It’s been one of those days. Everything I tried to do so far has required at least one more step than I initially thought it would. I’m pretty darned proud of myself that I haven’t let it get to me and mostly just laughed at myself.
Apache apparently didn’t have things go his way today, either. Cattle invaded the pen where he’s been staying to become slim and sassy. He got to practice standing still, reports Sara, his guardian for a couple of days.
When I got to the Austin office, my headphones wouldn’t work. Little did I know that when I thought I fixed them, I’d only fixed the speaker part, not the microphone part, so my first meeting involved yelling until I realized the computer mic was on, not the headphones.
I tried to solve a simple problem for a colleague. He ended up having to go to another colleague, turning what was intended to be a five-minute thing unto an hour-long challenge.
I went to get my eyes examined. There were no Suna-esque glasses in the shop. I have to come back later, when the optician lady will be there to put out new ones. Sigh.
I went home and do my meetings upstairs. The computer didn’t last nearly as long as usual on battery power, so it just died in the middle of talking to someone.
Not looking forward to finding out if an expected visitor shows up.
Good thing this is all temporary, fleeting, and passing. I’ll just enjoy the moment anyway, darn it! I hope you can, too!
[Somehow, most of this post got deleted when I went to publish it before. THIS is the real story!]
I’m excited to have permission to share this story! Yesterday I got to head out to a horse breeding and training facility in our area to visit Sara’s new love interest, a large Andalusian gelding named Aragorn. She met him last week and instantly bonded with him.
True love. (He has sweat marks from being ridden)
It’s a beautiful property, and we were surprised to see a beautiful colt on the road, prancing and dancing like a fairy animal. We said we bet he wasn’t supposed to be there. Sure enough, Glenn, the ranch owner, came running up to get the little guy. He was back in and coming into the barn to eat dinner by the time we got in.
That’s the culprit at right.
All the mares and foals just walk in and line up in stalls to be fed. All so well trained, and the foals were very friendly.
Dinner time!
Aragorn’s current owner bred him, so knows his history. Glenn told us lots about him and was very honest about why he is relatively affordable for a very well-bred European breed. He coughs when anxious, for example.
Getting ready to ride. These horses start our some other color, then turn gray. He looks like he was originally chestnut, like one of the colts above.
Once he got all saddled and we learned a lot about appropriate bits, Trixie showed up, and we watched Sara get a lesson in riding in the style Aragorn is used to. Sara is such a quick learner that I could tell Glenn was having fun telling her stuff and watching her figure out exactly what to do.
Teaching and learning
And, obviously, Sara had a blast as well. I got a lot of photos of the lesson that I’m going to send to her just to study her positioning and stuff, but my favorite pictures have to be the ones of Glenn gesturing, Sara working, and the two dogs who are exactly the color of the dirt, just sat and watched.
This may be my favorite
Just in case you are interested in what Aragorn can do, here are a few more pictures to click or ignore. To be honest, I just like looking at the beautiful setting of this ranch and its facilities. They are nice but not insanely fancy or anything. It’s “just right.”
Learning and enjoying her future friend.
Trixie has known Glenn a long time, but even she said she was learning some things watching him show Sara things, explaining the origin of the moves in Western dressage, and sharing history of equestrian sports. It was fascinating. And he is such a nice and generous man!
You can see the other geldings behind Sara. They were annoyed that their dinner was delayed.
The Amazing Part of the Story
After the “test drive” in Sara’s tack, we were just talking to Glenn. She asked if he did private lessons, and he said he hadn’t before, since he just retired from being an ER physician. Sara sat on Aragorn for a minute, thinking. Then she asked him, “Were you an ER physician in College Station 21 years ago?” He replied that he was.
When we were chatting (sorry for bad lighting)
She then asked if he remembered a blue roan paint colt named X that he trained. He didn’t quite remember, but said he could look it up. Sara said that was her colt she’d raised to work with before she married her children’s father. She mentioned her married name, and Glenn said that did sound familiar. So, we are pretty sure they met all that time ago when Sara had her precious colt that she had to later sell. Wow!
Back to Work
After we got over our surprise, Trixie got to work and adjusted the heck out of Aragorn. Just like with my horses, he ended up extremely relaxed. It’s always extra educational watching her work with a horse and diagnose where it has structural weaknesses and what could help it. Sara took a lot of notes.
Working on his neck
Meanwhile, I bonded with the dog and looked at all the other beautiful horses. I had no complaints whatsoever, and took lots of pictures of how they arranged their tack house, their tying mechanism and such, for reference when we get to setting up our new one.
Woof the guard dog has been busy guarding. He is very friendly to humans, though.
I knew Sara would like some “glamour shots,” so we went out and took some, even though Aragorn still had the sweat marks from her saddle pad. He is obviously fond of her already. They really had an instant bond, like he’d been waiting his whole life for her to show up.
A whole lotta love
At the end of the day, we all got to go take a look at the young stallion who was in the paddock next to Aragorn. He is most beautiful, like someone’s dream horse. They are hoping he will have a baby soon from a mare that was brought in to be bred.
I’m doing my trick. Where’s my food?
He’s been trained that he has to stand on that stump to get dinner, because he used to be pushy about his food. He was not thrilled that his food didn’t immediately show up, but he was gentle as a kitten, and apparently is a great riding horse. I’d love to see him in saddle!
The horsie gals.
We were pretty exhausted and sweaty by the time we were ready to go home, but had to take a selfie of us horse lovers in our unplanned coordinated shirts! We are a bit disheveled, but happy. I hope you enjoyed our love story with a nod to the past. I know you look forward to Aragorn coming home to Sara’s property and watching them progress in their skills.
Hey, here’s a quick update on the things going on here at the Hermits’ Rest. For one thing, a lot of mowing has been going on and a lot of shredding. The appeal of using the shredder on really high grass is that it can be done in the air-conditioned tractor. It’s good to report that all along the sides of the road and the area on the other side of the arroyo is now shredded.
We should have baled it, huh!
Two benefits to that are 1) you can see if cars are coming from the left as you leave the driveway, and 2) the ragweed has been cut down, eliminating some distress for the resident humans.
We can see clearly now!
Everything is very neat and smooth now that the wildflowers set seed and were mowed.
Well, there are still a few flowers to enjoy. Yay.
The front-end loader, who’d been grounded for a while due to a giant hole in her ancient battery, is back and huffing and puffing again, with shiny new batteries. That will make moving fencing supplies a lot easier. It was sort of rough with the little tractor.
This should keep the old guy chugging a little longer.
And, look! We have the beginnings of the horizontal rods in the pen fencing. That is really exciting! The end is near!
A finished section.
It’s cool to see how the tool to hold them evenly spaced works. How clever!
Gracie thinks the hanging spacer thing is cool, too.
I’ll be out killing more grass and supervising fencing later today after work. These long summer days are GREAT.
I’m happy it’s summer and I have a pond.
A much more exciting post should be out later today, I hope. Happy summer to all.
Compare and contrast! The smallest dog and the biggest dog.
I’m excited to have permission to share this story! Yesterday I got to head out to a horse breeding and training facility in our area to visit Sara’s new love interest, a large Andalusian gelding named Aragorn. She met him last week and instantly bonded with him.
True love. (He has marks from being ridden)
It’s a beautiful property, and we were surprised to see a beautiful colt on the road, prancing and dancing like a fairy animal. We said we bet he wasn’t supposed to be there. Sure enough, Glenn, the ranch owner, came running up to get the little guy. He was back in and coming into the barn to eat dinner by the time we got in.
That’s the culprit at right.
All the mares and foals just walk in and line up in stalls to be fed. All so well trained, and the foals were very friendly.
Dinner time!
Aragorn’s current owner bred him, so knows his history. He told us lots about him and was very honest about why he is relatively affordable for a very well bred European breed. He coughs when anxious, for example.
Hooray. I’ve got my horse back! It’s sure been a long road for Apache. Last night, I saddled him up for the first time since the dang abscess, and I made sure he was doing okay in the round pen by trotting him a lot. He was deemed okay, so I mounted him while Sara got on Spice, who really didn’t seem happy, though she behaved fine. I’d say the ride wasn’t a complete success, though it wasn’t a failure, either. Apache indicated what he wanted to do instead of what I wanted, fairly strongly, a couple of times. Still, I got through it and did a good job getting him on my schedule before I got off. I did give him a nice rinse-off, which delighted him.
This morning, we got out bright and early. We were delighted to see that there were clouds in the sky and a breeze. That made everything much more pleasant. I was happy to see that he was still clean, even though I KNOW he rolled in the pens.
Today, Sara decided to see if Bonnie Pumpkin, the horse who’d hanging out with us for a while, would be ridable, and she put the bareback pad on her. I decided to use the hackamore with Apache today, and apparently, that was a good decision. After a fine warmup, Sara carefully got on Bonnie, and she was fine! Hooray!
A happy moment for all.
I got on Apache, and off we went. He was a different horse today, very responsive and calm. He didn’t break into a nervous trot once, nor did he start spinning around if I dared to ask him to turn right. He must be feeling better. We went through the dreaded line of trees, and neither horse did anything other than walk, and occasionally stop to look at something. None of the usual spots bothered him. We made an entire circle, walked over some obstacles, and then, in a shocking display of obedience, I got Apache to walk past the barn before turning to go back.
Fiona wanted to be in a picture, too.
Sara and I both had FUN. That was so great. I felt so good (and not overly hot) that I decided to clean all my tack. I got all sorts of stuff off the saddle and got it gleaming and not all scuffed up. Apache’s girth was also really dirty and covered in hair, so I cleaned it, as well. The worst thing was the poor hackamore, which had been sitting since Apache was last ridable and had gotten all yucky and moldy, so I cleaned it all up again, too. I’m ready to go somewhere, once I have somewhere to go with him.
Everything got saddle soap except the suede parts, which just got wiped off and brushed. Horse people, this is a hybrid saddle made by Parelli back when I could afford such things. I intend to use it the rest of my life (it is SO comfy), though I’ll probably have to get a Western one at some point.
I hope that will be soon. Now that I am not spending so much time in Austin, I hope to be able to take lessons and fix some of my riding gaffes, then work on Apache’s horse gaffes. We both have a lot of work to do, but we do love each other!
Today I ended up not doing much after riding Apache in the morning. Partly that’s because I got a shingles vaccine yesterday, and I was tired (fell asleep for a while after lunch).
My Lego creation.
And then my evening activities with Kathleen and some Hearts Homes and Hands staff got canceled because one of the buildings on the ghost tour was on fire. Oops. So, I decided to break out the Lego kits I recently ordered.
I love all the people and their hair
I’d ordered to colorful one when someone at work shared it for Pride week. It is so cheerful! A lot of us got it and have been building them. I may put mine in my office, but I may like it too much to leave it in Austin.
Lego perpetual calendar.
The other thing I made is this cute perpetual calendar. It was on sale, but put my order high enough to get free shipping. So, it was free. I’m glad, because it was missing a red calendar face and had an extra gray one. So the color scheme is wonky, but it still works. Plus, the business dude in the middle makes me smile.
Obviously, the dogs also rested.
Goldie, who’s been here a week today, has not stopped swimming since she got here. Today she was in the deepest part of the little pond and completely submerged other than her head! It was great fun until a bullfrog jumped in and startled her!
She’s just a head.
One other lazy highlight of the day was feeding the chickens some leftover cucumber and apple. I sure love the smell of cucumber, even when it’s past its prime.
This stuff is good.
Since I’d tried apples with the new chickens when they first arrived, and they didn’t touch them, I hadn’t been giving them fruit and veg since. But, today I decided to give it a try again.
Hey, Babette, this cucumber is tasty! Yes, Betsy, the apple is also delicious.
I guess being in the pen with grass and bugs has taught them to try new foods. Next time I’ll give them more, and maybe some watermelon! I’m delighted at how well these new girls are adapting and thriving.
Now to relax some more. I’m out of Lego projects! I hope to be less puny tomorrow. If not, I’ll have more ibuprofen.
What? I’m killing plants? Settle down, nature lovers. I need to safely get rid of a plant that’s dangerous for the horses in the areas that are going to be dry, and I need to remove some snake habitat near the chickens.
When there’s not much grass, horses will eat anything.
The beautiful local nightshade, the silver leaf nightshade (Solanum elaeagnifolium) is everywhere this time of year. It has pretty purple flowers and cool tomato-like but inedible fruit.
Pretty flowers, but nasty thorns.
It’s hard to pull it up, because of the thorns all over the leaves and stems, but I need to make the area where Apache will be staying safe for him. In a pasture, there’s plenty of other grass, so it’s no big deal. But, in the “dry lot” or pen, where were now putting him in afternoons, he’d eat it.
Apache had a fine new hay bag to snack on. Horses need to eat pretty much all the time.
So, I was given a big sprayer with a mixture of white vinegar, salt, and Dawn dish detergent in it. This is bad for plants, but not toxic for animals. I sprayed around the chicken coop first. They thought it was treat time, because the spray made all the grasshoppers jump off the plants and into the pen.
Sad plant by chicken coop
I then sprayed under the roof where the stalls will be, and got most of the rock pile sprayed (the rocks are leftover limestone bricks from building our house).
Unhappy nightshade. Ok grass.
When I walked out this morning, all the forbs looked really sad, including the nightshade. The grass looked parched, but not awful. I may have to spray it again, when we get more ingredients.
I never was so pleased at killing anything.
So, it looks like we will ditch the commercial herbicides and use this method to clean up around our property and keep all our animals safe and happy.
He, being Apache. Tonight it was finally not too hot or too busy, so Sara and I checked on how Apache’s feet were doing since his abscess.
He’s shiny but chubby again
Sara says he’s as fat as he ever was. Sigh. I really need to get him in his pen half the day, but I blew it by going to the auction today. Tomorrow will be another day.
He does clean up well
Anyway, I took him out in the round pen, where he walked and trotted just fine. He did buck on the way to start circling, which was not so great. But otherwise, he was a gentleman.
Sara put the bareback saddle and bridle on him and rode him around. He was pretty darned good and did nice turns and back ups. Sara diagnosed him as fine for walking, so I’ll try riding 15 minutes or so tomorrow morning.
Look at my summer coat!
The other good thing is that Fiona has finally gotten rid of her winter coat. She’s one fine looking long-eared gal.
Snakes
To make a long day even longer, as I walked home from the horses, the hay bailer was hard at work. It scared up two rat snakes who didn’t even notice me as they slid across the driveway.
Then, after dark, when I finally came in, this fat and sassy fellow greeted me in the porch.
It’s a snake.
Not to worry, it’s a diamondback water snake. Check the head and lack of rattles.
Best I can do in the dark, but you can see the pattern.
Okay. Enough scary stuff for one day. Oh no, there was a dead scorpion next to where I keep my boots. Hint: always check inside boots for spiders, scorpions, or even toads (happened to Sara once).
Today has been very educational. It’s Friday, and I’m off work, so I was able to go to the local cattle auction to see how it works firsthand (their website has some really good photos, so check it out). I’ve heard a lot about cattle auctions from various sources, and it was about what I expected. They don’t just have cattle; at least once they had a donkey (Fiona!).
I had never seen the front of the building before (it’s way off the road).
There were over 1300 cattle auctioned today. Whew! That’s a lot to go through. They ranged from some pretty spectacular longhorns to tough corrientes to plain ole cows. And they ranged in age from newborn to around 8. The buyers sit in a really nice, air conditioned area, and the cattle are sent through from the pens, usually one at a time (exceptions are cow/calf pairs and a few that went together for some reason).
We were in the balcony, and this is what it looked like.
The reason the place is so nice is that there was a really bad fire there last July, which I think was arson, and the whole community came together to replace it as quickly as possible, since everyone depends on it so much. It was wonderful to see how people donated equipment, material, and their labor to rebuild in record time.
The reception area, offices, and kitchen are all new and lovely.
I enjoyed seeing all the cattle come through and listening to the auctioneers. One I could not understand at all, but I could understand Kenny, the owner, pretty well. You really have to have a good eye for cattle to buy at these things, because you get to see each one about 15 seconds, unless the preceding cow won’t leave the exit chute and it gets held up.
Cattle come in through the right doors, and leave through the left ones.
There are a lot of cowboys whose job it is to make the cattle turn so buyers can see the whole animal and to “encourage” them to go to the exit quickly. Some of it was reasonable prodding, but I (squeamish city girl that I am) was less than thrilled when they whacked them in the face and used the prod more than necessary (but how am I to know…I am not a cattle prodder).
Action shot of longhorn cow and calf
It was mostly pretty fun, and I learned a whole lot about what makes a good cow and what makes a bad one, how they are priced, and such. Plus, I got one of the delicious locally-famous cheeseburgers from the restaurant, which I’d wanted to try for years. It was as good as advertised.
That’s the one that came to the ranch. The red sign is the weight of the calf, I think.
When they were on break, I got to see the pens where the cattle are. You get to walk on a cool metal walkway above the cattle and their dust. I saw all the working cowboys and cowgirls moving the cattle, and heard a great deal of mooing. The pens are really spacious and well ventilated. I wasn’t hot at all, and the animals didn’t seem distressed by the heat (though I can imagine the whole auction experience is not a cow picnic).
The pen area
We went home and got the cattle trailer so we could pick up the small cow and her nice-looking heifer that will join the herd here. I enjoyed watching the cowgirl load them up quite efficiently after the trailer was backed into a chute area. This whole operation is quite well designed and runs like a well-oiled machine, which I guess it is! Lots of money exchanges hands here every week.
The cowgirl jumped off her horse and shoed the cow and calf into the trailer from our ranch.
Once we got the pair home, they ran out of the trailer and didn’t stop running until they got to the far end of the pasture. I did not blame them one bit. The second the other cattle saw them, they ran up and checked out the new ladies. It will not be long until they are all happy.
Gracie thinks she’s a cattle dog
It was so great to get to see one of the most important businesses in our town, and hope to get to go back again sometime. I never thought I’d get a chance to learn about ranching, cattle, and all this stuff, so I’m quite grateful for the opportunity to learn how things work, rather than just looking at the cows and saying they are cute.
What a face!
It will be fun to see what gets done with the Hermits’ Rest Ranch’s cattle residents as the pens get built out and cattle equipment comes in (my domain is strictly horses, donkeys, and chickens). I bet I learn a lot now that I’m even closer to the action than I was with the neighbors’ cattle or the cows the tenants raise, which I just get to adore from afar.
Wow. It’s been the most pleasant evening I can remember. Once the sun went behind clouds, a breeze came up, and the stifling heat dissipated.
Awesome.
I took lots of pictures today, and when I went back to look at them, I realized it’s been a beautiful day!
The horizontal pipes are going up!
And yes, a lot of work got done on the horse pens. It’s really moving along! After work and my Friends of LLL meeting, I got to watch the process for making the tools to set the vertical bars that are next. These hooks were made from straight pieces of metal.
Hooks, tape measure, torch.
The hooks were shaped on this piece of pipe, which made cool smoke when the metal got hot.
This will ensure the hooks hang from the vertical pipe.
It’s fascinating to watch the tools being made. Such craftsmanship!
Making stuff
Meanwhile, I watered the chickens (Buttercup loves the hose spray), watched the dogs playing happily, and then saw what I thought was Vlassic chasing the cows. When I got up to yell at him, I realized it was a little too big of a fast, black animal to be him. It was our cute little calf, Baby Blue, who is just about the most playful calf I ever saw.
Racing back to the herd.
She ran around her mom and two others, then tore off like a racing cow, if there was such a thing, then ran all the way to the edge of the pasture. She then zoomed back up to her mama for a refreshing drink. I could NOT stop grinning.
I‘m tired now.
Really, who needs television? It’s darned entertaining around here. And I couldn’t even drag myself back into the house, because clouds beckoned.
It’s just beautiful.
I hadn’t seen a nice sunset in a long time. It was too rainy for a long time, then it’s been so blazingly hot I didn’t go out to look, though Lee reported at least one good one. Tonight? Glorious.
Dog, clouds, rain shower
You just don’t get many days this pleasant, that’s for sure. And even though I got a lot of work done, Goldie “made” me take a nap.
A nap for two.
Treasure your good days. Let them fill your heart with joy.
The Hermits' Rest 