The Last Ride of Summer

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."
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