3 2010

Imagine one thing that can: calm and nourish and energize your soul, calm and revitalize your spirit, invigorate your body, detoxify your body, cool your nervous system, activate body organs, reduce aches and pains and swollen joints, enhance and revitalize your skin and refine skin texture, prevent and treat various diseases, cure arthritis, treat rheumatism and skin disorders (acne, eczema, psoriasis), cure hormonal imbalance, reduce cellulite, remedy dry hair; a product that is a natural antibiotic, an anti-inflammatory, and anti-aging, and a beauty treatment.

We've got it right here in Owyhee - a special mineralized mixture of mud, clay and sand, to apply as you wish.

As Jose, Mac, and Stormy demonstrate, you can do the whole body Owyhee Mud Bath.




Note how you can really grind it into the coat for maximum skin-body-spirit-organ-joint effect.



Stormy worked it into his mane, also, and did a pretty good facial.


Kazam shows you can put it on one spot on your face if your skin needs revitalizing-enhancing-refining at one spot.


(The only horse who remains ultra-clean is the baby Smokey, who, as Carol pointed out, isn't going to roll with this herd of uncle-sitters, without her mama to provide comfort and a sense of safety and protection).


I'm thinking about bottling and selling this stuff, and taking bookings for horses at the Owyhee Mud Spa. If you've been watching Jose and the horses here, you'll know it obviously works to - at the least - energize souls, revitalize spirits, and invigorate bodies.

And you can see from today's demonstration that it especially works as a beauty treatment.

Half a dozen horses can't be wrong.

Owyhee Fog

Monday February 1 2010

Scientists can give you all kinds of scientific explanations for fog and its behavior. Wikipedia can tell you all about dew points and vapor and condensation, but I can tell you how it behaves here in Owyhee.

Here, fog is a free spirited erratic Being with a sense of adventure and humor and artistry.

Here in the Owyhee high desert, with drainages and canyons and hills and mountains to play in, fog thinks for itself. It molds itself into different entities and travels on its whims.


It passes through in an hour. It stays for days. It arrives in force, fast, thick, and serious, and settles like a heavy blanket. It dances in whisps, gliding up random washes, changing direction on impulse. It crawls over ridges; it creeps down drainages. It flirts with clouds over the Owyhee mountains, then tumbles away down the hills.


It teases the sun. Fog veils the sun, lets it emerge through, obliterates it. The sun, that mighty burning star, the Earth's energy source of life, has no power over the ethereal fog.


It can allure you; it can charm and captivate you. It can stalk you. It can intimidate you. It will make you swear your compass is wrong. It can induce a strangling panic in you. It will bring you cowering to your knees and it will smother you into tears.

Fog wears a chill cloak. In winter it paints with ice, chiseling hoar frost, carving ice crystals on manes and tails. It draws silhouettes of the horses against a touch of morning light.

It delicately sculpts the tiniest twig with ice,

and brazenly devours the biggest horse.


Its heavy silence calls the horses, luring them deep into its layers,

swallowing them up.

Step into the fog. Let it lure you in. Let it engulf you.

Sunkissed

Sunday January 31 2010

Blessed by the evening snow, kissed by the morning sun, the whole of Owyhee basks in the warmth.