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January 10, 2026
"Well" Grace asked, "what do you think?" "Promise not to tell the boss?" "Don't worry. Apparently she picked these up for almost nothing." "I wish they were a little bigger. My legs are all scrunched up under me and the...these things..." "Handle bars. I think." "They're too low. I think these would be really cool if they were bigger." "I agree." The wind grew colder as the day faded. "Do you want to take them in the water?" Skye asked. "Maybe tomorrow. I can barely feel my hands as it is." Then they saw something. Movement. A flickering shadow up in the rocks. The mare saw them also, but her options were predicated by the terrain. The day's last light revealed her, but only for a moment. Grace and Skye strained to follow the shadow. It vanished as the sun slipped below the western horizon. "There!" Skye exclaimed. A fleeting glimpse. Black mane and tail, body not unlike the rocks themselves. Down into the ravine and out of sight, the sound of her footfalls covered by the dull roar of the wind. Back at home, the girls wrapped themselves in blankets, eager to stave off the chill. "A new horse! I'm so excited! And I'm so cold. Why am I so cold?" Skye pulled her blanket tight around her body. "Why didn't you have your hoodie on when we were out in the wind?" "I...there was so much to think about. And then once we saw that horse I wasn't cold. Not until we got back, really." "It's been pretty warm this winter. Even all that rain wasn't very cold. Maybe we're just out of practice. Or maybe this wind is actually pretty cold. Seems to me like it was pretty doggone cold." January 16 The boss stopped to take a quick picture at the campground entrance. Looked up in time to see Coyote darting across the road a few yards ahead of her. The afternoon light was glorious. The air warm. She saw movement as she neared the ranch...Rain Man. She parked, slipped from the truck with her camera, made her way to the meadow. The ground was still saturated here. Her knees and feet were soon immersed in the spongy soil. She hunkered down behind a pile of plant material, heaped aside by the flow of the water. It made a perfect hide...except for the dampness. She tried to recall the horses from Crazy's band. Were they all present? They were relaxed, stretched out across the landscape, hugging the deep green grasses of the streamed. The little red filly seemed to be aware of her presence, or a presence. The light was quickly fading. At last, she saw Crazy, Lady Godiva, and the colt they called Chip. Unless she was forgetting a mare, this would be his whole harem, plus Rain Man, his subordinate, albeit quite a bit larger than Crazy. These were the best of times for the wild ones. Bountiful food and water, warm temperatures, and no snow. It would be hard to imagine a better life. January 17 The wind had been blowing for most of the year. The girls had enough of it. Wind or no, they were going to look for Crazy and his band, where the boss had seen the horses Friday evening, close to the ranch, on the opposite side of the road. "Didn't the boss teach you one of her songs?" Grace called back to Skye. "Yeah..." "Sing it. See if you can appease this wind." "But it's not a song for the wind. It's a gathering song. Like if you went out to gather cedar, or berries or like that..." "Maybe the wind will like it and be nice to us..." Skye sang the song. The wind eased, as if it was listening perhaps. But only for a moment. Then, with renewed vigor, it continued to blow, and blow. "Should I keep singing?" Grace decided she was out of her territory on every level with regard to the matter of singing songs. "Let's cross the creek up here where it's shallow" Grace replied. Windy Boy was built for speed, but Skye and Jesse were quickly becoming a team. Skye chose a slightly different path across the creek. Jesse didn't hesitate. They emerged on the other side in front of Grace and Windy Boy. The ground was firmer, but the wind did not relent. The horses keyed in to something, ears flicking forward, Jesse raising his head as high as he could to get a glimpse of what was ahead. Their attention was drawn back to the water. As they began their descent toward the creek again, Grace saw something. She didn't recognize the truck, the driver, the substantial dog, or the horse trailer. It was an old trailer, probably more suited for hauling belongings than horses by modern standards, and it was heading back into the residential zone. It appeared to be empty. Grace was intrigued. The boss had seen a junk hauler leaving the campground on Friday evening...was someone moving out? Moving in? Getting ready to sell? To rent? Windy Boy slipped, falling on his right side at a hand gallop, scrambling to his feet and recovering his stride, Grace still in the saddle although she wasn't really sure how. It happened so fast. WIndy Boy was fine. Grace reined him in, slowing the pace. There they were. The new mare, and Lumpy and her filly Socks. Lumpy looked particularly fit. And then, a moment later, the Tyrant King appeared. Storm, in all of his endless, demanding fury. The girls watched, ready to retreat if it appeared he was going to charge them. For a tense moment it looked as if he might. But his harem...what was left of it...had gone in the opposite direction. As if he knew they might just keep running to get away from him, he decided to follow his mares. As quickly as they had appeared, they were gone, leaving only the ripples of the wind on the water. Above the creek, west of the ranch property, the light glowed golden. It was too windy for a hat, and far too windy to lay his horse trap. Dude surveyed the landscape in the day's last light. He saw its beauty. It's magic. It's harsh and impartial reality. It's hard, unforgiving surface. This place. It could build your soul, or take it from you. Dude embraced the moment, evening light falling on Hespero Yucca Whipplei. In the shadows of dusk, a western bluebird perched on another yucca. In the advancing shadows, nestled in the rocks, Dudleya (chalk live forever) began to emerge. Night unfolded as the girls put up their saddles in the tack room. "Oh come on" Skye grumbled. The saddle pad slipped every time Skye tried to square up the saddle on the stand. Then she turned her attention to the floor. "I guess we shouldn't put this off any longer. What a mess." "Well, at least there's no mouse poop to clean up" Grace replied. "Grace, what's that green stuff on your arm? And your pants?" Grace laughed. "I hadn't even noticed. It's algae." "Dang! You scraped up algae!" "I don't even think I touched the creek bed. I was watching that trailer go by and then bam! We're down, we're up, we're wet, we're still running! But my clothes are still damp, and I want to get dry." "I bet!" "Let's get this done first though." For as messy as it was, it only took a few minutes to consolidate the sponges, brushes, ointments, wipes and whatnot, hang the halters and leads and push a few odds and ends into corners. "Good?" Skye asked. "Way good. Let's call it day. A good day. We got to ride, we saw wild horses, I got an algae bath and no bruises...it's been a good day." #
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1/19/2026 From solstice ride to catastrophic flooding - the last ten days of 2025 in ChilaoRead NowDecember 21, 2025
Grace glanced out across the drive. The sun would be up soon. Skye was getting horses ready for Anahit and Lousin. Dude was saddling Remmie. It was probably Jessica heading up the campground road, trailer in tow. The air was still a little cool. Shadows would soon give way to dawn. "Did the boss tell you about the coyotes?" Grace called softly to Dude. "No ma'am." "Four of them. Alongside the house. Tanner and Sara encountered them." Coyotes were part and parcel to the landscape. Packs on the property were...less than ideal. Jessica ponied her new horse. Skye had taken notice of him, but she hadn't looked carefully. He was adorned. In fact, he'd won second place in a costume contest with his adornments. They would start flaking off soon, but hopefully not before Skye noticed. Skye was having a bit of a wardrobe problem. "Can you see anything?" Anahit asked. "I can! I just need to tilt my head back" Skye replied, giggling. Bryn seemed to have a good idea where he was going, and plenty of gumption to get there. Anoush was enjoying Angel, tacked up in the Fantasia regalia made for Anamar. As for the tack, there was a lot of swooshing and jingling and moving parts that were very un-English. But her horse Angel didn't seem to mind, and Partner kept step...albeit a very different step...with his best friend. Lousin, normally the more reserved of the sisters, took the lead through the most challenging parts of the terrain on Deer Medicine. The sun's warmth was welcome. They rode north of the ranch, hoping to catch a glimpse of wild horses, or perhaps deer...maybe secretly some other large animal, but then again, maybe not really. All too soon it was time to head back. "We'll call this our solstice ride Skye" Grace called out as Skye and Anahit passed the rest of the group. "There's still a few days before Christmas. Maybe we'll get in another ride." The boss was late on the draw, but she hoped to get a holiday picture. Skye and Anahit had already put their horses up, so Skye brought down The Black while Anahit fetched up dogs. The boss moved around a lot with the camera. The light was kind of harsh, true. But Grace and Skye knew what she was doing. She was getting mostly candid portrait shots. Maybe of people...or maybe not. She must have taken a hundred photos. Finally, she looked at the back of the camera for a few moments. "I don't know if they're great" she said at last, but I don't think I can make you stand here all night while I try to get it perfect." It would be what it was. It would be good enough. Happy holidays from all of us to all of you. December 27 Grace stopped short of the fast moving water. Skye forged ahead. The last bit of water she needed to cross was just a few feet wide, but deceptively deep. She stepped across, but the footing was soft. Into the water she went. It wasn't freezing cold. Skye pressed on. It was worth it, to reach her destination and stand in the midst of the roar and the spray and water magic. It was too wet to ride, but the landscape was surprisingly intact. A breeze had picked up, and the warm sunlight was fading. "Is that water not feeling quite so warm any more?" "Oh, I'm okay. The water isn't that cold, really! But the breeze." "We're almost home. Let's keep moving." In the day's last light, Dude pondered whether or not the fencing needed to be painted. What seemed common knowledge was that they saw colors in the blue and yellow spectrum, but less so colors in the red and green spectrum. Which made no sense. Wouldn't green be an important color for a horse to see? The temperature would fall fast tonight. Dude wanted to stake out his location, see if horses passed through. Skye insisted he took a blanket. He'd be needing it soon. Perhaps he'd watch for an hour past dark. It was suddenly and unapologetically winter on the mountain. Grace viewed the arena just as the sun was slipping below the horizon. The storm had left a debris flow in the place of the soft sand. And there was more rain in the forecast. If this was the worst of the damage, they should count themselves lucky. Tanner had lost his truck to the flash flood on December 24. He'd been lucky to escape unscathed. December 31 "Wow...that's bright!" Skye stood, bathed in the brilliance of the mobile light tower. "Is that from CalTrans?" "Nope, it's Tanner's." The power had gone out five days ago. It was raining again. In between the rain there's been high winds. Large sections of the highway had been destroyed by debris flows...literally washed down the mountain with the flowing land. The girls couldn't ride. It was too wet to hike. And without power, the arena was dark. Tanner's light was their saving grace. At least they could turn out horses. Jesse and Charmer didn't seem to mind the light. "It's kind of like being at a rodeo" Skye remarked. "A night rodeo with the lights way up on poles." Grace was quiet for a while. Then, "I haven't been to a rodeo since...I don't even remember when." "Let's make it a goal. A whatchamacallit...a resolution. Let's go to a rodeo." It would be raining all night and into New Years' Day. At least that was the forecast. Rain for the Rose Parade. It would be more surprising if it actually rained than it would be if the storm disappeared entirely overnight. They tried to keep the horses relatively dry, blanketing them for the walk down to the arena, but most of them were already wet anyway. It wasn't a cold rain, really. And how quickly things had changed. They'd gone from concern about another catastrophic winter fire to over fourteen inches of rain in two days, flash floods, prolonged power outages, and now road collapses and more rain. Most of the horses gave the light tower a glance, and accepted it. Ladyhawk seemed an odd candidate to take exception to it. "Maybe it looks like a helicopter to her" Skye mused. There were three blades of light. And no other BLM mustangs present to confirm or decline the theory. The last horse they brought down was the Murgese stallion. Grace thought she'd gotten the cooler brow strap off of his ears when she took off his halter, but no. "Head down. Head down." No response. Grace tickled his shoulder. Nothing. Skye giggled. "He knows exactly what you want, and he's just not going to give it to you." Back at home, the drone of the generator, comforting and monotonous in its one long song, gave the girls light. They studied the model the boss had left on the table. It was a not so subtle nudge to get them thinking about NaMoPaiMo, National Model Painting Month. "The boss said she'd love to see him done in a realistic color...which is a bit contrary since it's a fantasy piece" Grace explained, "but I think she means a typical Pegasus glowing white." "Glowing white...I think that sounds way harder than vibrant black." "Yeah...I don't know if I want to risk it." "And he's glossy" Skye responded. "Right. So we'd have to rough him up to get primer to stick. And then what if it doesn't stick anyway and now we've just got a hot mess on our hands." "Or we get the primer on and everything and then botch the magical white" Skye replied. "Hard to believe it's time to start thinking about NaMoPaiMo already" Grace said. "Hard to believe it's New Year's Eve!" "Yeah...that too!" # December 15, 2025
Lousin's balance was impressive. Skye pushed Granite closer to the wall so she could swing onto his back. "I've been working with them for a long time" Skye reassured the sisters. Granite stepped close and Lousin slipped smoothly onto his back. "Just sit relaxed, and don't give them any signals. Hold their manes...they're both a little animated...they'll be following me and doing what I tell them. If you get uncomfortable just hop off. We're in deep sand. You won't get hurt." Anahit looked confident on Sand. Lousin appeared slightly apprehensive on Granite, but she was hanging tough. The horses were cooperating. As if this wasn't their first liberty practice with riders. The second turn was less coordinated. Granite went wide. Lousin leaned, pulled his mane. He started turning but not enough. She moved her outer leg forward and her inner leg back, squeezed the outer leg. He acquiesced. Back down the arena, side by side, perfection. Then the girls heard voices. "It's mom" Anahit said. Skye saw nothing...save for the girls flying off of their mounts. "Good boys, good boys..." Skye was so very pleased with the big geldings. Anoush entered the arena moments later on Fuego. Lousin and Anahit could tell immediately that she was not a hundred per cent relaxed. He hadn't been ridden in a while and although her reins were loose and she wasn't on his head, you could feel his energy rippling just beneath his impressive constraint. Grace entered the arena on La Barilla. They worked their vastly different Spanish horses around each other, moving in circles, passing each other, not exactly as a choreographed dance, but intriguing nonetheless. Skye returned to the arena with Deer Medicine. The saddle was much too big for Lousin, but she looked good on her even so. "Do you like her?" Skye asked. "You look good on her." "She's wonderful." "The saddle is too big for me too" Skye said. "I'll be back with a surprise" Anoush said, riding out on Fuego, horse and rider now relaxed and supple. Skye heard the words but didn't really know what to make of them, and got back to discussing saddles and horses with Lousin. Because, weather and all permitting, they were hoping to go for a Christmas ride, at some point, perhaps before Christmas. Anoush came back with a surprise all right. Mateo. She had walked him down, saddled, mounted him in the arena, and as everyone watched, breathless, she rode him at the walk in a circle. Reverse direction. Another circle. Mateo reared. It wasn't his signature vertical standing rear but it was sudden and jolting. Anoush lost her seat for a second, then regained it. Mateo got his legs underneath him. The next rear was all that. Anoush was out of the saddle but in the stirrups, precarious, but still mounted. She lost her right rein and made a grasp for his mane instead. A moment later, her boot slipped free of her left stirrup. The ride was over. Anoush let go, and stepped off of Mateo rather gracefully. Then fell more or less softly to the sand. While everyone was focused on Anoush, Skye acted on a moment of fearless inspiration. She swing up on Mateo...and he swung into the air. And he he was big. And the ground was a long ways down. But somehow, he seemed ever so slightly more gentle with Skye. He came down on all fours and held still for a moment. Skye didn't budge. A few seconds passed. She dismounted. Skye raised up her arms and Mateo reared. She kept her arms up. He held himself vertical. She put her arms down. Eventually, he came back down to earth. "If we can get him to rear on command...maybe we can get him to not rear on command?" Skye questioned out loud. "I'm a little concerned about his future. We don't really need a circus horse." Grace decided to spend the rest of the afternoon in a more mundane fashion. Turning out stallions. Gunner came first. Then Dream Boat. Relampago en la Pampa. And last of the day's horses, Moose. The dogs took to the sand next. It was getting a bit late in the afternoon to take them for a hike, but they seemed happy in the arena. "Did you hurt anything?" Grace asked Anoush quietly. "I bruised my ego a little bit. It's been quite some time since I've been unseated." "Skye and your girls are hoping to go for a Christmas ride." "Great idea. Count me in." Three of the barn cats came to check out the commotion. It was a happy commotion. Many smiling dogs. # November 30, 2025
The boss was able to slip away unnoticed. Just as well. The last thing she should have been doing was looking at horses. But she was just looking. No harm in that, right? Actually, the first young lady was not a horse at all, but a mule molly. She was lovely, but a bit shy and retiring, She didn't seem to have any particular interest in making acquaintances. Perhaps for the best, the boss thought. Then the mare. She was nice. She would make a versatile mount for someone. Little need to worry about her immediate future. The stallion was intriguing. Supposedly pure Friesian. The boss wasn't entirely convinced, although he did have a lovely way of going. No need for another stallion, she told herself. Dude surveyed the land to the northwest of the ranch. Using the rock formations as a natural barrier for the capture of the wild horses seemed like a logical, even foolproof plan. The reality was a bit different, however. Where the landscape might have been an asset for trapping horses, there would be no way to bring in a stock trailer. Where sheer rock monoliths jutted impressively skyward, they drew more hikers than horses. At last, Dude found what he thought might be a suitable location. The landscape would lend itself, after a fashion, to a funnel fence. It would take some skill, but backing in a stock trailer was possible. The ground actually had some soil, not just loose rock It was closer to the ranch than he would have liked, but it was also relatively isolated from view, which was desirable. Skye saw the print as she and Grace got out for a short afternoon ride. Just one single print in what had likely been wet soil. The partial print of a bear, or the slightly distorted print of a mountain lion...they couldn't be sure. It was on the ranch property. "Is there rain in the forecast?" Skye asked. "Looks like it, huh?" Grace replied. "Honestly I haven't looked at the weather." Grace rode up on a rock ridge to survey the land to the west. Nothing stirred, save for a breeze that grew colder snd stronger as night approached. The colors of the sunset revealed the nature of the bodies in the sky. Despite their thickness and their expansive cover, they were not moisture bearing clouds. The colorful show faded into the night's cool silence. December 7 The boss saw Rain Man first. She drew her lens and aimed. He reared up like a scene from an old western movie. The horses were spread out, the sun about to set. She found Lady Godiva, her foals, the strawberry mare. They moved in and out of brilliant light and cool shadows. Then at last, she saw Crazy. The boss kept thinking any moment she might also see Grace and Skye. They were usually keen on the presence of the wildies. A flash of red on a spent yucca stalk caught her attention. She tried to recall her woodpeckers but she always got them jumbled. Was it a red-head, a Nuttals', or a hairy? Or something else? When she turned her attention back to Crazy, he was closer, moving toward her, moving through the shadows of evening. She was between Crazy and his mares. Best to move, she decided. Reunited with his mares, Crazy and his herd moved away. Rain Man brought up the rear, offering the boss a few more photo opportunities before becoming one with the landscape. Golden light and golden flora dominated the last moments of day. Moving swiftly through the deep shadows, Dude saw horse-shaped flashes of grey, brown and white. He didn't recognize them. He'd seen with his own eyes or through the considerable volume of images most of the horses in the region, and few of them had much white or grey. He followed, but his eyes fell upon only the glory of last light, and ears ears upon silence. They were gone. Back at the ranch, the very last bits of sunset lingered briefly in the pines. The girls had found the Christmas things more or less by accident, and decided to bring the out. "Good thing we're starting early this year" Skye said. "It might take a few days to get this untangled..." The boss's voice startled both Grace and Skye. "Wow! What a surprise!" the boss exclaimed. "This is looking great!" Skye smiled. Eventually, hopefully, it would look great. December 13 Four pairs of boots dangled over the rock face. Skye's seat on the stone was slightly precarious. She considered backing up a little. Especially since they were eagerly viewing an empty landscape. There were no wildies to spook tonight. "So where are you thinking of setting up your...equine bait trap?" Skye asked of Dude. He smiled. It wasn't a bad description. "To the west. But not in the rocks. And not as far away from your property as I'd like to be. But. There's no point trying to catch horses if you go where there aren't any horses." Skye nodded. "What are you going to do if you catch Petrichor? You know, Applejacks?" Dude was silent for a long moment. Then, shaking his head, "I don't know." The evening was lovely. In another moment or two the sun would sink below the horizon. It was just a little after four o'clock, but the outdoor portion of the day would be done. "Are you keeping the collie?" Grace asked Anoush. "We are. I think my daughters would lock me out of the house if I found a home for her. We named her Lady. It seems perhaps a bit feminine for her when she's in action, but she is very lady-like at home." "Do you still have the shepherd?" Skye asked. "Yes, the German and the Anatolian. And the deerhound. I'm a bit particular in that regard. They are good dogs and they deserve exceptional owners...and yes, the boss has made it clear she'll be happy to take them off of our hands should the need arise." Grace laughed softly. "She certainly will. Along with your spare cats and horses." Skye chimed in. "She'll also take bulls, old Jeeps and model horses, any scale..." # November 15, 2025
Big tropical rain drops plummeted from the sky. "Why do you suppose Dude decided to set up his horse trap elsewhere?" Skye asked Grace. "Respect. Ha. Or maybe fear of retaliation" Grace said, smiling. "I have a hunch I know where it is" Skye said. The storm had stalled out numerous times. The heaviest local rainfall was supposed to be over before 9 AM, but it lingered into the afternoon. At one point, the girls thought they might get a chance to ride, but before they could decide who to ride, it was raining again. Unlike most rains, this one seemed to be going into the ground, as if the hydrophobic soils had collectively agreed to harvest the water. Rivulets of water began to come together to fill seasonal streams. Skye's hunch about the new location of Dude's horse trap didn't pan out. Either he hadn't gotten started yet, or they were in the wrong place. "This rain is going to foil his plan, isn't it?" Skye mused. "There's going to be plenty of new green grass now, and there should be more water too." "It's going to be a much harder sell, that's for sure." From the dry comfort of home, Grace leaned over the table, studying an email from the boss on the laptop. "What's up?" "This is weird. So the boss says Petrichor's original name might be...are you ready for this? Applejacks." "What?" "Dude was asking the boss what my horse looked like. Remember, you told him Petrichor was mine." "Yes I did!" "So the boss sent him a picture of Petrichor. And he said he wondered if that was the one Francis called Applejacks." "What picture did she show him?" Grace stepped aside so Skye could see. "Oh that's one of the boss's pictures." "Apparently Gramma Francis spent a lot of time with the wild horses, especially the ones born on the property. And there were a couple of foals that were pretty friendly. And one in particular that would come right up to her. So, one day the colt was hanging around, and she was looking for something to give him, and she didn't have anything handy, so she offered him Applejacks. And he loved them. And it got to be a thing, where he'd come around looking for Applejacks." "What are Applejacks?" "It's a cereal. You've never had Applejacks?" "Can you Google it?" "Kind of like Cheerios" Skye mused. "Corn, sugar, food color...I guess we'll need to get a box of Applejacks." The dogs looked expectantly at Grace and Skye. "It's an even split, four and four...I guess we both feed" Skye said. "Ginger Cat is looking at you" Grace replied. "Yeah but Vinnie is looking at you...it's still a tie." November 23 "The boss and I were up until 2 AM making these!" Skye told Grace, tub of cereal cookies in her arms. "We finally found something to make the honey stop running. Psyllium powder! But you have to wait, like an hour at least, for it to thicken up..." Skye set down the tub of Applejacks blobs and started off to choose some volunteers for her experiment. "Do you have something easier to carry those in?" Grace said, with a hint of urgency. "Sure!" Skye returned momentarily with a basket. "Perfect." Grace swept the cookies into the basket and started out. "Come on." Skye was typically in the lead on these excursions, but not today. Grace was moving with purpose. Over the rocky terrain to the westerly boundary of the property, and then beyond it. They saw Thorn first. Or perhaps she saw them first. Thorn changed direction several times, then headed southwest and out of sight. The girls followed, directly at first, then Grace changed course, hugging the rocks and the sheltered spaces like a predator. They could hear the horses in front of them. Petrichor pawed softly, almost playfully at the shallow rivulet of water. Green was already emerging in the wake of rain, a mix of grasses and invasive plants, all edible at this tender young stage. The bay mare and both foals were in the shallow water. Moonlight Sonata and her colt moved along the drier side of the draw. Thorn, taking the high road back to the herd, appeared above them in the rocks. Grace looked into the basket. Most of the cookies were gone. Just three cookies left. They would never find the others in a terrain dotted with splashes of yellow and green...but she only needed one. Skye got Grace's attention. Pointed with her nose to the opening below them. Grace made her way out into the open, sandy ground. And waited. The horses would eventually emerge. If the girls had gone undetected, the horses would come out of the draw mares first. If their presence had been detected, if Thorn conveyed them to the rest of the herd or if their scent gave them away, Petrichor would come first. Moments passed. Petrichor burst into view, trotted like a truly wild stallion on a mission straight toward Grace. It was always a little...exhilarating...unnerving... Petrichor sniffed at the cereal cookie for just a moment before embracing it with his lips, then snatching the whole of it into his mouth and devouring it. Afterwards he raised his head and curled back his lips, like a horse seeking a scent. And then he turned back to Grace, looking expectantly for another Applejacks cookie. And that was the universal problem with giving animals treats. They rather quickly move from expectation to frustration with there are no more treats. "Git" Grace said in a stern voice. The bay mare began to move off with the herd. Petrichor rejoined his band. Once the horses were away, Skye rejoined Grace in the sand wash, and they began a much slower journey back to the ranch. "Welp" Skye said, "that was exciting, and you gave new meaning to 'tossing your cookies', but we still haven't proved anything scientifically." "What do you mean by scientifically?" "I mean what if ALL horse like Applejacks? If all horses like Applejacks, then Petrichor may or may not be the stallion Dude suspects he is. But. We could always rename his colt, just for fun. I think that's the one the boss named Tempest. We could name him Baby Applejacks instead." "Or Applejacks, Baby..." # November 9, 2025
"Skye" Anoush began, "do you ever wish you lived somewhere a little more hospitable?" "Like a place with dirt instead of rocks, and green grass and flat ground and water? Yeah, I dream about it sometimes! But then I love this place too. This place is...wild." The wind was fixing to tear Dude's hat from his head again. "Is that why you don't ride when it's windy?" Dude asked. "Is what why?" "The landscape." "Yes, that's a lot of it. Some of our horses are perfectly fine in the wind, but if things get sideways, if they spook or you spook and you fall or they fall or you both fall, you're probably going to get hurt." Dude pressed on across the steep terrain, navigating a narrow, near vertical crevice. There were no wild horses to see. Dude was looking, instead, for a place to set up a feeding trap...a funnel-shaped temporary enclosure that would hopefully allow him to draw in the wild horses, close the funnel behind them, and move them forward, to the small end of the funnel, which would terminate into a stock trailer. Skye and Anoush, substantially shorter in the leg, shuffled down a bit more slowly. "This is good" Dude said. "We don't have to go any further." Skye could envision the funnel trap. It could work. But there were so many risks. So much possible mayhem. And what if he caught some of their favorite horses? What if he caught Petrichor? "So let's say this works and you trap some horses. Then what Dude?" Skye implored. "We take them back to the reserve. And then we take stock of what we've got. There's another wild horse sanctuary not too far away. They have four thousand acres. If we come up with a head count that's not sustainable, they will take on some of our horses." "Will they take stallions?" "They will" Dude said, and then paused. There was an awkward piece of silence. "It's okay" Skye said, "I know how baby horses are made. Will the stallions get to stay stallions?" "No." Skye brought Cookie and Mischief down to the indoor arena to let them stretch their legs. They were eager to do so. "Geeze ladies! Don't run me over!" "You know" Skye said aloud, more or less to Dude, "the whole thing...the way we manage wild horses, and all these private sanctuaries saving wild horses from auctions and holding facilities and adopters...the whole thing, it's not right. The whole management program is wrong. First the genetic isolation of managing herds and then the whole thing of sanctuaries that are basically retirement homes for mares and geldings..." "I agree with you" Dude responded. "But the private sanctuaries are really the only safety net for the horses that don't get adopted, or don't work out for people." Anoush brought Dani Girl and Luna down. "I'm not saying sanctuaries are bad, it's just the whole thing is skewed" Skye continued. "You know, there's talk about how restoring animals to the landscape, like buffalo, help the environment recover, help plant diversity, reduce fire risk...why can't we think about horses like that? Horses were here up until what, ten or eleven thousand years ago? And we humans might have wiped them out in the first place." Skye brought down Angel and his Paso Fino sidekick. "The other thing is genetic diversity" Skye paused for a moment. "You know, not just with wild horses but we need to think like this with buffalo too. We manage populations without allowing or encouraging or facilitating genetic diversity and the result isn't good. We need to be making sure that isolated populations don't become inbred. We need to be actively mixing it up. Why don't we do that?" Blondie was the final horse to come down. Dude tried to answer Skye's sweeping questions truthfully, but without any more negativity than the truth already owned. "Bringing back the buffalo...the predator species, moving toward seeing whole ecosystems management across human boundaries...it's all good, and at the same time very difficult because the interests of most people in those ecosystems are in conflict with natural restoration. They are livestock ranchers and farmers. Wild species are viewed as competition for food or as a threat to their animals. And wild horses in particular suffer because they are broadly considered an introduced species, as you know, but more importantly, we don't need them any more. We don't eat them, they have no monetary value, and fewer and fewer people own horses. They are a luxury item." 11.9.25 "Wild horses are a relic of our past. Symbols of freedom, they are called." Dude paused for a moment. "Symbols of freedom. We'll have that discussion some other time. You are fundamentally right Skye. The way we manage the land is out of balance. And trying to get it right again...whatever that means...that's going to be a complicated mission." 11.9.25 The horses moved up the arena together. They watched for a moment in silence, taking in the indescribable essence of equus. The power, the energy, the spirt, the willingness to give their lives into the hands of humans. To know of these things was to hold a treasure. It was soul-wealth. 11.9.25 "I want to figure it out" Skye said. "I know it's complicated, but there has to be solutions. There has to be." 11.9.25 It was barely 5 PM. The day's last light was caught in the trees for a moment. A warm wind rustled the land. 11.9.25 November 1, 2025
Dude brought the truck and trailer to a halt in the drive. The moon hung large in the afternoon sky. The mountain was alive with the scurry of chipmunks and squirrels and, likely, just out of sight, the things that hunted them. Inside the trailer, Mista Spot and Precious waited patiently to be unloaded. "I may have gotten their blankets mixed" Dude said to Skye apologetically. "Oh my gosh, don't even worry about that. Did Gramma Francis get to go riding?" "She did. She was very grateful for the opportunity. And your horses were perfect. She rode them both, and they took excellent care of her." "She asked for another favor though." Grace and Skye listened. "She asked if you had pictures, or maybe a list of the horses you've seen." "Funny" Skye said. "We've talked about that so many times. Making a list or an album of pictures. We have pictures of almost all of them. The boss has a lot of pictures. There's only a couple we don't have pictures of." "She would sure appreciate any help you could offer." "You should help us find the ones we haven't photographed yet" Skye suggested. "Maybe this weekend?" "I'm short a horse" Dude said. "Trooper is back at Gramma's." "But your rig is in the back of the truck." "It is." "What if we had a horse for you?" "Who are you thinking of?" Grace asked. "Remmie." Grace was silent for a moment. Then "Nice choice. That could work." The saddle fit. Grace smiled as she watched Dude. He noticed, cast her a sideways, questioning glance. "I'm sorry" Grace said. "Skye likes to ride Remmie bareback, and when Skye is on her, you can just see the top of her head between Remmie's ears." They seemed comfortable with each other. November 2 They were riding before dawn. At first, their horses' hooves against the rocky soil were the only sounds. The boss had taken the Jeep, stashing it in the rock outcropping and carrying her gear to what she hoped would be the right location. Grace studied the trail just ahead of her. It seemed steeper than she recalled, as if perhaps some large rocks had been dislodged. She hesitated. It wouldn't be difficult for Deer Medicine and Ladyhawk to turn around. But Remmie and Dude...that was a different matter. They continued forward. The sun made its appearance on the horizon. The colors were fresh and glorious. The birds began to stir. The boss swung her big lens from one moving target or burst of color to another. The screams of the horses redirected her focus. Scritch and Storm. And this was looking a bit like war. The morning's peaceful silence was shattered. Dude was laying eyes o the two bays for the first time. "Is that your stallion, Grace?" "Oh no. That one can be yours." The horses cavorted. The boss watched, took pictures, and in her periphery view, saw movement all around. Sun drenched the landscape. Everyone was awake now. Scritch's colt darted out from its shelter in the rocks. "Looks like he's still not accepting her foal" Skye noted. Scritch held the stallion back, giving her foal time to make a break for open ground. Not that it would be a lasting solution...but it would be good enough for now. Storm caught sight of the boss, and then Grace, Skye and Dude on their horses. Conflicted, he lost his focus on the mare and foal and they slipped away. The boss was safe in her location. Storm turned momentarily toward the mounted trio; then changed his course, and moved away from them, more or less in the direction that Scritch and her foal had chosen. The ride back to the ranch was fairly quiet. "Well, we already know those horses, so we didn't see anything new today" Skye remarked. "Thank you for the effort just the same" Dude replied. A more pastoral scene awaited them upon their return. The foals Revv and Cloud Medicine had found good company in one another while their dams were on the trail of wild horses. # October 12, 2025
The wind was blowing. The girls milled about inside, slow to come up with a plan of action. "Where did this unicorn come from?" Skye asked. "Anahit and Lousin" Grace answered. "It came with that truck and trailer set, and the pink unicorn, but they thought this white one was too nice to be a toy." Skye decided to bring The Black down to the indoor arena, where she could roll in the deep, soft sand. But this morning, the old mare was very slow. Bringing her down to the arena was difficult. She seemed reluctant to move. There wasn't much to say. She was so old. "Is she okay?" the boss asked. "I think so..." Skye answered, then noticed the blue covering over a portion of the arena wall. "What's this?" "Oh it's my...fake sky" the boss replied, a bit self-conscious. "Where in the world did you get that?" "I made it" the boss replied. "When we first got here I didn't have a place to get pictures of the horses. So I painted this on some scrap foamcore, and then I'd tack it up to the side of the house...the house was about falling apart and it needed paint, everything looked like that, so I made this fake sky and I'd stand the horses well enough in front of it that it was out of focus in the background." The Black walked slowly past the boss's make-believe sky. She took a picture, looked at the results, smiled, showed Skye. "Oh! It works!" "I'm not crazy about it. I want to be outside. I want to build another arena with a beautiful natural background. But for today we'll try this." The mountain was unusually quiet for a Sunday. Except for the birds and small mammals, and particularly the squirrels. They were acting downright odd. Picking up pinecones, then rocks; running around in circles, putting their tails over their heads as if that made them invisible, drumming on wood with their front paws. The girls hadn't seen anything quite like it before. Eventually the wind resided. The girls took note, and mounted up. "Are you gonna spend the next six months in pajamas?" Grace asked. ""We're supposed to have a La Nina winter. Warm and relatively dry." "No, but I just wanted to go for a ride, I didn't want to fuss with changing. I'm actually kind of warm already." The girls rode through the lower portion of Mustang Rock. Aside from the occasional lizard, nothing stirred. "Are we spoiled?" Skye asked. "What?" "Are we spoiled?" Grace paused for a moment. "Yes." And then "Maybe spoiled isn't exactly the right word. We are...blessed. Fortunate. Insanely lucky. We're getting to live a life that most people only dream about." "But it's a lot of work too!" "And dirt. A lot of dirt. You need to be okay with breathing and wearing a lot of dirt. So we're not exactly spoiled because we have to do the work. No one is saddling our horses for us or mucking stalls or..." "Cleaning the tack room..." Skye interjected. "Right. But still. I wouldn't trade it for anything." "Me neither" Skye agreed. Back at the ranch, the boss was outside in the little arena. It wasn't a great place for photographing horses, but at the moment it was all they had. "She must have a thousand pictures of that horse" Skye whispered. "Let her be" Grace whispered back. "She's outside, in the sun, working out some of that angst. She needs this. Besides, if that was your mare you'd have a thousand pictures of her too." Skye thought about it for a moment. Grace was most likely right. October 20 It was morning, the sun was well over the ridge, and their domestic horses had been quite clear about the location of the wildies. The girls didn't have time to get to their usual observation ridge. They were in the shadow of the pines, but Skye was highly visible. And it wasn't long before she had been noticed. "Well this is kind of different" Grace whispered. The horses had been moving more or less in unison until Wind In Her Hair stopped at the sight of Skye's shape on the rocks before them. There were the first three horses, whom the girls knew little about; Wind In Her Hair, Smoke Signals and Ochre. Then Crazy's band along with Rain Man, still riding shotgun. Then Highlander's band of three. There was some shifting around in the open space. A new order emerged. Lady Godiva took the lead, and the rest of her family band followed. The Dun Mare and Piper fell in behind Lady Godiva. Katana fell in behind The Dun Mare. Highlander followed close on her heels. Grace and Skye scrambled to a new position, where they could watch the horses file through the narrow rock passage. For a moment Lady Godiva could not see her foals, and she stopped. Mares, stallions and foals found themselves confined against each other within the rock crevice. Grace and Skye were silent, breathless. Mares could be fierce enough. There were five stallions squeezed into that mix. Lady Godiva continued forward again, her foals in front of her now. "Why do you suppose they come together like this sometimes?" Skye asked. "I think it's just the herd instinct" Grace replied. "They are all doing their little separate things but they are close enough to see or hear each other. And one band of horses starts moving. And so they all start moving. Because you don't want to be the one that didn't move and got eaten by a mountain lion or a bear. Or whatever. Or maybe one of them says hey, let's run! And they all go okay! Let's run! I'm not really sure but I'm guessing it's probably simple like that." Skye counted them. Five stallions. Five mares. Four foals. "Fourteen horses" she said softly. "Petrichor's band is missing. And the Unhappy Campers. Shoot. There's probably...twenty five horses?" Grace tried to count horses that were not there in her head while watching the horses that were there go by. It was difficult. But Skye was probably pretty close. October 26 Afternoon shadows fell long and soft on the rugged terrain. Grace and Skye were pretty sure they'd be catching a glimpse of wild horses any moment. The girls scoured the landscape for movement, listened intently for sounds. A lizard ran up a Coulter pine. In the distance, a motorcycle plied the highway. Somewhere in the campgrounds to the south, laughter. But overall, it was still, and predominately silent. "I'm thinking if there were wildies here, we missed 'em" Skye said. "You know what i'm thinking?" "What?" "I'm thinking where's my horse?" It was a beautiful afternoon. The wind had calmed to the softest breeze and the air temperature was comfortable. Indeed, it would have been an exceptional day for riding. The girls took their time heading back to the ranch. The day was almost over. It was too late to worry about getting anything done, and too beautiful to hurry. # 10/4/2025 Beautiful dogs, black stallions, mountain sunsets, party planning and riding with the wild thingsRead NowSeptember 27, 2025
"I'm not sure what I'm witnessing" Grace said as they approached the arena. Skye hesitated for a moment. "I'm just going to say it...that's not a horse..." You've been hanging out with my daughters too much" Anoush replied. "He's a Scottish Deerhound. We're getting some nice pictures of him. He's in a foster home right now and his foster people are pretty fond of him, but they haven't asked to adopt him yet." Anoush traded out the deerhound for another wheaten colored dog, but the similarities ended there. "Oh my goodness who is this?" Skye squealed. "Look at this face! I think I'm in love. Is this a...shepherd and St. Bernard cross?" "Anatolian Shepherd" Anoush answered. "Oh! Well I don't think the boss ever met a shepherd she didn't fall in love with, so maybe we can foster this one." "Skye, or Grace and Skye, maybe" the boss interjected, "can you bring down some calves? Maybe three?" "Sure" Skye responded. What she wasn't entirely sure about was how they would actually separate out three calves from the more or less feral larger group, with the intention of taking them to another location. "I'll go with you" Grace said. Skye heaved a sigh of relief. Surely the two of them could come up with a plan. Anoush brought out a German Shepherd next. "You'll let me know if this one doesn't work out in his new home or something doesn't go to plan, right?" the boss said as she took picture after picture. "Of course." The final canine was a bit smaller than the first three. Silver grey and white, long coated, with two-toned eyes. "This one" Anoush said. "I am very tempted to keep this one. I don't know that she's had any formal training, and I don't know what the proper commands are even if she has." Grace and Skye delivered three calves into the arena. Once separated from the larger herd, they were much easier to work with than the girls expected. Everyone had seen television programs with border collies racing at top speed to control their domestic charges. This girl had a different approach. She was lightning quick to stop a breakaway, but then, she was mostly still. A solid presence anchoring the moment and the creatures in it. "I thought border collies were black and white" Skye mused. "Is she an Aussie mix?" "She's a merle" Anoush answered. "Now whether she's a slate merle or a blue merle I'm not sure, but purebred border collies can come in a surprising number of colors." Before the sun slipped below the horizon, the boss brought out the new stallion. "He's so gorgeous, and so hard to photograph" the boss lamented. There wasn't much daylight left, and getting him to stand in the fleeting patches of sunlight, affected by clouds, by shadows of the pines, was at best difficult. At one point he prepared to roll, and of course, that would make for a sub-par show photo. The boss took pictures until the sun slipped below the horizon. The evening was glorious. The girls went out with the truck to catch the sunset from the highway, but it looked as if it had been swallowed by a bank of clouds. They stopped instead to look east toward Mount Waterman. Here too, clouds quickly covered the sky-scape. "Wanna head up the road and see what's left of the sunset before we head back?" Grace asked. "Sure." They arrived just in time. It was a fleeting, burning, beautiful site, with clouds pouring in across the mountain tops, tinged with the pink hues of last light. Skye lingered outside well after sunset. The clues continued to catch light from a sun long departed. The night was so glorious. It was hard to go back inside. A great horned owl swept past Skye, lit in a tree, then flew down into a bush; then back into the air, disappearing into the darkening landscape. It was the time of the night animals. A whole different cast would rule the forest now. September 28 "Does the light always change this fast?" Skye asked. "Not that long ago if we were out before 4 PM we'd be in full sunshine." "There are some days where we lose more or less daylight than others. The rate of change isn't exactly consistent, if I understand it correctly. Like let's say most days we are losing seven minutes of daylight each day, then there is a span of several days when we lose 12 minutes of daylight per day. I'm swagging the numbers but I suspect I'm not too far off." Something moved on the mountain behind them. Distant, camouflaged by its surroundings, but definitely in motion. A red tailed hawk plied the distant south facing mountain behind the ranch.The girls watched quietly. "Well, what do you think of this location for the campout?" Skye said. Grace answered with a question. "When you say everyone, who all are you thinking of inviting?" "Definitely Anoush, Anahit and Lousin. Maybe the girls Anoush cares for? And if they come, Crystal and Heather maybe? Because those girls are high energy!" "And they're always barefoot too, so this might not be a great place for them. It's awful rocky. What about the pony girl?" "Oh yeah! Chance! And...Jessica! That'd be awesome. Maybe we can talk the boss into coming too." "What about Dude?" "I think...this should be a girl's night" Skye said hesitantly. "Do you think that's mean?" "No. I think it's okay if you want to have a girl's sleepover. I also think it's okay if you change your mind and invite him." The tell-tale alarm of ground squirrels gave away the presence of a predator. The calls came from the south, then the west. The girls were pretty sure all they'd have to do is wait. They were right. Coyote appeared rather close, skirting around the back of the ranch, coming upon them unexpectedly. Pausing, making a quick assessment, trotting away on the diagonal. "Now that's some camouflage" Grace said quietly. And then down the road Coyote went. The girls moved on to another location, closer to the ranch, less rocky, but perhaps more suitable for potentially camping with small and usually barefoot children. "The ground isn't exactly soft here" Skye said, "but at least it's actually dirt and not rocks." "It's not completely level either" Grace added, "but we can make some little level spots for tents." There was activity all around them. Birds made no secret of their foraging forays. "This location is almost too close to the ranch" Skye remarked. "I mean, we can see the patio lights from the main house. We're probably close enough to have internet reception too." "True. But it's not like we're back country mountaineers packing our provisions in on a mule team. Our mule is probably going to be the truck." Skye smiled. Grace was right. "I'm so excited" Skye said. "Well, remember a few things" Grace cautioned. "High wind or rain cancels. Not everyone you invite may be able to come. And the boss has back to back events this coming weekend, and I don't know if she told you what happened earlier today." "No! What?" "She was cleaning a horse's hooves and on the fourth hoof her back went out." "Like...what do you mean 'went out?' Can she walk?" "She can walk. She can sit, lay down, get back up. She can bend over. But she can't lift anything. The horse wasn't even putting any weight on her. It was holding it's own weight. Hopefully she'll be all right. But how do you have horses if you can't clean their feet, you know?" "She'll be all right" Skye said after a moment's pause. "She'll be all right. She doesn't have any choice. She's just gotta be all right." "Let's hold that thought" Grace affirmed. # October 4, 2025
Grace tried to stay seated, but found herself wanting to push the big stallion forward and down with her body. If she could. Standing int eh stirrups made little difference for Mateo, however. He was balanced, and he was powerful enough hold that balance without much trouble. My saddle looks really good on him!" "Thanks Skye! It's not working out for me quite the way I'd hoped!" Mateo had an impressive ability to hold a rear at the peak of its motion. Even with a rider, apparently. "Do you think someone trained him to do that?" Skye asked. "I'm thinking this is how he trains people" Grace responded. "He's not angry, he's not worked up, he's not actually trying to hurt me...but I was hoping to keep my seat in the saddle and I just couldn't do it. He gets so vertical..." "Well it looked pretty cool anyway." "You wanna ride him Skye?" "Kind of?" "I'm kidding. I think the boss would hurt me if I let you get on him." Mateo reared again. He was a big horse. Beautiful in every aspect. The boss had fallen in love with him, so he was probably going to stay. Grace wasn't sure he'd ever be much more than a pasture ornament. Skye peered outside as the sun was setting. The wind was on its way out, taking its time, reminding her with little blusters who was in charge. If the wind stayed down, the campout for tomorrow night was on. October 5 "You know Skye, it's like noon. We could wait until it's a little cooler to get the tent set up." Skye raked and raked the soil. It was uneven, but it did give in to the rake, and there were few rocks. Grace was probably right. The mid-day sun was rather warm. 5 pm proved much more agreeable. And it had given Skye some time to come up with a plan to make the tent extra comfortable. It called for pulling the rug out of their room and using it as tent flooring. "It's perfect" Skye said proudly. "It comes up along the side walls just enough that you won't roll off of it." And then in a few moments. everyone arrived. Anoush, her daughters Anahit and Lousin, her helpers Crystal, Heather and Jessica, and the young girls. The oyoung ones rushed up to Grace, showering her in a spontaneous burst of love. And then, the girls got right on to the play things. Anahit, Lousin and Skye were int he back of the big red truck, the Pavement Queen, making plans. Anoush approached them. "The boss tells me she can't find her second tent?" Anoush said, part statement, part question. "I've never seen a second tent" Skye responded. "But we're working on a solution, and we're thinking it's going to involve this truck. And besides, have you been inside that tent? It's huge!" Heather found the buffalo robe inside the tent, and carefully lay down. It had an energy about it. And a comforting feel. Jessica, dressed in her festive red plaid pajamas, took notice as she walked by. "You giving up already?" Jessica teased. Along the south facing slope of Yucca Peak, a red tailed hawk circled, flew along the side of the mountain. Then suddenly it plunged into the brush. A woodpecker made haste to escape. After a moment of thrashing, the hawk emerged from the brush with empty talons. Perhaps it was a young bird, still learning its hunting technique, presently in the smash and grab stage. Or perhaps this was simply the way of the wild. Most hunts end in failure. The bird wasted no time getting back on the hunt. Crystal also found the tent to her liking. The cool blue was rather mesmerizing. Lousin, Skye and Anahit ventured into the day's last light to look for wild horses. It was a beautiful evening, and though they saw no wildies, it was worth the effort just to be bathed in golden light. Grace and Anoush took a walk to the outskirts of the camp as shadows swallowed the day's light. "My girls were asking about a camp fire." "Oh, sorry. No fires of any kind allowed in the forest right now" Grace answered. "Doubtless that's a good rule at the moment." Back in the camp, the older girls were gathering up the younger girls. "Let's have story time!" Jessica said. "Spooky halloween stories! Just kidding" Crystal said, smiling. Anahit and Lousin's sleeping arrangements had been made. Using the mattress, blankets and pillows from Grace's bed, the Paement Queen became a bit of an open air bedroom. "You think this'll work?" Skye asked. "Oh yes" Lousin replied. "I'm gonna go photograph the moonrise with the boss" Skye said to her friends. "I'll be back in a little bit." In the deepening shadows of evening, horses stood unseen on the outskirts of the camp. Smoke Signals was fascinated by the sounds, the smells. He inched ever closer. His mare was not remotely curious, and held back. The moon had already crested the mountain as Skye and the boss emerged from the tree line in the Jeep. That wasn't what the boss was looking for. She turned to Skye and smiled. "Hang on Slye." Down the road toward Meadow Campground they went, pushing ever closer to the mountain, until the moon was no longer visible. There they waited for their second chance, for another moon rise. The moon did not disappoint. The boss was merciless on the shutter button. She must've taken fifty pictures. Every few moments another one. Capturing the moon's ascent into the velvety blue sky, until it had cleared the chamise, the mountain mahogany, the yucca, the pines. "And there she is" the boss said softly, "released into the night sky." The western sky glowed in an orange-red hue. Skye and the boss chatted for a while and enjoyed the night. When they returned to camp, all was quiet. "Do you think there's going to be any room left for you and Grace?" the boss asked. "We're going to glamp" Skye said, smiling. "What?" "We're going to camp at our house. We've got one mattress left and it's just big enough." October 6 Grace and Skye walked up to the campground quietly, pre-dawn. No one stirred. Anahit and Lousin had abandoned their custom bed. Either they were out adventuring, or they were inside the tent. "I think I can see Jessica" Skye whispered. "She looks awake." "Let's not wake up everyone else" Grace whispered in response. A low and slow helicopter cut through the morning air, flying directly overhead. "They're probably all awake now!" Skye said. Grace and Skye moved past the camp and up into the rocks beyond. The sun was getting ready to crest the mountain. The going was a little steep, but they had done it many times. Skye lead the way. Even after all those times, Grace's boots still really weren't made for walking. "You okay?" "Yeah, I got it." They crested the rock face. Sunlight poured across the land. They saw horses straight away. Highlander's band, Katana in the lead. They were the colors of sand and sandstone, of granite, of light and shadow. They were the colors of their landscape, one with it, unbroken. The girls watched, savoring every fleeting moment. Highlander's harem had no particular curiosity about the two-leggeds' camp. They would continue east, back into the chamise, and soon out of sight. Back at camp, the boss was trying to orchestrate a group picture. Grae and Skye slipped in. But there were two cameras set up. No one was quite sure where to look. "Here!" the boss said. "This camera! Look at this one!" Click. Click click click click... success. # September 20, 2025
Dude was looking to borrow a horse for his Gramma Francis to ride. Bringing her home again had given her strength, vigor and fierce determination. She wanted to ride down into the canyon below the main house, and see what kind of condition it was in. Grace said hello to The Black. "Skye, you weren't thinking of sending her, were you?" "Oh no" Skye said. "I just wanted to turn her out. She's not going anywhere." "Tex would be a great choice" Skye said to Dude. He is bomb proof, easy to sit, and good for whatever terrain you've got." Dude looked over the sturdy, colorful mule. "So would either of these two, Precious and Mista Spot" Skye continued. "But they are a little older. You can't go all day and I would avoid steep terrain. Just out of kindness." "And I'm thinking one of them might be a better choice for precisely that reason" Dude replied. "I can say to Gramma Francis, 'we need to go back now, I don't want to tire out this poor old horse.' You know? We don't need Francis back in the hospital because she over-reached her limits. She's on fire right now in her mind, and her body gonna be hard pressed to keep up." The morning was still nice and cool, and likely would be for an hour or so. "Let's think about it while we ride" Grace said. The mountains had gotten some desperately needed ran. The boss figured somewhere between a quarter and a half inch, depending where you stood on the property. Dude noticed Skye's saddle as she rode past them on Jesse. "That's a real nice rig" he said. "Eagle Nest Ranch, by Donna Allen" Skye said with a big smile. There was movement in the rocks. "Lumpy!" Skye said with surprise. And then in a moment, her filly as well. Skye wheeled a willing Jesse to follow them. "Careful" Grace cautioned. "You don't want to run into Storm." Grace and Dude held back. "Who is Storm?" Dude asked. "Storm, the tyrant king. Great big bay going grey stallion. Always agitated, super bossy, makes his mares miserable. He was a bachelor stallion with Rain Man for a long time, but now Rain Man is shadowing another herd and Storm has his own band. Skye calls them something like the unhappy campers." "Rain Man is?" "Real pretty silver dun sabino stallion. The one we thought you tried to steal." "The...what?" "Well, we didn't know the horses are technically yours, or your family's anyway, and someone captured Rain Man. We cut him loose, obviously. We're not sure how someone managed to get him, but there's a school of thought that horses with white hair inside of their ears have a high likelihood of being deaf. He has black rimmed ears with white hair inside...that may or may not count, I'm really not sure. Anyway. Rain Man was one of the first horses to turn up. Along with Storm." Jesse had the speed, willingness and agility to catch up with Lumpy and her filly. But why. After a short chase, Skye reined him in. Lumpy was a bit of a maverick. They had seen her alone with her foal more times than they'd seen her with a band. Skye let them be. Back at the ranch, the boss was busy with her big lens, chasing tiny little things through the rabbit brush. The high pitched, fervent alarm of a ground squirrel alerted her to larger camera fodder. Coyote. Her first few shots were blurry. Impressionistic, she liked to call it. Her attention was in the Coulter Pine next. To the human eye, the pine cones glistened like jewels of every color as their warm sap trickled down the outer cone. To the camera, that effect was often lost entirely, or replaced by the more literal interpretation of the sap, a high energy meal for squirrels and other forest animals. Grace caught up with Skye and Dude as they examined the horse trailer. "We have a problem" Skye reported to Grace. "Trooper is too big for the trailer." "I can take Precious" Dude responded, drop your trailer borrow the neighbor's trailer which is bigger, and come back for Trooper. Maybe not all this afternoon." Skye considered for a moment. "Do you have room for three horses?" "Yes, plenty of room." "Then take both of them. Precious and Mista Spot. Because otherwise whatever horse you take is going to be alone in a new place and that's stressful." "You sure?" "Yeah I'm sure. Horses don't like being alone." Dude knew all about that. The boss had turned her attention away from them to chase some very odd thing moving quickly on the ground. "One of the first people I met up here was a guy from CalTrans" the bossed called over her shoulder between shots. "He told me people like to buy these to keep as pets, and put in terrariums. He said you can hold them in your hand. Which of course I didn't because the bugs up here kind of creeped me out back then. Later on I learned that these are called Velvet Ants, but they aren't velvet and they aren't ants. They are flightless wasps, and their bite is one of the most painful in the insect kingdom. Thank goodness I didn't listen to that guy." The boss was on a photo rampage. She asked the girls for a photo with Precious and Mista Spot, all prepped for a trailer ride to meet Francis Loop Caldwell. "Are you smiling Grace?" Skye whispered. "I am." # September 14, 2025
"What time is it?" Skye asked in a low voice. "3:25." The alarm call of a ground squirrel had blown Coyote's cover from nearly a quarter mile away. "Three o'clock Charlie" Skye said. "But you'd think if they were looking for a meal they wouldn't walk up the middle of the road." There was no being stealthy now. Every rodent and bird around knew who was afoot, and where. "Maybe they were just headed home for a nap" Grace mused. Mountain mahogany wore the afternoon sunlight elegantly. The girls moved toward Mustang Rock at a leisurely pace. The chores were done, the guests were gone, the day was theirs now, but there was precious little left of it. Not enough to rush for. They saw Rain Man first. He looked healthy. They strained to see his ears. Indeed it appeared that the hair inside his ears was a pure white, a color associated with deafness. But was that somehow offset by the black rim around his ears? Or might this be why someone was able to capture him? The girls were not exactly hidden from view in their present location. Rain Man had seen them. Then the strawberry roan mare from Crazy's band appeared. "I bet Crazy wouldn't let his mares go without a hell of a fight" Skye said. Grace didn't answer. Skye was probably right. ButRain Man was much larger than Crazy. Large enough to make it matter. Lady Godiva appeared. Moving out into view, Crazy appeared at last. He looked no worse for the wear, and moved among the mares. He was still in charge. Rain Man was still the subordinate, the second in command, or perhaps even third behind the lead mare, the sweeper. The horses moved to higher ground. The girls followed, in a fashion, moving across the tops of small rock formations to get a better glimpse of the horses. Crazy turned to face the girls, the terrain between them a safe barrier. His harem followed suit. They watched each other, horses and humans, for a few minutes. Then the wildies moved off, across the rock escarpment and down into the dry creek bed below, where they could vanish into the thickness of tall brush, trees and evening shadows. The girls watched the sun slip behind the trees. "We should do a campout before winter" Skye said. "With everybody." There was a long bit of silence. "The first day of autumn is a week from now" Grace said, perplexed with the reality of it. Where had the summer gone? The sun slipped behind the mountain. it was only 6:45 pm. Grace thought she heard something as they walked back. They stopped, looked, listened. "What was it?" Skye asked as they started walking again. Grace shook her head. "Nothing." Summer over. Autumn's approach. The signs were everywhere. The girls walked back in silence. Until Skye broke it. "Do you miss Dude?" The girl might have been innocent, but she seemed to be saying a lot of things that left Grace without words. "I got used to him being around" Skye continued. "I kind of miss him." "It is definitely quieter without him here" Grace finally answered. # September 7, 2025
Grace stopped here and there, looking for the perfect vantage point. Up on the rock ledge would do nicely, but getting there would take some determination on the part of their little Jeep. "To me these are kind of the weirdest clouds" she mused. "You can see the atmospheric moisture getting pulled together to form them. They take on all these crazy shapes. Completely unpredictable. Perturbed and disrupted by the same forces and elements that create them. That's what it feels like to me, anyway. And they rarely become thunderheads. In fact maybe never. But don't quote me on that." "A good thunderstorm would be awesome." Skye alternately attempted to photograph the clouds with the iPad, and pasued to enjoy the changing light. Sometimes they were momentarily cooled by cloud cover. Mostly, it was still hot, and the humidity reached down to the ground. "That's a rhinoceros fish chasing a shrimp" Skye said, capturing a cloud formation. In a moment, it was something different. "Coming down is going to be a lot easier than getting up here was" Grace said, riding the brakes, leaning back in her seat, and hoping she'd gauged the path properly. "Got a hold of that iPad?" "Yup." Going up the rocks had been slow and winding and at one point not entirely certain. Coming down was another matter. The iPad slipped gently to the floorboard. Skye put her hand on Grace's arm, motioning toward the quail. They made a frantic scramble for cover. A male stood watch while the rest of the family slipped through the grass, and away. They would choose another open location to continue foraging, but one farther from Skye's view. Grace saw the deer before Skye did. They were a considerable distance away, somewhat consumed by the landscape. As Skye tried to frame them, there was a great commotion among the quail. A Cooper's hawk had swooped down upon them, sending them scattering in every direction, but coming away with empty talons. The deer vanished. The girls parked the Jeep, walked about, looking for the tell-tale signs of a bird hunt, the blast of feathers that are released on impact. Skye came across a single raptor feather. "You think it's from the hawk?" she asked Grace. "Not sure. I think it's a butt fluff off of a raptor. Could be the Cooper's hawk? Might also be an owl feather. The boss will either know, or know someone who does." The night was lovely. Quiet. Grace was restless. "Let's go watch the moon rise" Skye suggested. It took a little bit to get themselves sorted. The moon was already rising as they reached the ridge line to the east of the ranch. "We should do this more often often" Skye said softly. Grace nodded. # August 31, 2025
Thunderheads flirted with the mountain but never gained control of the sky. The sun beat mercilessly on the land below despite their presence. It was still hot to be out looking for wild horses. Or doing anything, really. But curiosity had the better of him. "I"m surprised Anoush didn't come with us" Grace said. "She didn't want to ruin her boots" Skye answered. "Did she know we were taking the truck?" "She said sooner or later we'll be out of the truck and climbing around on the rocks." Grace nodded. Probably accurate. They could only go so far in the truck. Grace wasn't willing to risk driving in the dry brush due to the fire danger. Anahit, sitting against the tailgate, seemed particularly tranquil. Skye noticed, smiled. "This is...like being in a movie" she said. "Driving across a rugged western landscape, looking for wild horses..." As the sun began to descend to the west, they parked the truck and took shelter in the shade of the rocks. Just like Anoush predicted they would. The shade was comfortable, but their location afforded them no view. They'd have to venture back out into the sunlight sooner or later. Moving away from his band to survey the surroundings, Petrichor seemed to note the tire tracks. From the ridge top, they stared more or less directly into the sun, waiting. Nothing stirred. The sun slipped behind the trees and then, behind the mountain. Maybe it had been a false alarm. Maybe something else had gotten their domestic horses all excited. And then they emerged. Petrichor's band. Petrichor brought up the rear, close on the heels of the blue roan mare. Also on her heels, a foal. The party was not exactly well hidden on the ridge top. Petrichor saw them. Five of them. Too many. Petrichor moved swiftly around his harem, changing their direction. The sun's final glow lit the top of the trees. Petrichor postured as his band retreated. Grace and Skye strained to see the new foal in the fading light. The bay mare, largely unruffled, lead the herd away. Once they had left the vicinity, Grace and Skye lead the group down into the sandy clearing where moments before, the herd had been. There was something about being in the same space as the wildies, even if separated by time. "How does roan modify Appaloosa?" Skye said excitedly. "I'm not sure" Grace answered. We'll have to look it up." Skye turned to Dude. "That was Petrichor's band. Petrichor is Grace's stallion." Dude turned to Grace, a questioning look on his face. "He comes up to Grace and asks to be pet" Skye continued. "We even had to bring him in once when he was lame." "It's true" Grace confirmed, looking at Dude instead of where she was putting her feet, and tripping on a rock. Dude started to ask if she was okay, but caught his words with silence instead. If that was "her" stallion, whatever that really meant...there was a certain level of chivalry that would be functionally irrelevant. # Saturday evening, August 23
The day began with big droplets of rain. But the rain moved quickly, never lingering long enough to offer precious moisture to the soil. The girls watched the sunset. Sparse remnants of clouds fleeting into nothingness before them. "What's the forecast for tomorrow?" Grace asked. "Twenty per cent chance of thunderstorms after 11 AM. Extreme heating warning until dark." Sunday morning, August 24 The girls would stay close to home for a spell. The heat had a way of creeping up on you. It often didn't seem so fierce on the outset of a walk or ride, but things could go south quickly. Especially with dogs. So Skye used the time to do some problem solving. "It's the Dilute Dungeon" Skye said, smiling. Skye's studio space had been transformed into a temporary home for the boss's growing collection of rather large horse statuary. Grace perused the space, tidy as she had ever seen it, much too neat and orderly for an artistic space. "I forgot all about this one" Grace said, motioning to a golden Criollo stallion figure. 'There's two immediate problems with this plan though. The first one is that you're giving up your art space and the second one is that if you decide to use it, you're going to have to cover all these horses." "I haven't done anything up here in forever" Skye said. "And the lighting isn't great. It's actually really bad." She had a point. Her studio was both a lovely space, and an awkward one, perhaps better suited as a bunkhouse bedroom. Grace picked up one of Skye's paintings. "This is my favorite piece of yours." "That was my very first!" "It's the best. It's so loose, and yet you totally feel the subjects. Don't give up on your artwork." "What if that was jut a one hit wonder though?" "I'd say keep hitting." Dude and Anoush took a short walk to the western flank of the ranch, letting Contessa and Tosh stretch their considerable legs before they embarked on their reunion with their home and their rightful owner. Tosh was content to stay close to Dude and Anoush. "I'm taking the dogs back first, then going to pick up Gramma Francis." Anoush had championed bringing Francis home and been a vital alley and asset every step of the way. Dude has done the work of making impossible, but she had provided the guidance and unwavering support that made it possible. The boss had also thrown herself wholeheartedly into the pursuit of getting Francis back home. Still, bringing Francis back into her home was not without risks, and not without resistance. Her sons strongly favored keeping her in assisted living. And it was not by any means ordinary to reverse that process. Once an elder entered a senior living or assisted living environment, it wasn't temporary. They didn't return home. Not without extraordinary familial commitment. Presently, Dude was that commitment. What had begun as a reconnaissance mission to locate her wild horses had become a journey to save Francis Loop Caldwell herself. "Her mental acuity has risen sharply in the last few weeks" Dude reflected. "She's so excited about coming home." "How are you feeling?" "The water pressure throughout the property seems low. I need to look into that. I want to get her settled in first, get her acquainted with Jesse and his family, make sure we've got the house set up to her liking." Not exactly an answer to her question, but Anoush let it be. Back at the ranch, the girls congregated at the indoor arena. The arena was almost cool compared to the outside world. Skye brought Dude's horse Trooper down. Lousin kept him moving more or less along the rail at a trot. "Grace do you remember what leg he was favoring?" Skye watched Trooper move, but she could detect no sign of lameness. "I do not. The boss might remember." Grace said. "It might have been something like a stone bruise. I don't think he ever had any swelling." "Is Dude taking Trooper to his grandma's?" Lousin asked. "No" Skye replied. "At least not for now. He's leaving him here, and we have permission to ride him. But. I don't want to take him out if he's sore, or..." Grace brought the big, colorful, baroque stallion Mateo to the arena next. He commanded attention with his flashy coat and his fondness for rearing. Grace had gotten used to him. He was dramatic in the extreme. But not dangerous. "Have you had any success showing him?" Anoush asked. He was definitely her kind of horse, but she'd never indicated a desire to ride him. "No, but I think part of the problem was the boss. She got sort of obsessed with his breeding and the philosophy behind it and she got him tangled up in his own pedigree. If we try to show him again in the future we're going to call him a historical Spanish riding horse. Period." Anahit and Lousin brought down the next horses to have some time in the arena. The odd couple, as Skye liked to call them; Angel, the pinto Friesian sporthorse, and his sidekick, the Paso Fino gelding. They were in every way different - size, build, and especially gait; and yet they moved in unison, the Paso's movements almost a blur, the Friesian's gait a grand sashay. "Have you ridden the Paso?" Anahit asked. "Not yet" Grace said. "Frankly, I don't know the proper cues to put him through his gaits, but also I don't think we have a bridle that fits him. He's tiny. Almost a pony." Skye suggested that Anahit and Lousin bring down the big, buttery buckskin gelding next. And so they did. Times two. Skye's eyes grew wide. "Who is that?" "Didn't you say bring down the big buttery buckskin gelding?" Lousin asked. "I did!" "But not which one" Anahit interjected. "So we brought them both." "Grace, do you know who this is?" Skye asked. Grace watched the horses pass her. Brin, the cob, was familiar. The lovely stock horse, not. "Nope" Grace answered. Skye fetched the next gelding. A chance to go outside and peer at the clouds. They were lovely, dynamic, ever-changing...but they were stalled out above Yucca Peak, and came no further. Grace was happy to see Skye's choice. Spin was a good horse. Solid. Honest. Kind. Level headed. No drama. Anoush brought out the day's last horses. She did love the flashy ones. Anoush and Grace studied the tall, lean mare, Cruella Can't Catch Me. "Have you gotten on her yet?" Grace asked. "Not yet" Anoush replied. "I've seen her ridden. She seemed to have no real concept of working with a rider. I think she needs to get restarted, and slowly. Maybe in a few weeks she'll be ready to go under saddle again." Skye approached Anahit and Lousin. "If you want to ride that Paso, I'll see if I can find some tack that will fit him." "He's amazing" Anahit said. "I'd love to ride him." The last horse of the day was Luna, the sabino Thoroughbred mare. "Luna" Anoush said softly. Luna had been languishing since the Criollo stallion came along. "I promise you, when it cools down a bit, we'll get out for more rides again." August 16, 2025
Skye could hear the quail everywhere. She took the camera, slipped outside, and they were right there, in front of her. There was just a fleeting moment to try to capture them, but the land was already deep in shadow. Lured by the sounds of life everywhere, she took a walk. Perhaps she would see something epic in the day's last light. The land and the trees were full of sounds and movement, but most of the shapes were invisible to her. A bevy of quail chortling in the grass. A chipmunk raising a warning call from the dark shelter of an oak tree. Tiny insect-catching birds getting their fill of tinier insects. The last light faded. The boss used to say she had an agreement with the wild things. By day she was free to go about her business, explore the forest to her heart's content. But the night time belonged to the wild things, and she left it to them. It was her version of balance, and it had worked out pretty good so far. # August 10, 2025
The boss had the girls bring the calves to the indoor arena. Hot as it was outside, the arena felt cool by comparison. Grace moved the calves around. The boss watched them move. Skye watched them move. Tex appeared to be sleeping, but he was also keeping an eye on everything. "You can leave them in here for now" the boss said. "I'll be back down in a bit." Skye was quiet, fixated. In the next moment, Skye was in action, throwing a leg over Tex and slipping to the sandy ground. "Whoa" Grace directed her voice at Skye. "Everyone's all stirred up. Whatever you're doing just hold on a minute. Let me move some of these guys." Twelve was a lot of bull calves in one arena with a person on the ground. Grace and Hot Cocoa plucked off the really active ones, and moved them to the east side of the arena. Skye stood quietly. Tex watched. Grace kept sorting. "We haven't spent a lot of time working with these guys on the ground" Grace said in an even voice. "They aren't going to know what you want from them." "I know" Skye responded. The remaining calves were very curious. Cautious. Skye watched them, spoke softly to them now and then, kept her body movements slow and low. The calves inched their way closer. Sniffed. Rolled wary eyes, a few of the brave gave her a cautious nuzzle. Back at home, Grace had questions. "So" Grace began, "Mind if I ask when you became a calf whisperer?" Skye laughed. "I read this thing. It made me curious. I just wanted to...like..get on their level and look into their eyes." "Okay..." "You know I'm always telling the boss we need to get rid of the cattle and get buffalo instead..." "You should have told her that before she got all wound up in breeding the Criollo mixes." "I know. Now I know. I didn't know then though. Anyway I think she's getting ready to part with the bull calves. And once we let them go...we have no control over their fate going forward. So..." Skye found the article. "Here, I'll read it to you. This got left behind when the Outward Bound Adventures group was here. " The article was longer than she remembered. "Well, let me just summarize it for you...there was a pig farmer and one day one of the pigs he was talking to slaughter wasn't squealing. It just looked at him. Like why. Why. They made eye contact...the pig just quietly staring at him...at 3 a.m. the next morning he went to the slaughterhouse and tried to get that pig back, but it was too late. The experience completely changed his life. "Okay. I get it" Grace said. "Next time you decide to step out into a herd of unhandled animals just give me a minute or two of warning." # This is the excerpt that Skye refers to: A pig farmer turned vegetarian Compared to other like-minded people Luo Hong-xian's path to becoming a vegetarian was more dramatic. Lou used to be a third generation pig farmer, raising several hundred pigs on a farm in Linkou, New Taipei City, North Taiwan. In his eyes, a pig was more a source of income than a living creature - that is, until an incident in 2008 brought a sudden reversal to this thinking and career path. One day that year, Luo was sending some pigs to a slaughterhouse as usual, but one of the pigs to be sent away, instead of squealing loudly, lie the other pigs, remained silent. It looked at Luo quietly, as if asking him "Why are you so cruel?" Luo was stunned as their eyes locked. In that moment, it was as if the compassion that had lain dormant in his heart was suddenly awakened. He couldn't sleep that night, and at three a.m. he jumped out of bed and rushed to the slaughterhouse to save that pig. Sadly, he was too late: the pig had already been killed and butchered by the time he arrived. This incident prompted him to vow never to eat meat again, and to never sell the rest of his pigs to be slaughtered for food. Side bar: According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, more than 77 billion livestock animals around the world were killed for meat production in 2018. That number translates tot he slaughter of 210 million animals per day, 2,443 animals per second. Those statistics do not include marine life. August 4, 2025
Dude would have let the girls slip quietly past him without so much as a second glance. He was good at keeping secrets. But Grace stopped, stared at him for a moment, then motioned for him to follow. Dude was also good at basic sign language. Grace's single motion meant be quiet, drop what you're doing, and come with us. There were unfamiliar footprints in the soil where it was sandy. Much of what they walked on was hard-pan, baked solid and dry by the sun, retaining little in the way of tracks. "Probably hunters" Skye said softly. "Setting up their game cameras." Grace nodded. She was probably right. In the shade of a pine they came across a gopher snake, roughly four feet long, stretched out across the ground. Skye saw its tail first. It froze as she moved around to get a look into its eyes. She smiled, looked to Grace and Dude. "Playing dead so we leave it alone!" The horses appeared rather suddenly. There hadn't been a lot of time to explain anything to Dude. Grace turned her head slightly toward Dude and spoke softly. "This is Highlander's band. The stallion is Highlander, then Katana, the Dun Mare and her filly Piper." "The Dun Mare had a dunalino colt last year, but it disappeared" Skye added. Dude listened, his gaze never leaving the horses. They were healthy. "Gramma Francis...she loves the draft-type horses" Dude whispered, "and the Spanish types. And not a lot of white." Grace smiled. It had only been more recently that pinto patterns other than sabino were cropping up. Highlander was aware that Grace and Skye had company. Regarding which, he made his sentiments clear. The horses moved off. And the observers became the observed. August 9 It had been a long day in the Down Below, or the Underworld, as Skye sometimes called it. Grace leaned back in the driver's seat so that Skye could point the camera out the window. "What are you shooting?" "Just the trees. The boss said she watched this program called The Nature Effect, and it has been scientifically proven that even looking at pictures of nature has immediate beneficial health effects. So she wants to get back into taking nature pictures again." "Are you channeling the boss?" "Uuuuuhhh...yes." The mountain mahogany in Meadow Campground was Skye's next target. Then the sun setting through sycamore leaves. "Skye are we going for a ride before dark?" "Oh yeah. Sorry." Shadows consumed the landscape. La Barilla and Ladyhawk moved along the familiar rock ridge line. The mosquitos were hungry. The gnats and flies swarming all about. It was both lovely, and fairly miserable. On the ridge behind the ranch, the day's last light retreated. A bevy of quail burst out of the brush somewhere on the slope. Skye strained to see the birds, or what might have flushed them out of their evening roost. Grace followed suite. The quail settled again. The evening fell still and silent. Except for the mosquitos. Home again, Skye showed off her new shirt. "It's way too big for you Skye." "But I love it." "I think it's a man's shirt. Is this your hand? Way up here?" "Hands are over-rated." "Okay then let's talk about the stitching." "It was on sale. And. The boss has stitch witch. She said you can fix about anything with stitch witch. But it probably would fit you better." "I'm good." "Oh come on." Desperately disarrayed seams or not, the shirt fit. A little long in the sleeves...but not much. Grace had her doubts about stitch witch being able to fix it, but Skye probably wouldn't care anyway. "Well!" Skye beamed. "Look at you! We're gonna make you an Indian girl yet!" # July 19, 2025
"I think it's called a cold cast resin" Grace explained. "The boss asked if we could keep it just for a day or two while she rearranges some stuff to make room for him." "He's big!" Skye exclaimed. "Have you noticed they keep getting bigger?" "And heavier. This one's solid cast on a permanent, solid base. The two of us barely got him on the table." "She does love her duns and buckskins" Skye said, glancing around the room. July 26 Summer seemed to be slipping by so quickly. California buckwheat signaled the season's turning point; by summer's end the flowers would be rust-colored, and so numerous as to give their hue to the landscape. Skye put the camera in the hood of her shirt. It was awkward, but it worked. The girls had headed toward Mustang Rock first, but there were hikers crawling all over it. There wouldn't be any wildies there. They waited for sound, movement, birds stirring. A cool breeze confronted them. Then Lousin whispered "Three o clock." Skye looked toward noon and saw something. Maybe Lousin didn't have an old-fashioned clock. Then Skye looked to three o clock. Raised the camera. Held the shutter button down. "Who is THAT?" Anahit whispered. "I don't know!" Skye whispered back. "We saw him once, a long time ago. He came busting out of the rocks and ran off and we never saw him again!" Back to twelve o clock. Horses emerged from the rocks. The breeze blew the scent of the girls toward the wildies. Tussled the mane and tail of a pale colored mare with four white socks and a bit of a blaze. And a darker horse followed. "Smoke Signals!" Anahit whispered excitedly. "Who is the light horse Skye?" Lousin said quietly. The girls strained to get a better view as Skye took shot after shot. Finally Skye answered. "I've never seen her before." All of the horses moved toward open ground, and toward each other, the girls trying to move silently and unobtrusively along the rocks to keep them in sight, Skye taking pictures, then pausing to look, then taking more pictures. They watched silently. Smoke Signals bore the scars of countless battles. Anything could happen. There was posturing, snorts, grunts, a squeal. Head tossing. Ultimately, the big pinto stallion took a few steps back. And that was it. Drama over. The three horses moved off, loosely together, and out of sight. Mountain mahogany glowed in the day's last light. "Do you keep a journal, or a record of all the horses?" Anahit asked. "Well, not really" Skye answered. "We have to go back through our pictures and the boss's pictures sometimes. But there weren't that many horses to start with. Two stallions. And then four. And then five. Then mares started showing up...I didn't think we'd ever see more horses than we could count off the top of our heads." "That was amazing" Lousin added. With the camera in her hood, Skye had a little trouble looking up. But she was pretty sure Grace would have said these were not natural clouds. Skye let it go, favoring the excitement of seeing new horses as a way to recall the day. # July 13, 2025
The boss asked for a sunrise ceremony. They were ready. Brilliant, glorious, immediately warm, the sun's light burst across the landscape. And the ceremony began. "I want to thank you all for coming" the boss began. "When a beloved one leaves us, the remembrances, the gatherings, they are to show respect for the departed, but moreover, they are for healing. They are for the living, to let them mourn, and to let them have closure. To let the healing begin. I asked Grace and Skye to help us in remembering Laurel Dedes this morning." "I asked the girls to saddle an Appaloosa, and an Arabian. Laurel owned a number of Arabian horses throughout her life, caring for them like royalty. Laurel was also a fan of a good Appaloosa; a horse with color, conformation, and stellar character." "I asked the girls to use the saddles Laurel gave us shortly after Grace arrived. Laurel shipped us her finest show tack so that we would have something to start with; because when Grace arrived we owned a single western saddle. She instructed me to return some of the tack as I was able to replace it with our own, but to keep these two saddles. Gifts to help us move forward." "Laurel wasn't just generous to us. Generosity was a hallmark of her personality. She was fiercely loyal to her friends and family, and as one of those friends said, "she was the best momma an animal could have.' She also had many dogs and cats throughout her life, and she had a special place in her heart for German Shepherds. The Arab mare is wearing a halter by Shandi Bech. Laurel was instrumental in connecting us with Shandi, and our friendship endures to this day as we mourn the loss of Laurel, remember her, and channel her fighting spirit into our own bellies as we forge our way forward." The boss paused for a moment. Then, "Skye, whenever you are ready." Grace continued around the arena as Skye brought out Precious. "Precious was a gift from Laurel. I wanted to present her covered, and we only have one summer sheet, and it happens to be pink. Laurel had esophageal cancer, so the proper color would be purple. Ultimately, pneumonia took Laurel from us, as her body weakened from decades of battling for every day of her life." "She did that battle with gracefulness, with candor, with immense courage, all the while caring for her family and her animals, all the while engaged in leadership roles in numerous model horse showing clubs. She was fierce. She was determined. She was her own woman, and she made her own path through this life, bold and yet gentle; a living example of the strength of compassion. It is our job now to carry on, and to embrace those life lessons that she taught us, not so much in words, but in the example she gave us all through the way that she lived." In the tack room, Skye paused before hanging the halter and long line. "You know, I thought this weekend, since everyone is either at Breyerfest or Equilocity or both, I'd do something silly...I mean no one's paying attention, so, I don't know, maybe ride around in my pajamas or something. It seems like there's been so much heavy stuff lately." "I think you're right. There has been a ton of heavy stuff. But this was meant to help give everyone some healing and some closure. Try to think of it like that." "Can we plan something fun before the end of summer? Skye asked. "Or maybe right at the end of summer, when it's not so hot?" "I think that's a great idea." "Even if there's more chaos?" "Yeah. For sure. Especially if there's more chaos." # July 6, 2025
The air was still cool, but the sun's rays were coming. The sound of Dude and Anoush's foot falls on the rocky ground filled the morning. "There's a women's club in Agua Dulce" Anoush said. "I will go to their next meeting. If no one at the meeting knows anyone directly, someone will know someone who knows someone. What you really need is a family. I just think right now people will be afraid to respond to a help wanted ad or a social media post. Everything will need to be done with trust and personal relationships." The sun's rays burst forth across the landscape. "I'm going to ruin these boots" Anoush lamented, "walking on all these rocks. I don't know the terrain as well as Grace and Skye." "Grace." Dude said her name, then let out a heavy sigh. "She's a pistol, isn't she?" Anoush replied. "Grace is very protective. And in fairness, put yourself in her shoes. You show up out of nowhere. You aren't exactly forthcoming with the details of your mission here. Not even your name. I'm the one who told Grace and Skye your name. This isn't exactly suburbia, where neighbors are everywhere and you might never get to know any of them, or for that matter, care to know them." Dude nodded. "True. All of it. And to make matters worse, that mission has been entirely unsuccessful. I know my grandma's horses are here. Somewhere. But I haven't caught so much as a glimpse of one." Grace and Skye were ut for a morning ride on their favorite mounts, La Barilla and Ladyhawk, respectively. There was colorful movement among the rocks before them. "It's Dude and Anoush" Skye said softy. "I feel like we're always interrupting their private conversations." "I'm guessing we are this time for sure" Grace replied. "Are you ever gonna be nice to him?" "Gawd. I don't know. It's all kind of surreal. And remember, he came here looking for horses, not looking to save his grandma." "Well I think Anoush and the boss made short work of that. Either he takes care of his gramma or he'll face the wrath of a whole herd of horse women." Grace broke a fleeting smile. "All right. I'll do it." Dude and Anoush crunched their way through the rocky terrain, back toward the ranch. The air was warming quickly now. Dude extended a hand to help Anoush over a particularly rugged section of ground. Anoush hesitated. She could do it. She was stubborn and self reliant. As much as Grace. Maybe more so than Grace. Dude was patient. After a moment, Anoush acquiesced. Grace rode directly up to Dude. Looked him in the eye. Smiled and extended her hand. "Good morning." "Good morning" Dude accepted her hand and her greeting. And everything Grace was holding...suspicion, fear, distrust, anger...melted. It was as if a host of tight, invisible fibers dissolved and left her momentarily limp. The intensity of the feeling caught Grace off guard. Anoush was still struggling to keep her riding boots and her legs inside of them unscathed. Skye moved into action. "We'll save you" Skye said cheerfully. Ladyhawk shimmied up next to Anoush's stone mounting block. Skye leaned to the right to keep the bareback pad from slipping. In a moment, Anoush was settle behind Skye. Dude was simply too big to ride double on La Barilla. He saved Grace the awkwardness. "You ladies enjoy your ride back. I'm going to enjoy the scenery for a spell." "Dang girl" Skye said in a soft voice when they had ridden off a little ways. "You came outta that shell with a bang!" There weren't really any words Grace could think of to respond. She gave Anoush and Skye a smile, then focused on the way home. # Visually, we begin June with two images recapping April and May, because these were months full of new experiences, including the arrival of Dude and Trooper.
June 8, 2025 Skye tried to capture the swallowtail butterfly, but it was moving so erratic, and fast. Best she could do before it fluttered off was a sharp semi-open shot from behind. Butterfly gone, Skye headed on foot to Mustang Rock. Grace would be along soon. It was warm, too warm for riding, but they had a hunch there were horses hanging out around Mustang Rock. Skye found camera fodder wherever she looked. Grace will love seeing all these lichens, she thought to herself. And then the crunch, crunch, crunch of boots in gravel. But it wasn't Grace. Skye dropped the camera. Then tried to recover her composure. "Dude! I thought you were Grace." Dude laughed. "I am definitely not Grace. How are you Skye? May I call you Skye?" "Well I think you better!" "Is your camera okay?" "I think so..." Skye sat down with the camera, rotating the lens, examining the body. "Grace will be along in a minute" Skye said, fiddling with the camera. "Come into the shade." Dude stood at the edge of the shade. Skye glanced up at him. "I'm fine right here, thank you" he said. "Your sister...I suspect she would enjoy watching me eat live scorpions." Skye stayed cool. "Or maybe a rattlesnake..." Crunch, crunch, crunch. This time it was in fact Grace. Dude leaned into the rock wall, giving her plenty of room to pass. Grace looked at Dude, looked at Skye, released a deep exhale. "I'm tired of this brace" Grace said. Then she pointed with her nose toward a fallen tree in the shade of the ravine. "Let's sit." They sat. There was some silence. "I suppose you have a lot of questions for me" Dude said. Skye took a deep breath, then said nothing. Grace paused. "No" she said thoughtfully. "Not a lot. Just two really. Who are you...and what are you doing here?" Skye grabbed the camera in the nick of time to catch a spying lizard before it made a hasty escape. "My name is Devante James Caldwell. And I am conducting an independent habitat survey." You could have heard a bug fart. After what seemed like an eternity, Skye spoke. "Any relationship to Francis Loop Caldwell?" "Yes." More silence. "Does the boss know?" Grace asked. Dude thought for a moment. "No." "Okay" Grace said, taking a deep breath. "Now we have a lot of questions. But this is a conversation that the boss needs to be a part of. " Dude was again thoughtful. Then he nodded. "Agreed." The girls headed back to the ranch without looking for wild horses. Dude stayed behind. Lizards seemed to be watching Grace and Skye wherever they went. They made their way back more or less in silence, Skye focusing the camera on anything that bloomed, anything that moved. On the back side of Mustang Rock, Thistle had found the new stallion which Anahit named Smoke Signals, or perhaps he had found her, although it seemed unlikely he would have fought for her. With the local water dried up and forage scarce, they would be forced to keep moving. Returning home felt especially good. "Man I'm tired" Grace said. "It seems like just one thing after another lately." Grace struggled with her sling. "Here, let me help you" Skye said. Together they freed Grace's left arm from its brace. June 15 Grace rode the big mule jack, Tex, and Skye was on her gelding Mista Spot. It was silent. Even the birds seemed to be sleeping in. Gorgeous blue sky and not yet hot. But the sun. The sun was intense. Skye wished she would have worn her hat. Katana appeared. "Shoot" Grace whispered. Skye needed no explanation. Katana was Highlander's mare, and Highlander was all business when it came to his harem. Not the wild stallion you wanted to encounter while riding a gelding and a jack. Katana vanished back into the brush. No sign of other horses. The munitions bunker lay directly ahead of Grace and Skye. They moved slowly and cautiously closer. Forms emerged from the darkness. The Dun Mare burst out into the sunlight, foal at her side. The girls strained to get a look before the mare blocked their view with her body and whisked the little one away. It was over in a moment. The sound of silence returned. Grace stopped under the shade of a tree as they headed back to the ranch. Skye watched her, quietly. Tex was fine. Mista Spot was fine. Skye was fine. Grace...not so much. They were close to home, riding bareback and bitless. As long as Grace didn't fall off of her ride, they'd make it. It was still blissfully cool in their room. Grace and Skye stared at each other. "I think I'm just tired" Grace said. "I might lay low until it cools off again." Skye nodded. All things considered, not a bad idea. Skye settled in to the idea of a quiet afternoon. On the patio and in the dog run, life began to stir in earnest, with young squirrels, fledgling birds and the emergence of every imaginable flying insect. June 21 Dude had his horse Trooper on a long line, in the arena, working him in circles at the trot. The boss watched quietly. Trooper didn't seem the type to need much schooling, and he'd already seen a day's ride. Maybe it was something else. "Is your pony okay?" she finally asked. "I thought I felt him step a little short a few times" Dude replied. "On his right front. But I'm not seeing it now." "Try going the other way, to the right, and gradually shorten the circle" the boss suggested. On the second circle they saw it. Slight. But some kind of discomfort. Not every stride. "The girls tell me you are related to Francis Loop Caldwell." "Yes ma'am. I am her grand son." The boss struggled to flesh out what was most important. There were a lot of questions. Dude wasn't much of a talker. "Is your grandmother still with is?" She watched his body language. He took a deep breath before answering. She listened to his tone. It took on some weight. "Yes she is." The boss waited for more words. There weren't any. So she continued to make conversation." "I found a story about Francis. And her father. So much of her story is really about her father. It talked about her starting a wild horse sanctuary, and it talked about her mother breeding Great Danes. The Danes are how I found her name. They are chipped. I found them on the highway, along with three pups. We found homes for the pups. I tried and tried to call the number the big dogs were chipped with, but no one ever answered." Dude was silent for a moment. Where to begin. "Francis has two wishes. To see her sanctuary continue on in perpetuity, and to stay at home to the end of her days. She didn't have what she needed to make those things happen. So when things started getting hard for her, she kept quiet. Couple years back she had a fall, broke her hip. That's when her world started coming unraveled." The boss stayed quiet. "Francis was crushed when she learned about the dogs. She was told they went to a foster home." "No. They were dumped on the highway. You may want to take issue with whoever did that." Grace and Skye brought Topaz and her filly down the the arena. Grace found it easier to listen to the conversation with her face turned the other way. "Is Francis home now?" "No. But she sure wants to go back home. Her mind is sharp. Not as sharp as it was, but she's present. She knows who she is. She knows who she was." "Is she going to get to go home?" "Her kids don't want her to. They're afraid she'll get hurt again. And she'd need support. Help with meals, help with everything." "And better help than what she's had" the boss interjected. "Apparently so. She would love to see her dogs again." "You should make that happen." The boss's tone was stronger than a mere suggestion. "Yes ma'am. I would very much like to do that." "What about the sanctuary?" "It's complicated" Dude responded. "The land she owns is in a trust. Then there's leased land from the Forest Service that adjoins her land. Her goal was for the sanctuary to live on, but we think she was pretty much the one doing all the work and making all the decisions. We suspect she didn't have real strong staff. And you can't do this alone. So when the going got hard, it appears her staff didn't come forward into leadership roles." "Does she have any support from her family?" "Well that depends on what you call support. She has two sons. They have different ideas about how the sanctuary could continue to exist. So that part of her wish could probably happen, not the way she envisioned it, but the sanctuary could carry on." "Is she going to get to come home?" "That's going to be a little more difficult." By the time Grace and Skye returned to the arena with La Barilla, the conversation between Dude and the boss had concluded. La Barilla was lively, but compliant. Dude noticed the reins. "Is that a double mecate?" "Yup" Grace answered. "Skye's design. Before I got on him I wanted to do ground driving with him. And I wanted to see if that was possible using the bosal. Which it is." "He's never been bitted" Skye added. "I'm impressed" Dude said after watching Grace and La Barilla for a spell. "I think Gramma Francis would be proud to know you." Grace wasn't sure how to respond. But she could talk about her horse. "He's got a strong preference for bending to the left. And he doesn't tie well. Other than that...he's pretty amazing. Great head on his shoulders. Very willing to learn." Evening shadows consumed the land. The twinkling lights on the Redbird Ranch signed flicked on just as darkness told hold. The longest day of the year drew to a close. Home again, the girls sat next to each other on race's bed. The boss sent Grace an email. She read it aloud to Skye. "I know your world is a little upside down right now. Try not to let it consume you. While you were gone I had a good talk with Dude. Maybe it's not my place, but I don't really care. He's going to take the Danes to see Francis. Just Tosh and Contessa. Then he'll bring them back here. And then we're going to have some more conversation. In the meantime, you two get on with your lives. Face the sun and feel the wind. Name the wild horses and count the new foals. Live every moment. " June 22 The dogs made a cacophony of sound at dawn. Skye followed their gaze out to the base of Yucca Peak. Got the camera, took a dozen pictures. Life had a way of carrying on, and here was the proof. A small herd of deer, making this land their home, against the odds. Maybe the boss was right. They'd just get on with it. Live every moment. June 23 The girls hugged the rock face, staying in the shade, moving as quietly as they could. They decided to embrace the boss's advice, and get on with life. The air was cool but the sun had a piercing warmth. There would be a few more minutes of shade before they would indeed face the sun. Highlander's band was just below them. "So this is foal number two" Skye whispered, and I think we should calll him or her...Piper." Grace nodded. "I like that." Katana, whom the boss had named, was a good nanny mare, watching the foal's every move. The small band headed up into the rocks, Highlander casting a warning glance toward the girls, dancing on his substantial hooves, a proud father again. This foal seemed robust, if a bit small. It had, after all, been a dry winter and a sparse spring. June 29 A steady stream of search and rescue vehicles and two Blackhawk helicopters filled the morning with mechanical sounds. They pushed to find a lost hiker, missing for seven days from a trail not very far away. Her disappearance was sudden. She wasn't hiking alone. One moment she was with a group of friends, and the next, she had vanished. Grace and Skye watched the helicopters rotate from Chilao Station. "Three points...isn't that near where a mountain lion took a couple of dogs a few years back?" "It is" Grace answered. "But we've seen mountain lions here too. They have big territories. The boss says one came to the house looking for her dogs just a few weeks after the ones up the road got eaten." "We saw that one in broad daylight, the one Petrichor went after. Remember that? It was...right over there somewhere! That was one of the first close encounters we had with Petrichor." "I remember it well" Grace responded. It was a beautiful day to ride, but the girls felt heavy-hearted. whenever this kind of tragedy struck, the beauty of the land always felt a bit...impartial. Life went on, no matter what drama was unfolding...or had unfolded. Eventually the girls made their way back to the ranch. Dude was riding Winchester Cathedral in the outdoor arena. Grace and Skye weren't sure what they were witnessing, or if they were welcome. Anoush motioned them to stay without a moment's pause in her dialogue. "So Francis is of clear mind, and she is certain there is no medical or durable power of attorney in place giving her sons the authority to make decisions for her?" "Correct" Dude answered. "She was very resolute after being reunited with Tosh and Contessa. She wants to come home. The problem is that she knows she will need assistance, and that needs to be arranged before she can come home. That's where she isn't getting any support. Her sons are in Nebraska and Idaho. They prefer that Francis stays in an assisted living facility, and to that end they aren't going to help her find what she needs to go back home." "Well, there is no legal impediment then. Francis can return home as soon as you secure the assistance she's going to need." Dude didn't respond. "That is to say that while I appreciate your efforts with regard to her horses, which are obviously most precious to her, the greater issue is that your grandmother is basically being kept in a controlled environment against her will, and this is the over-arching issue that needs to be addressed. The horses are free at the moment. Your grandmother is not." "I have no idea how to find the resources she needs." "It won't be that difficult" Anoush responded without hesitating. "She lives in horse country, and though it's changing fast, there are still horse people and ranchers, and there are still families who make their living as ranch hands. You'll have to make relations with the locals. You won't be contacting agencies. You'll be dealing with individuals. Families. It may take a little bit, but you can do it. You need to quit riding around chasing ghost horses and make your grandma's home ready for her return. And for right now, put up your horse, and meet us in the big arena." An afternoon wind picked up, keeping the intense heat at bay, but Anoush and the boss decided to move to the indoor arena just the same. There they welcomed the arrival of a flashy Appaloosa sport horse filly, three years old with the look of eagles. "She's a beauty, isn't she?" Anoush said with adoration. "Her name is Cruella Can't Catch Me. Cece for short. She was sold as green-broke, but she's barely that." Grace walked all around her. She was pure athlete, all legs and lungs, and stunning. Lousin and Anahit watched from the west end of the arena, sipping sodas and eating gingerbread cookies. "I think mom's in love" Lousin said softly. "She's super pretty" Anahit acknowledged. "Think she'll figure out how to keep her?" Lousin wondered. Anahit smiled. "She might..." Cece was given temporary accommodations. There was one more item of business for the afternoon. "If we could clear the arena, please" the boss said, then disappeared out into the brightness of daylight. The final item of business took to the arena. He was tall. He was baroque. He was black. There was silence. A Murgese stallion. A breed entirely unknown to any of the girls...or Dude...until he stepped into the arena. At last Skye spoke. "Will his majesty be the latest addition to the rare stallions collection?" The boss hesitated. "Perhaps." # 7/27/2025 Giant holes, horse shows, trail rides, attack mares, rare flowers,May showers and the mystery of Dude and the Danes (and more)Read NowMay 1, 2025
Dude peered at the inexplicable, and large, mound of dirt. The earth around Trooper's stall had been disturbed again. But this time, in dramatic fashion. Dude stood atop a pile of dirt that covered his fencing. There was a hole big enough to be a shallow grave. But what for? It made no sense. And then he saw the other hole. It went deep. He peered into its darkness. He could not see the end of it. He could not see anything. And at the same time, he'd seen enough. Trooper was safe with the girls, and he really didn't need to meet whoever had claimed this patch of ground as their own. The stall project would be abandoned, starting now. May 2 Friday night, MIM 2025. It was the second year of hosting performance at their annual show, and they anticipated a busy day in the arena come Saturday. So what would have been grand entry Saturday morning became the evening show on Friday night. Windy Boy burst into a gallop. Grace pulled herself up, found her balance in his forward motion, leaned into it. They had practiced and practiced. Grace had managed the stand, and she could do it for a short duration without leaning on the reins. But she couldn't wrangle the flag at the same time. Maybe with more practice, or maybe with the flag secured to the saddle so she could actually use it for balance. But not yet. Not tonight. Skye decided to represent. She wore one of her cloth ribbon dresses, her moccasins, her blanket over her lap and legs. Gifted moved underneath her as if he carried the most fragile and precious cargo, every step soft and measured. Dude took the flag. Trooper had a big, ground-eating trot, and Dude had hands capable of holding the giant flag steady. Anoush presented Fuego. She let him move freely and unimpeded in the front. He had a natural collectedness coupled with a hint of drama in his animation. Skye squealed in delight when she saw Anoush's surprise guests - the Canyon Spirit Riders! They were sisters, roughly Skye's age, and Skye had seen their videos and images many times. What an awesome surprise! Jessica and Chance were the finale of the Grand Entry, accompanied by Heather and Crystal, giving a three-up pony ride. Anoush returned to the arena presenting Fuego with the garrocha. "The garrocha was originally a tool used for driving cattle" Anoush explained. "Today, using the garrocha has become more of an art form, a Spanish twist on dressage." Anoush was able to manuever Fuego under the pole so that he could work from both sides of it. When Grace entered the arena on La Barilla, Anoush handed the garrocha to Grace. Grace worked La Barilla in a big circle to the left. The seond circle became smaller and the third, smaller still. On the fourth circle she could feel her horse starting to bunch up underneath her. Four circles was good enough. She didn't try working him to the right. It was done. Months of preparation...and now it was over. The girls could rest easy. May 3 Saturday at MIM. The performance turnout was impressive! The harness class sealed the deal. The performance high point champion would be the lovely bay Morgan owned and shown by Jacqueline Fernandez. He was adept at everything, just as the original Morgan horse was. Towards evening, moisture made its way into Chilao, putting a cool hush on the landscape. A lone stallion perused Mustang Rock, his blue roan coat blending into the cool hues of the sky. Gradually, softly, the night enveloped the horse, and the forest. May 11 "The boss said she bought two sets and wasn't real sure why" Grace said, examining the lovely statuary now adorning their table. "But maybe we'd like to take a break from the bucking horse and look at these for a while." "That's a cute shirt Skye. Where'd you get that?" "The boss. I love it! But it's white!" "I think it's like a really light blue." "White...light...one horse sneeze and it's gonna be ruined. It is cute though." The day had been warm. The wind masked the true temperature, but when it faded, there ws no mistaking the combination of altitude and warmth. Dude and Trooper had taken to the trails sooner than they should have, and ended up resting in the shade of an oak tree until the heat broke in the late afternoon. Dude studied the ground, loose and dry like the cold and mist of just a few days prior never happened. Along every accessible trail and road, tire tracks dominated the soil, along with a mixture of dog and human footprints. And a few isolated prints here and there that were difficult to identify. The sun slipped below the horizon. Dude and Trooper headed back to the campground road, the air cooling pleasantly as the sun's light faded. High in the sky, the moon was staged to illuminate the mountain night. May 12 The morning was beautiful, the temperature perfect, the forest quiet. The girls rode through the picnic area, and down to the fork of Chilao Creek that ran past the visitor's center. "How's he doing?" Skye asked of La Barilla. This was the farthest Grace had ever ridden him. "So far so good" Grace replied. "He's not tiring, and he's not dragging his feet, so I'd say we're doing well." A long bank of deep, loose sand lead to the creek. Skye and Ladyhawk took the lead down the embankment. The creek was dry. Bone dry. "Weird isn't it?" Grace commented. "There's water on the other side of the road, and there's water at the Silver Moccasin fork...but absolutely nothing here." The forest looked vigorous on the north facing side of Chilao. Silver Moccasin fork had plenty of water, trapped in isolated pools. It wasn't flowing. But it was crystal clear, and algae was just beginning to take hold along the banks. There was at least another week or two of good water here. The girls rode to another isolated pool, surrounded by steep granite banks and sheltered in shade. Eventually, the girls made their way back to the part of Chilao Creek they knew best, the part that flowed below the ranch, sometimes in a raging torrent, but more often meandering through a deep sand bed. On the south facing side of Chilao it was also lovely, but there were signs of trouble. Bark beetles were rearing their destructive heads again. Hotter and more exposed to the sun, the trees here were struggling to survive. They weren't meant for the kind of heat that seemed to come along often now. This water would last a few more days before disappearing into the sand. There wasn't much, but it was clean and clear. Staying off the road as much as possible, as their horses weren't shod, the girls took a detour through Meadow Campground and up the back side of Mustang Rock. And that's when La Barilla started to come unraveled. He spun around and started moving sideways. Not as if he wanted to run back to the ranch...he was facing the wrong direction, moving the wrong direction, snorting, agitated. Grace saw the snake. They could avoid it. He just needed to spin around and get faced toward home. But that wasn't happening. Grace struggled to keep La Barilla under control. And then the scream. It wasn't La Barilla screaming. It wasn't Skye screaming...she was breathless. The wild bay mare they called Scritch came out of nowhere and hurled herself at La Barilla. La Barilla did a sideways jump that finished unseating Grace, except for her left foot, which was still in the stirrup. Her foot dislodged from the stirrup. La Barilla moved away from Grace, facing the mare who held the higher ground, striking back at his attacker. And then in a matter of seconds, it was over. The mare vanished back into the rocks. La Barilla scrambled to higher ground. Grace got up on her own. Skye watched her move. It wasn't pretty...but it didn't look like anything was broken. Well. Except maybe that left arm. "Do you want me to go to the fire station?" Skye finally asked. Grace thought about it. "No. I didn't hit my head. And I can walk. Sort of." "Do you want me to go home and get the boss to come get you in the truck?" "No. We're almost home. I'm all right." "Do you want me to walk your horse?" Grace had to give that some thought too. Skye wouldn't have any trouble with him. But Skye's mare was looking slightly unsettled, and if Scritch came back for another surprise attack... "Naw, I better be able to lead my own horse back." May 17 It was perfect riding weather. The cloud cover had broken, but returned. The wind was above the ground, blowing in the tops of the trees, but rarely touching down. Flowers, although more sparse than they had been in wet years, were emerging. Grace, Skye, Anoush, Anahit and Lousin rode the territory nth of the ranch. Arm supported in a brace that made her look a bit like a gunslinger, at least form the back side, Grace rode Deer Medicine, her colt alongside. "Have you seen a doctor?" Anoush asked of Grace. "No, I'm pretty sure nothing's broken" Grace answered. "I fell on this shoulder a while back. That fall was on softer ground but I had my arm in a weird position. This time I hit a rock, but my arm was tucked, so nothing should have torn." "Me and the boss made her that sling" Skye interjected. "We did it so she'd feel guilty if she didn't wear it. It's not just some mail order sling you know. That one's custom built." "I kind of want to go back to where it happened and see if we can find that snake. I'm not even sure it was alive." "I thought Skye said you were attacked by a wild mare?" "Yes! But right before that happened there was a pretty big snake, and I thought that's what La Barilla was freaking out about. It looked weird though. And then that mare came charging out of nowhere and we forgot all about the snake." Anahit and Lousin were looking at something. Quietly. Skye looked too, but she didn't see anything. It was a perfect day for a ride. Dude took in the landscape. There was a harshness about this place, but that was also part of its beauty. He looked for tracks. Most of the ranch horses weren't shod, and most of the soil was actually some form of rock, from sand to gravel. Not ideal tracking conditions. The pair headed north. Fuego did well on the trail. Anoush deliberately put some space between herself and Grace, gauging how well her mount could navigate the terrain without a lead horse to follow, feeling his comfort level when separated from the other horses. Fuego kept one eye on the ground. There was a lot to take in, and the footing demanded focus. Anahit and Lousin had fallen back again. Whatever it was that they couldn't see had them captivated. Skye doubled back to see what they were looking at. Trees. Rocks. Flowers. A lone stallion. It appeared he was missing an ear tip, but the same-colorness of his every feature made that hard to confirm. The girls watched in silence as he turned, vanished into the rocks. Trooper moved forward with heightened alertness. There was something ahead of them. In another moment, they were in view of each other; the five girls and their mounts, facing the approaching Dude and Trooper. "Trooper!" Skye exclaimed. "And he brought Dude with him!" "Good afternoon ladies" Dude said. There was a chorus of response. Dude addressed Grace. "I am certainly glad to be looking upon your battle scars and not those of your opponent." Grace found it impossible not to smile. "We were just going to have a look for that opponent" Grace answered after a thoughtful pause. "Care to join us?" "I'd be honored." But they didn't head toward Mustang Rock. Grace began heading in a very different direction. Skye had a hunch she knew Grace's plan, and moved to the front of the group. There was little chatter as they entered the passage where Rain Man had been captured. Skye turned to look at Dude. His face was calm. He studied the rock formation. Grace watched his body language from behind. It never changed as they navigated the passage. Trooper did what Trooper was really good at...keeping a steady forward pace. As they exited the rocks they were greeted by a moment of thin clouds and flashes of yellow and purple. A small but spectacular field of lupine bloomed at the base of the rocks. Harlequin lupine, known to grow only in a few places in the Angeles and San Bernardino National Forests. The silence was broken with words of awe and admiration. The suspicion of a moment earlier forgotten in the reverie. The thin cloud vail darkened again, accompanied by a light mist. It had been a perfect day in the saddle, and the sky beckoned now for it to come to a close. Back at Grace and Skye's, the girls talked about the new mustang. "Did you notice his ear?" Skye asked. "Was one missing?" Lousin responded. "He has so much mane, it was hard to tell." "We should start naming all the horses" Skye said. "It's getting hard to remember who's who. Maybe names would help." "You should let Anahit and Lousin name this one" Grace interjected. There was a brief moment of silence. Then Anahit offered a name. "Smoke Signals." And so it was. The new stallion had a name. May 23 Grace and Skye made their way on foot past the colorful blooms of Chalk Live Forever. There was a lot of noise. Unhappy noise. Scratch, the big bay mare that had attacked La Barilla, was presently bent on driving off the much smaller bay roan mare. "What did we name her?" Grace asked of the little roan mare. "Ummm...not Thorn...Thistle!" "Fitting name." The roan mare seemed determined to get closer. It was a confusing scene. Scritch was defending her foal...a bay roan that could easily have been the son or daughter of Thistle. But mama Scritch didn't care about the nuances of color. She just wanted the other mare gone. She'd return to the herd with her foal when she was good and ready. Thistle seemed to be making gestures with her mouth, but her body language wasn't pure submission. The foal stayed close to its mum. Evening shadows spilled across the landscape. The girls watched until the horses slipped out of sight. Then they made their way back to the ranch in the golden hour, meandering from one fowering plant to the next. Yucca flower ready to emerge. Chia. Red bugler penstamen. Cobweb thistle. A heart-shaped wildlife portal into the high country. And then home. May 24 The boss had brought all kinds of food up from the city below. Cheeseburgers, traditional sandwiches, fancy roll-things. The west end of the arena bustled with activity. Anoush and her daughters grabbed chairs, benches and buckets to make into seating. "You need help with anything?" Grace asked. She suspected the answer was going to be no. everything seemed well in order. "You just sit back and relax, we got this" Skye responded. "The boss is going up to her house to bring the big dogs down, and then all we need to do is eat." Comet enjoyed the other end of the arena, loping in slow, neat circles. The Black was very curious about everything. Anoush tried a new helmet on Lousin. It fit more or less perfect. "How does that feel?" "The strap is awful. Otherwise it fits fine" Lousin replied. "It's actually really cute" Skye said. Anahit nodded in agreement. Skye had to walk The Black back to the east end of the arena before she sampled the sandwiches. The Black was inching her way back into the sandwich zone as soon as Skye turned away. Grace nudged her back next. The boss returned with the two Great Danes and the Dane mix, who took an immediate interest in Lousin's lunch. Grace wall-flowered for a moment. Dogs and horses and food and friends and lots of laughter. Nice. The Great Danes, Tosh and Contessa, suddenly headed to the east side of the arena, as Dude approached. They came right up to him. Relaxed. Inquisitive. Like they knew him. "Good afternoon ladies" Dude said, dogs still at this side, stopping short of joining the gathering. "Join us" the boss responded. "There's plenty of food." "Awe, thank you so much, but, what I was really hoping to do, if you don't mind, was give Trooper a bath." "Yes, you absolutely can. Do you know where everything is?" "I do, thank you." "Dude, take some food with you, please." Skye took a sampling of the things, put them in a take-out box, and brought them to Dude. Who still had Tosh and Contessa at his side. "Thank you very much" Dude said, accepting the food. "I appreciate it." As Dude departed, Tosh and Contessa followed him for several yards. The ladies watched in silence. Eventually the dogs turned back. After a few awkward moments, Anoush broke the silence. "What a nice treat, all of this food and a lovely place out of the sun to enjoy it." # April 2
The sun was warm, but the wind was biting cold, and unsettled. Wind or no, the valley they'd visited a few days earlier was calling them. Grace didn't remember there being so many trails through the picturesque landscape. The ground changed constantly, from solid footing to soft soil to ravel to solid rock. Skye was enjoying Jesse, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. "How did this happen?" Skye asked. "How did what happen?" "These giant mountains of rock just sort of...scattered about." "I don't know. I know this is a very geologically active mountain range. But exactly how these arrangements occurred...not a clue." It was a glorious landscape. And then something moved. A riderless horse went at a purposeful trot along one of the trails. They girls reined in their horses, listened, waited. Watched. The horse was traveling with a sense of commitment and direction. Skye started to follow, then stopped, looked at Grace. "The horse knows where it's going" Grace said. "Let's look for a rider." They tried to follow the horse's tracks, but it did not take long to lose them in the constantly alternating soil. The girls called out. They heard no reply. "Maybe the rider got injured and they can't respond" Skye said, her usual smile drawn into a thin, straight line. "Or maybe they aren't here" Grace said. "Let's head back and look for them on the way. If we don't find them...we can call search and rescue. And then go find the horse." The girls heard the Pavement Queen's low, throaty rumble as they climbed into the Jeep. "Looks like we've been beat to the rescue" Grace said. Grace pulled the Jeep up behind the boss's big red truck. Slowly. The rescued rider on the tailgate was roughly the size of a bear. "It's a good thing!" Skye said. "That dude is TALL. We'd have to put him on the hood!" There was some motioning between the horseless cowboy and the boss. She pulled over. The cowboy stepped off the tailgate as Grace pulled up. Skye jumped out of the Jeep. His face softened as Skye introduced herself. "What's your name?" Skye asked. "My friends call me Dude" the cowboy replied. Skye giggled. "That's what I just called you! Are you missing a horse?" Dude had a pleasant, if weary, smile. "I believe I know where to find my horse, but yes, we got separated. I wanted to do a little exploring in the rocks, and I didn't tie him. He ground ties, but I didn't drop his tie rope. I figured, you know, I'll just be a moment. But then I got to wandering around, and all the rocks started to look a lot alike...and I'm pretty sure my horse decided to go home without me." Skye started to speak, then stopped. There were only so many houses on the mountain any more and the girls knew most, if not all of them. They knew who owned them. They knew the back stories, the familial dramas, the history. Dude wasn't weaving into the tapestry. "His name is Trooper" Dude continued. "He's Cleveland Bay and Paint Horse. He's a good horse." "He's pretty" Skye said. "We saw him while we were out riding. If he's not home waiting for you, we'll help you find him." "I appreciate that very much." Dude walked off into the forest, heading the same way his horse had, but using the firebreak instead of a trail. "Oh my gosh, I wanted to ask him a thousand questions" Skye said to Grace. "Me too. Actually not a thousand. Mostly just one. Why are you here?" A few more of the boss's daffodils had emerged, glowing in the early evening light. April 14 The ranch horses indicated the presence and general location of something on the northern flank of the ranch as they finished their alfalfa breakfast. So the girls went on foot to see what they could see. Looking for wild horses never got old. Silence. Stillness. They watched, waited. Nothing. "So the boss is thinking about doing Grand Entry on Friday night" Skye said in a soft voice. Grace nodded. "She says Saturday morning is going to be a little hectic, and she doesn't have any artists lined up for a Friday night meet and greet." "So...we will be the entertainment for Friday evening." "Oh. Yeah. I guess huh? She asked me if I had any artwork to show...but it's all old. Everyone's already seen everything. And the boss isn't sure where she put some of it!" "She'll find it eventually. She found the missing saddle stand. Just hasn't brought it back yet." The sun was getting warm. There were no wild horses to be seen. Lizards, birds, blissful silence, but no wildies. "Well, the show is still a few weeks away" Skye said. "We've got time to figure something out. Let's head back." And then they heard a sound. Like hooves on rock. "Trooper!" Skye squealed. Trooper came trotting up, ears forward, deep, soft nicker emanating from his substantial body. "Did Timmy fall in a well Trooper?" Grace jested. "Or did you get wind of a fresh load of alfalfa?" "He's a big boy! And he's sweet" Skye said, then, with a little twist to her smile, "Let's take him home. See how long it takes Dude to find him." "I don't think we've got much choice about taking him home" Grace observed. "He's probably going to lead us there." April 18 A light drizzle had permeated everything for days. Clouds clung to the mountain and a chill pervaded everything. It hadn't taken Dude long to figure out where Trooper had gone. Horses are social creatures, and there were plenty of horses to socialize with at Redbird Ranch. The more pressing question was whether or not trying to keep Trooper anywhere else was going to work. There were some challenges with the location Dude had chosen to build him stall. Challenges that might not be negotiable. The ground didn't seem very stable. The drizzle had ceased, but the cloud cover persisted, sometimes thick, sometimes a glowing thin veil barely hiding the sun. Grace and Skye went for misty morning ride, Grace on La Barilla, Skye on Ladyhawk. All was quiet. Just the beauty of damp everything. "Doh" Grace muttered. "What's wrong?" "The stirrup. It just broke again." "Do you want me to try to fix it?" "Nah, we're almost home. We'll be all right." Grace tried to balance her right stirrup on the top of her foot, but it was awkward. It slipped to the ground just as she was reaching down to grab it. Back at the ranch, the girls turned out some of Skye's horses, along with Trooper. Soon they were joined by Dude and Anoush. Trooper was an easy keeper. He seemed to be enjoying the company of other horses, but he was content to do it from a respectful distance. "We'll probably just keep him with my horses for now, if that's all right with you" Skye told Dude. "We don't have an empty stall for him." "That's perfectly fine" Dude responded, shifting his gaze from Trooper to the black mare. "That's a tall horse you've got there..." Skye smiled. There was a brief pause as Skye swallowed the story she was about to tell...how they had pulled the old mare out of Petrichor's herd...and then she introduced her beloved old mare a slightly different way. "The Black, we call her. She's an off the track Thoroughbred. A rescue. She's the best." Anoush coaxed Mista Spot to come for some petting. Precious came to Grace as soon as she saw her. Those two had a thing for each other. "I need to go pick up my stirrup" Grace said. "I'll go with you" Anoush said. "Oh me too!" Skye said. "I'll stay here and keep an eye on the horses" Dude responded. Skye loved the way the rain drops clung to the grasses and plants. How the pine tress seemed to pull the moisture out of the air and make it into water for their roots. How the droplets clung in the most precarious fashion to blades of grass. "We don't have any idea why he's here" Grace explained to Anoush. "I wanted to tell him the story of how we rescued The Black form Petrichor's band! How Grace distracted Petrichor and I slipped in and grabbed the mare! It's probably one of my favorite stories of all time!" Skye exclaimed. "But then I didn't want to say anyone about the wild horses because we don't know, you know?" "We don't even know his name" Grace added. "Devante." "What?" said Grace. "His name is Devante. He introduced himself to me when he arrived. And I understand. It's a bit unsettling having a new neighbor that you don't know anything about." "Sooner or later we'll figure it out" Grace assured Anoush. "You didn't care for me too much in the beginning" Anoush said. "Not true" Skye responded quickly. "You started asking about the wildies and we didn't like that. It wasn't that we didn't like you, it was that...well, like, it's one thing to share pictures of the horses, but it's a whole different thing to show someone where the horses are." "I understand" Anoush replied. "We like you just fine" Grace said. "We're selfish. This is our personal universe and we weren't sure we wanted anyone else in it." "Well, I guess you'll know soon enough if this new neighbor is going to work out, or if you just adopted another horse." Skye giggled. "We're gonna be a rescue yet!" "Speaking of horses, did the boss sell the Criollo stallion?" "Not yet" Grace answered. "Can we turn him out when we get back?" "Sure." Anoush didn't say much, but you could see there were thoughts swirling behind those dark eyes as she watched Fuego move. He was refined, elegant, and flashy. Anoush seemed to be drawn to the colorful horses. April 26 Saturday began with a few moments of rain. And then the rain became snow. Snow, snow and more snow. Wind gusts, cloud cover, heavy flurries like something from a B rate movie about a deadly blizzard. Trooper's unfinished stall would have offered him only partial shelter from the wind driven snow. And then, around 11 AM, the snow stopped. Bits of blue sky became visible. As fast as the storm began, it was over. A few more snow flurries, persistent, cold wind...but the blizzard had come and gone before noon. April 28 Monday dawned clear and lovely on the mountain. The girls scrambled past the fire station, across the deergrass meadow and into the rocky land beyond. They were out in the open, without cover, when Petrichor's band appeared. Thorn, the black mare, was appropriately wild and leery. The blue roan mare seemed uncertain about a proper response to the sight of the girls. The bay mare had foals to look after, and kept her distance. "He's inviting contact" Skye said softly, watching Petrichor. "He's waiting for you." Grace hesitated. But Skye was right. It did indeed appear that Petrichor was anticipating Grace's approach. The going was rocky and uneven, and Petrichor was moving around a lot. He was a master at holding the higher ground. Petrichor always decided when the encounter was over. Grace kept thinking it would be any moment, but he lingered. She let out a deep breath, and drew another one in. Petrichor seemed to be drinking in her breath, reading her. Her heart was pounding, irregularly. Hooves, ears, tail, lips...moving, moving. And standing still at the same time. He pushed his head against her hand, gently. Another invitation. It had been a minute since the last time they'd greeted each other, and his signals were slightly confusing. On the uneven ground Grace tried to move more to his side than directly in front of him, but he turned his body to face her head on, over and over. The moments passed. She kept touching his head. Gentle strokes down the bridge of his nose. The bay mare began to lead the herd away. At last, and slowly, Petrichor withdrew. But he didn't immediately follow his harem. It would take him another long moment to disengage completely. The girls watched in silence as Petrichor finally released his gaze from Grace, and the whole herd moved off. # March 1, 2025
Clouds were beginning to make their way up the mountain. Actual moisture-laden clouds. Inside, the boss was hoping to get a good shot of Skye with her NaMoPaiMo horse. "Okay get really close to your model" the boss said, fiddling with her giant lens, trying to get both Skye and Pimento in focus. "There, got it!" "I heard you didn't finish your horse" Skye said to the boss, a little hesitantly. "I did not" the boss confessed. "In fact I stripped all the paint off of him. It was the only honest and decent thing to do." "Are you okay?" "It was a great lesson in humility and apparently that is what I needed. I pushed the concept of challenging myself a little too far this time. As soon as the horse went into the stripper I had a sense of relief. I'll do a horse I can be proud of next time." Outside, the light was changing moment by moment. The air was cooling, full of moisture. Grace stood in her stirrups and leaned forward as far the saddle would let her, Windy Boy beneath her at a willing gallop. "Don't you usually ride him with a bit?" Skye asked, wobbling on Tex's back. "Yes, but he's doing really well. Now I just need to keep him on the rail..." The sun slipped away without a fiery sunset. The wind came up suddenly, then departed in the same fashion. Back inside as night consumed the day, Skye shared a simple drawing. "So this is my idea" Skye explained. "It's not to scale or anything, but here, this part goes over the horn. This is fringe, you know just a little something to dress it up. Then these are the stirrup drops, and more fringe. I want to make the drops a little longer than on a real trick saddle. And I have them going behind the cantle. So, theoretically, the cantle will impede how far forward we can lean, but it will also lend support." "And maybe bruising" Grace added. The girls sat on Grace's bed, going through image after image of trick riders and saddles on the internet. "All of these are more like actual stirrups" Grace noted. "Yeah, but I think we'll be okay. We have use strong leather. Like elk. Stong but flexible." "Maybe a little more room between the 'stirrup' and the fringe. Just in case." The girls became aware that there eyes upon them. Many eyes. "I guess we better feed everyone" Skye mused. "I guess we better..." March 3 There had been perhaps ten minutes of snow the night before, but it fell with a fury, leaving a dusting of white in Chilao. Home alone while Grace and the boss attended a seminar, Skye decided to turn out some youngsters, who would certainly appreciate a romp in the snow. Gillee, the grey pony mare. was ever watchful, but gave her colt some room to play. Topaz and Deer Medicine watched calmly while the foals cavorted in the snow. Watching foals, you couldn't help but smile and be joyful. March 9 The day had somehow gotten away from the girls. There were people visiting and work being done on the property and one of the boss's shepherds kept getting into trouble. By the time the girls got to saddle up, it was last light. Skye practiced standing in the stirrups at different gaits. "This uses really different muscles" she commented, "and I'm not even totally free from the saddle. How's the golden boy fairing with the flags? And why are they bent the way they are?" "He's pretty okay" Grace replied. "The flags are vinyl" the boss responded. "Cloth flags this size weigh eight pounds! And they cost a pretty penny. This seemed like a better idea. Hopefully they'll flatten out a little with time." "What I like about the flags" Skye said, "is they make me aware of the space they're hanging in. They draw my attention to the artwork and the logos and they add this...three dimensional quality to a flat wall." Bryn seemed to be completely unconcerned about the flags. He didn't move lightning fast like a quarter horse, but he covered a substantial amount of ground with each stride. Perhaps they'd give him a try. He certainly seemed willing. March 15 The cold crept in as the day's last light burned for one more brief moment. The recent rain and snow were eagerly absorbed by the mosses and lichens, glowing green in the evening light, adorning the rough terrain in a spongey carpet. The setting sun in a clear sky made shadows deep, and visibility difficult. The bay mare used all of her senses as she lead the herd out into the open. The horses of Petrichor's bans would pause here and there for a mouthful of the new grasses emerging from the rocky soil. There would be more grass down below, as well as fresh water. Out in the open, there were new smells. The horses were not alone. They drew together, nudging the bay mare on as they did. They would head for the open meadow. A little bit farther to go with the sun blinding them before it slipped behind the mountain, and the night began. March 16 The creek had water, and the girls would have loved to spend some time there, but it was a busy Sunday in the forest, and the visitors were an odd mix. A bunch of teens driving around making videos, and a lot of loud noises. A man combing Meadow campground like he'd lost something, displaced by a fast-driving couple that came to fly their racing drone. Staying on the ranch seemed safer. So the girls went to the indoor arena, escaping the forest visitors entirely, and practiced their trick riding moves. Skye's Eagle Nest Ranch saddle was a perfect fit for Jesse, and it offered Grace a chance to up her game a few more inches. "He's not as smooth as Windy Boy" Grace said, one hand on the reins and one near his mane, her balance a little bit less impressive the taller she stood. Skye took her first ride on Jesse next. Grace watched and realized she should have put them together sooner. They fit each other. And Jesse was as honest and as much of a partner as any horse she had ever met. Skye's wide smile proved her joy. "You know" Skye said, "since we don't do this for a living, maybe we should use a neck rein. Nobody is going to criticize us for it!" Skye went out to see the last moments of daylight fall upon the rocks. It was sort of the same every day, but she loved it. She saw movement. Coyote. Looking away from her as it walked up the road, as if to say "I am invisible and you can't see me." Skye watched, surprised as Coyote changed direction, moving more or less toward her, then making slight shifts in its trajectory to alter its course around her. It really wanted to go to the ranch proper. Skye followed Coyote. She stopped. He stopped. He moved. She moved. Finally Coyote gave up, and went down the road. Back inside, they pondered the boss's latest finds. A bridge too small for horses, and a beautiful gate...a perfect performance prop, but it was garden-ornament sized. "The boss said we could us it for skinny ponies" Grace said of the wooden bridge. Skye laughed. They didn't have too many skinny ponies. "A garden would be lovely, wouldn't it?" Skye said, coaxing Baron through the festive gate. "But in the meantime we could do dog agility I guess. Look at what a good boy Baron is" Skye beamed. "He's the best" Grace said. Hobo went right through the garden gate. White Dog, not so much. But Skye had a flash of inspiration. "Come with me!" she said, excited to Grace. "I have a plan." There might not have been many skinny ponies, but Topaz's foal moved easily across the garden bridge. Grace had to stop Topaz from trying to do the same. "Whoa girl. I don't think there's enough bridge there for you." And there was in fact a skinny pony, but she'd earned her name. It was Mischief, and she was making sure Skye didn't have an easy time of it. "Why don't you put her halter on and lead her over it the first time?" Grace asked. Skye couldn't really answer, but it became evident after a few minutes that Skye and Mischief had a bit of a relationship, and they were playing a game of sorts. Mischief knew what Skye wanted. Eventually she acquiesced. Skye turned to an imaginary crowd. "Thank you! You've been a lovely audience, thank you very much!" March 17 Monday morning dawned peaceful. While the horses finished breakfast, the girls went looking for wildies in the Jeep. There was water in the meadow between the ranch and the fire station, and plenty of grass. To get across the meadow, there was no choice but crossing the creek. "Are your feet getting wet?" Grace asked. "Nope. Are yours?" "They sure are." The driver's compartment was taking on water where the pedals met the floorboard. "Oh my. Sort of reminds me of that leaky kayak!" Back on dry land, the girls meandered in the open country, avoiding the deep grass and its hidden obstacles. Skye thought she saw something. There were ravens patrolling the grass. The occasional robin. Tree shadows. And then she saw him. "Rain Man!" Skye whispered to Grace. He moved out of sight, appearing again at the water. He seemed to be alone. "I was reading something...I forget what" Grace said in a low voice, "but somehow it got on the topic of deafness in horses. And if they have white hairs inside of their ears, it can be an indication of deafness. Some genetic quirk. I didn't know that." "Maybe that's how he got captured?" Skye mused. "Maybe..." Rain Man was typically with Storm, his sparring partner and now herd boss, with his rather rebellious and somewhat disengaged harem. But there was no sign of the big, rowdy bay or his unhappy mares this morning. Instead, Crazy's band appeared on the horizon, lead by Lady Godiva. Skye pulled herself slowly and quietly back down into her seat. The band was traveling in a relaxed fashion, the foals playful, the mares at ease. As horses made their way to the water, Rain Man moved back, avoiding Crazy, avoiding the mares and foals, but staying relatively close. The girls watched until the horses, having frolicked and drank their fill, moved out of sight...Rain Man first, the mares eventually following along in his general direction, Crazy bringing up the rear. Grace was struck, as sometimes happened, by a feeling of awe and gratitude. What a really wonderful world it was. What a really beautiful life they had. March 23 "I keep smelling smoke." Grace looked about, trying to detect a direction from which she was catching the fait scent. La Barilla danced underneath her. The wind was in its last throes of the evening. The scent seemed to be coming from the north, farther up the mountain. "There could be campfires" Skye suggested. "Maybe there's still some people in the campgrounds. Let's ride toward the campgrounds." Skye turned Ladyhawk to the southeast, toward the campground complex. Grace followed. The wind shifted direction. It was blowing from east to west now. It carried the sound of cars on Highway 2, but not the smell of smoke, which, had there been campfires, it should have. The world glowed red int he day's last light. The girls changed direction as the sun slipped away, and headed into the rocks north of the ranch, closer to where Grace thought the source of the smoke smell might be. There would be enough light to press on a little farther before they headed back. Skye and Ladyhawk came to an impasse in the rugged terrain. "Ooops. I think we went the wrong way." Grace lost the scent. The wind lay down. One or two more gusts, and the night would be still. "You want to keep looking, or head back?" Skye asked. The evening was relatively warm...much warmer than it had been. And soon the moon would provide them with light. It was tempting. But they hadn't told the boss they were going for a night ride. "Let's head back" Grace finally answered. "But let's take the long way." Skye noticed a small cluster of yellow flowers in the fading light. It had been a dry winter. The boss's daffodils were few. March 29 When Skye volunteered to help the boss with photographing her considerable achievements in creating topiary, It sounded like a ton of fun. Cameras and horses. Horses and cameras. Heck yes. But it was really quite difficult. The flower pots were heavy. There were 24 sets. And the boss had chosen to use the school's most weathered exterior for a backdrop, creating a make-shift arena that was small, square, and dominated by the rough school wall. Riding through proved easier than focusing the camera on the topiary instead of the horses. That part was very challenging. And finally, when the sun was shining bright, the wall reflected a certain amount of heat. "I thought the school would give the photos a sort of rustic and unobtrusive background" the boss explained. "And I really wanted to be in the sun." Skye seemed to be constitutionally incapable of focusing on topiary. The horses were always the focal point of her images. "I think a more appropriate description of this wall would be distressed" Grace mentioned as she did her second or third pass over the poles. Ground poles were still not La Barilla's favorite thing, but he had improved significantly. At some point in the operation, the boss got rather quiet and thoughtful. "You know" she finally said, "I think I'm going to change my plan." Her comment was met with silence. "For the champ show and for MIM, I think I'm going to do a set of six matching topiary." "Aren't these for the shows?" Skye asked. "They are...but a matching set of six would be better, wouldn't it?" Grace watched the sky. The whispy layer of clouds was beginning to thicken. Grace and Skye did as much horse wrangling as possible, letting the boss fuss with getting the images she wanted. At last, the end was in sight. Skye couldn't resist doing a little something different for the final few photos. She fetched Tex, the mule...unflappable, not terribly animated, slightly disengaged. "Oh my goodness" the boss exclaimed. "He looks perfect!" It was after 5 PM by the time they were done with the photo session. The forest was calling. Beyond Mustang Rock was the place Tanner called Indian Hills. It was difficult to access. And the first part of that difficulty came in the form of a steep, long deep sand incline leading into a stream bed. "Do you want to walk it, or drive it?" Grace asked. Skye hesitated. "It's down hill...that should be easy enough to drive...shouldn't it?" "The sand is really deep though. We'll have to go not too fast and not too slow or we could be in trouble." Another long pause from Skye. And finally "Let's do it." They made it down the sand embankment, but soon had to park the Jeep and walk. The terrain was merciless. And then it opened into more rock outcroppings. Glorious, wild outcroppings. "Oh man" Skye said, peering over th edge of a stone mountain. "This place is so beautiful." Grace could see it just fine from a safer distance relative to the edge. "We need to come back" Skye said. "We can" Grace reassured her. The humidity rose and the temperature began to fall. The sun slipped behind a cool layer of clouds, and the evening came on, moist and gentle. March 30 Sunday dawned moist and cool, with occasional gusts of wind whipping the moisture layer about. Skye helped the boss photograph the last of her topiary collection inside the arena. There were just a few pieces left, and the ladies had fun with it. Even the boss couldn't resist focusing on the horses, not just the topiary. Mischief crossed the bridge on the first take today. March 31 Monday morning dawned much as Sunday had, cool and damp. All good news for the wild things. Petrichor's band moved, unseen, at a leisurely pace up Chilao Creek. For the moment, it was a time of plenty, with clean water and new, green grass. # |