WordPlay

By Patty Wilber

I have always wanted to do an endurance ride, and now thanks to JD and Marcia, I have!

Endurance rides are races (on horse back!) over long distance (25, 50, 75,  and 100 milers are the common distances).  There are mandatory vet checks and “holds” (required rest periods) to help ensure safe conditions for the horse.

The most popular breed for this kind of event is the Arabian.  They are metabolically well suited for long distance, having the flat endurance type muscle fiber rather than the bulky sprint sort.

Endurance Arabian

Racing Quarter Horse

I think you can see the difference in the two bodies–the leaner Arabian and the blockier quarter horse–built for explosive short-distance races (Uh, say, a quarter mile!).

Marcia enjoys endurance rides and wanted me to bring her horse JD, so what the heck!  I said, “Sure!”

Marcia and "I am a Paint not an Arab" Top.

JD is big (over 16 hands–I swear I am going to measure him one day) and he is not lean muscled at all, so I was kind of worried about trying to do a long distance race  on him, but Marcia assured me that we were not going to race to win. (What? We are not going to try to win??!)  No. We were just going to meet the minimum required pace of five miles per hour, and see some new country while having a marked trail with water provided and all the trappings of an organized event–such as a place to camp.

And we would only have to “endure” 25 (well the course was a bit short, so more like 22) miles, (but other riders went 50 or 75 miles. Yow.)

J- I am also a Paint (yes really) not an Arab-D!

 Luxury!  Marcia hauled the horses there on Friday and I showed up on Saturday afternoon to prepare for our ride on Sunday. Marcia provided all the food and paid me, too. I think JD needs to be in training with me for about two more years.  Just sayin’.

When I arrived on Saturday afternoon, the wind was blowing in gusts of 60? miles per hour and the camper felt like a boat on rough seas.  I thought I might have to take a Dramamine to make it through the night!

Looking East, away from camp.

People still competed in this wind, but we hunkered down inside, hoping Sunday would be better. (It was-lots!)

Yes, that is blowing dirt, not just a really bad photo.

Ok, so I messed with the color some, but that tail is due to the wind. Some folks rode 75 miles in that gale. Impressive.

Here’s how it worked for me.

Vet check on Saturday.  He recorded JD’s pulse, respiration, gut sounds, and made us trot around some cones to check for signs of lameness.  He checked other things too, but I forgot to look at that sheet, so don’t actually know what all was measured! The vet wrote JD’s number on his hip.

The vet commented on JD’s size.  He was easily the biggest horse there.  JD, Top and Tabooli (yes! Tabooli, now known in some circles as Christopher Robin because…drat…I forget…but there is some literary reason…that now we may never know…) were the only stock-type horses (ok non-Arabs) I saw except for two mules.

T (um, CR) and his mom! He cut his foot during the first half of the ride which is why he has a blue back leg! (A minor cut).

So, we ate dinner Saturday night and went to bed.  Except we didn’t really sleep.  JD was busy bawling his lungs out because Top was on the OTHER SIDE of the trailer, out of sight.  JD had been perfectly happy all day in the wind when Top was 50 yards away but visible.  Some people have barking dogs and some have bawling horses.

Since JD was right next to our camp, we cursed him frequently.

Then he stopped. 

I thought,”ah, silence,” but Marcia found it suspicious, so she went out to check and…Top had escaped. Really.  But apparently JD could see him, so JD was fine with it.

The good news is that when a horse goes off for a mid-night excursion in a camp full of other equines, it is a solid bet that they will not go far.  Top probably had had enough of JD and just wanted  to find some place where he could get some rest! T’s– I mean CR’s– mom located Top with in a few minutes and Top was back at home.

JD stayed quiet (or maybe he just went hoarse) and we got to sleep for a few hours.

The departure time for the 25 mile ride (all 8 of us) was 8 am. So up at 6 to feed the horses and us.

I decided to wear my English gear because the breeches are stretchy and I thought that would be the most comfortable for a long ride. (Got a chapped crotch for my efforts but let’s not go into that…)

My endurance outfit! Layers on the top--Under Armor lime green turtle neck (even though you can't see it), sweatshirt, vest, windbreaker and the winner of the Winter of 2012/2013 Best Thing Ever Invented Contest, the silk balaclava. Breeches, boots and half chaps on the bottom.

The balaclava is a silk hood that I wear on my head oraround my neck instead of a scarf. It is remarkably great--light, comfortable, cuts the wind and keeps my head and ears really warm! A must have!

Half Chaps are like gaiters for horseback riders. They protect the legs from the rubbing on the stirrups and since I wore mine with low boots, I didn't have a boot top rub spot either.

So, we tacked up, got to the starting line on time, and took off.

At a walk.

Pretty soon, though, we started trotting, and because we needed to cover some ground, we did a posting trot, not a soft jog-trot.  We wanted to complete the race in the slowest allowable time, so, like I mentioned before, we needed to cover five miles per hour.  Turns out that is a pretty steady long trot–nothing out of JD’s fitness range, but not dogging it.

We rode down Forest Road 225 to the foothills seen in the distance. There were water tubs set up by the ride organizers along the way for the horses (the dot in the middle of the picture).

The scene of the ride was the Binn’s Ranch between Socorro and Truth or Consequences, and the first part consisted of a 14 mile lollipop shaped route to the west, into the foothills of the San Mateo Mountains. Unfortunately, we had to ride out and back on the same stem of forest road, but the loop portion was on trail and in a really interesting wash.

Down in the arroyo! JD thinks it is pretty cool! Unfortunately, it is hard to take a lot of pictures when you are trotting steadily!

JD handled the trail and the trotting really well.  His two main issues were 1) other horses and 2) Top.

1) Other competitors passed us from behind (the nerve) and came at us head on along the forest road (scary)!  JD then seemed to think maybe we should be with them and was tense until they got out of earshot (JD’s earshot, not mine).

2) JD, had, of course, bonded with Top, so even though JD wanted to lead and he wanted to trot faster than Top, he did not want to get more than about 100 yards ahead.   So, we’d trot off and then when we reached the Designated Distance, JD would just quit!

Truthfully, that was ok, because I was happy to ride with Marcia and Top, too.

We completed the first loop, passed our That is a Big Horse! Vet Check. (Yep–riding 14 miles doesn’t make ‘em shrink!) and hung out for our 45 minute hold.  We pulled the saddles, ate lunch and poof the time was gone! We actually left for the second part (8 miles) a few minutes late!  The starting line guy was aghast!

Only four of the original eight rode out for the second leg.  Christopher Robin had cut his leg so Kate and her riding partner pulled.  Another pair had a horse that fell in the arroyo, so they pulled out, too.

This 8 mile section was balloon-on-a-string shaped, down Forest Road 225 again, but the other way.  Then we looped off to the South and came back. This ride was on more open ground and the views were nice, but I liked the hilly nature of the other loop.

The second loop. JD is still thinking the whole thing is pretty cool! Me too!

 Eight miles seemed so much shorter than 14 and we were back in a flash (about two hours) and off to the vet check!

The vet! The stethoscope gives him away!

JD was not so sure about eating the vet's apple at first! And the vet said, "This is a BIG horse!" (uh huh! still!)

We passed!  JD was definitely tired (plus he had done 25 miles on his own during the night while crying about not being able to see Top!) So, my “fitness program” of riding him for an hour 5-6 days a week, worked.

We broke camp (Marcia has a really sweet set up), loaded up, and headed home, without staying for the awards.

But you know what?  I think we probably tied for 3rd, since 4 of the 8 dropped out!

I’m not at all competitive.

By Patty Wilber

Last weekend’s adventure was an all expenses paid trip to Truth or Consequences (OK I drove to Peralta in my truck and trailer and I paid the park fee, but the rest was covered). It included an evening ride near Elephant Butte Reservoir and a nice trek the next day into the hills outside Caballo State Park.

I have Marcia’s horse JD here and Marcia thought it would be fun to take JD and Top down south for a little mini vacation (and as prep for a 25 mile endurance ride JD and I are doing with Marcia in March… my first…and JD’s first, too!).

JD and I have been having fun working on moving his parts–backing, sideways, moving his hip, moving his shoulder, and loping without flinging his head up and down– awkward–reminiscent of an oil derrick–on the move? And no, I am not talking about the oil derrick Western Pleasure Lope, but JD’s very own natural, but kinda weird, fast lope.  He is making great progress in using his body better and Tuesday, in a horrid wind storm, he had a whole circle that was just as soft and sweet as could be.

Go to 3:21 on the video (click) to see what I mean about Western Pleasure–and that horse isn’t really that bad…I have seen a whole lot worse…

Me and JD near Elephant Butte Reservoir, where the horses stayed and we slept in Marcia's RV. Whoo Hoo!

So, we left Friday– noonish.

Had a fine drive down there!

Got the horse motel (hor-tel?–um, that’s just wrong) set up, got our stuff in the RV and went for a ride!

The horse's home away from home.

Marcia warmed up Top by lunging him a bit and I had fun playing with the shadows.

It was a cold day up in the mountains, so even though I did wear gloves in T or C, we had a really nice and warm ride in the desert all around the RV park.

The ground is soft and pebbly and a lot of it is bare, between the mesquite and creosote bushes.  I spotted gobs of interesting rocks.  I just don’t know what many of them are!

This general area was very big for silver  mining until the federal government switched to a gold standard in 1896.

Here is a bit of history on the silver standard courtesy of …Wikipedia!

“The United States adopted a silver standard based on the Spanish milled dollar in 1785. This was codified in the 1792 Mint and Coinage Act, and by the Federal Government’s use of the “Bank of the United States” to hold its reserves, as well as establish a fixed ratio of gold to the U.S. dollar. This was, in effect, a derivative silver standard, since the bank was not required to keep silver to back all of its currency.

This began a long series of attempts by the USA to create a bi-metallic standard for the U.S. Dollar, which would continue until the 1920s. Gold and silver coins were legal tender, including the Spanish real”

After we rode, we had a nice leisurely dinner of spaghetti.  So leisurely in fact that we were late to our hot springs appointment!  (only 15 bucks with a Groupon for an hour for two…or 40 minutes for those that cannot show up on time!)

Marcia reminded me to bring clothes (i.e. a swim suit) for this purpose.  I said, “Of course!”, and promptly forgot. Was saved from a trip to Walmart  on the way to the hot springs because Marcia had a spare suit that fit me.

Here is where we went: The Rio Pool at Riverbend Hot Springs (only it was dark).

Wow, that hot soak made me a noodle, so all the way back to the RV park I was bonelessly dozing in the passenger seat.  We drove down to check the horses…and Top was standing by the trailer instead of in his pen!  Good thing we checked.

It was, however, a drag to have to reconstitute my skeleton, so I could get out and help corral him (Get it?  Corral him?).

We chose a civilized ride time of 10 am for Saturday.

We drove to Caballo Lake State Park, about 20 minutes south of the RV park.  Neither Elephant Butte nor Caballo are particularly horse friendly, but our guide, Kit, had made arrangements so we could park in the Park below the dam.

The land in Elephant Butte and Caballo State Parks is largely (federal) Bureau of Reclamation land, but it is leased to, and managed by the State of NM.  The employees we talked to said it might be hard to get these parks to become more equine friendly.  It doesn’t seem like it should be as the land isn’t even state land… Got a survey.  Will fill it out and send it in.

We crossed the river!  Always fun!

In the water! We picked a shallow spot!

Then we started to climb out of the river valley.

Marcia and Top are leading the way to the hills in the background!

It was a nice steady climb in soft ground--fine conditioning.  JD did pretty well, but he has a tendency to flip his head  when he is nervous, so I worked on getting him to soften his neck and bend his nose to minimized that.

There was old cow sign everywhere, but almost no grass that I could see.  Maybe some tough old mesquite eating cows live here in the summer–when it is really hot…

We did see a dead calf. A Hereford-- a white-faced red-bodied animal (originated in England for beef), so not a wiley, desert adapted, lean-muscled Longhorn like you might expect in a place nearly devoid of monocot forage.

We followed arroyos into the hills.  We got dead ended in a few but most got narrow and then opened up again.

When we got high enough, we turned around and headed back. Hard to get lost in the day light when you can always just go down hill until you hit the river. Unless you find a fence, which we did not!

Not a bad way to spend the day!

Horse show Sunday (Toots, Penny and JD will go),  I picked up a saddle this week that I had repaired, the farrier is coming today and Penny is going to a youth show home for the show season, on a lease.  All possible topics for next week!

P.S. I made fermented Giardiniera following Marilyn’s recipe (from her reply to the Sauerkraut blog), and it turned out fabulously!

It is very tasty!!

By Patty Wilber

Last weekend was the first Pecos Chapter of the Back Country Horsemen’s training ride of the year!  I have been looking forward to getting out on some new trails with old friends!

We went, as you may have already guessed, to the Gallisteo Basin Preserve.

It is a “Stewardship Community” –you can read all about what that means in the link above, but there are 13,000 acres and some home sites.  There are also trails that traverse privately owned as well as state land within the preserve. There is a 321 acre equestrian parcel still available if you happen to have a spare 1.1 mil lying about.

This area is about 50 miles from our place and we trailer pooled with Squirt’s Dad, also known as the contractor in charge of the remodel.  More on that later.

I debated about which horse to take but decided on Penny, just in case I needed to trade out and ride Squirt, who performed fabulously at that ACTHA ride back in December (see “The Obstacle Challenge“), but has not done a single thing since then except hang out with my ol’  buddy Longshot!

Squirt rode next to Penny in the trailer and definitely remembered her.  When we got there, Squirt wanted to be near Penny.

Penny was down with that program–she wasn’t even very bossy!  Penny was relaxed about the new location, too. Her laid back attitude about traveling is one thing I like about her.

Ready to go but not in a rush.

A lot of folks attended this ride, so we broke in to two groups of about 10.

We wound our way up into the hills you can see.

artsy fartsy shadow!

As the trail started to climb, I thought I’d get some photos. The trail got squeezed by junipers. They had been trimmed back, but only barely wide enough for a horse, so while I was busy trying to get some pictures…

See that limb on the right?

…that branch reached out and stabbed my pants leg!  The nerve! Penny kept going (she had no idea I’d been attacked, and my hands were busy with the camera not her reins…) My leg got jerked out of the stirrup, but I knew I’d get free eventually because  a tree branch embedded in your pants leg is no match for a horse moving forward with purpose!

No match at all.

And these pants were not that worn...

My leg was not much of a match, either.

Ow!

Just a flesh wound!

Jim and Cometa.

It was fun to ride through the different soil types. Here is the red. There was also yellow and white. Peter and Squirt.

Me and Penny. With Cometa's ears in the foreground!

All told we rode about 1.5 hours, and when we got back, a thoughtful hiker had wedged her car between our trailer and the rig next to us.  Fortunately, Cometa is not claustrophobic.  Unfortunately, he had the good manners not to leave them a souvenir on their windshield!

Took a  lunch break at the trailers.  Some folks went out for a second loop after lunch, but we all decided to call it a day.

Next BCH ride in two weeks, JD and his Mom Marcia and brother Junior and me are headed south to ride at Elephant Butte today, soak in some hot springs and ride at Caballo Lake tomorrow!

I’ll bring the camera!

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Remodel update:  We put furniture back in! A dark-colored couch (which does not match the room), a dark pink lounge chair (which  does not match the couch or the room), a blue lounge chair of the same style as the pink one (which does not match the pink one or the couch or the room) and an antique trunk that I think seems like a piece that can stay.  Even though the furniture is not really working in terms of color and style, the basic layout seems good!

What you end up with if you still decorate using hand me downs (and antiques) from your family. Not the couch--we bought that ourselves--the second hand couch is in the other room!

New furniture eventually.

Bought two paintings from Robert Goff. (He was on the elk hunt in the fall.) They will go in the study once we get that arranged.

The big(ger) one. I have been to this place.

Ok, wow. Same ridge! Different view. (We had our cows here for a while.)

The little one. (12x12)

Robert also makes furniture using twisty juniper and old rough cut lumber. Covetting a desk…

Bought a Big Television (big for us anyway) that will talk to the computer….Yikes.

When I went to UC Davis as a freshman in 1979 I went to see The Wizard of Oz at the movies on campus.  Holy cow!  The whole Oz part is in COLOR!  I had no idea.  We had a 12″ black and white TV the whole time I was growing up (hey at least we had a TV!)  From that to a 50″ flat screen soon to be mounted on the wall…amazing changes in technology.

And the TV delivery guy was really impressed with our tile floor–especially the inset talavera!

Until next week!

By Patty Wilber

LT (Like Totally, (Awesome)) is coming three and she is BUSY.

Busy Body.

In humans, the brain uses 20% of our energy budget and our skeletal muscles  about 70%, leaving 10% for the rest.

LT is not a big horse--just 14.2 right now, but her mind is nearly always going 100 miles per hour, she rarely holds still, she gets pretty hot when I ride her and she is trying to grow.

She seemed to be using all the calories she is consuming and then some. I didn’t like how she was looking.

Her hair coat looked unkempt.  Ok, it is midwinter, and she is shaggy; the hair is a bit elderly, as far as hair goes,  (a few months old), and laying down in mud doesn’t do a lot for one’s gleam-y-ness, but still, she looked somewhat less lovely than her bffs (that’s best friends forever, in text speak.  I only have a rudimentary knowledge of this acronymity.  And I don’t think acronymity even really works as a made up word…but it refers, in this case, to a form of communication that is full of acronyms, most of which I do not know.)

i am not THAT unkempt, says LT

In addition, she was getting ribby. That is I could feel her ribs under her skin and if she stood just so, I could sometimes see them.

Now, I am not a proponent of horse obesity,  but I do want a little meat on them bones.

So, what to do?

I asked my friendly neighborhood Purina Salesman.  He said: Ultium Growth, the most expensive horse feed ever invented.

I tried to buy it.

No one carries it.

Why not?

Well, gee, it is the most expensive horse feed ever invented.

Oh yeah.

So I tried to order it from the feed store nearest me that carries Purina products.  I tried twice in fact.  Nothing happened.

Called the Purina Guy.

What else would work?

There is no substitute for the most expensive horse feed ever invented (especially formulated for young horses whose potential is all, well, still potential.  Yeah we all want to spend a lot of dough on Potential!).

OK…That Purina Guy is a pretty good salesman (he read his manual), so…

…I tried another feed store and in just three days they had nine bags of the stuff ready to pick up.

(They tried to talk me into buying a cheaper Purina product for next time! I don’t think they read their manual!)

Purina Guy swears Ultium Growth will increase wither height (gee then Toots is the one that really needs it), add body mass (oh never mind, Toots is more than fine in that category) and promote bone density.  He uses it on his own stock.

Of course he does!

He gets a gazillion % discount (I bet), making it only the 3rd most expensive horse feed ever invented!

(Really, it is expensive, but only a few bucks a bag more than Stategy and comparable to rice bran, which I also have purchased for LT …)

I got it last week and have been giving Miss Thing two lbs per feeding per day (with some rice bran.)  (Purina Guy recommended I feed it three times a day.  That is only working well on weekends when I am home.)

I also make sure she gets a good amount of alfalfa and as much grass hay as she wants.

Unfortunately, she doesn’t LIKE to be penned alone, and if she is, she doesn’t eat real well.  The UG (gee the same sound I made when I handed over my credit card for its purchase) goes down fast though, with its proprietary blend of … stuff. (“Stuff” being the technical term.) But she will pick at her hay.  Apparently, she is  a social eater.

So, I gave her a roommate.  It had to be Toots even though LT Loves Lacey best.  Cometa is the Boss of the Universe, Penny is the Not-Very-Nice-Word-Starting-With-B of every one else.  JD has moved into third. Lacey is the boss of LT and LT is the boss of Toots.  Plus, Toots is amply endowed with body mass, so if LT runs her off some food, it won’t hurt Toots a bit.  The whole being the Boss thing is especially relevant if I am going to be pouring pelleted gold into the feed trough.  The Boss gets what the Boss wants!

And, I have to say, the feed ‘er up program seems to be working. LT’s coat IS looking better (she is going to have that gold overlaid with a silver sheen like her dad, I think!) and her ribbiness is diminishing.

One of the dangers of pouring calories into a horse is it may increase their energy level to the point where you don’t want to deal with them.  Blood sugar may spike and behavior can be unruly. (Of course they may also founder and have other serious health issues, but I am not feeding anywhere near that kind of caloric load.)

UG has controlled carbohydrate release, which means it does not all get digested at once and instead the nutrients and energy are released slowly, over a much longer time frame.

So, yes LT is a wild child, but not due to the food so much as being penned up. She isn’t acting crazy, just very playful.

i hate being penned up!, she says!  let me wiggle this chain.  do de do.  it stopped.  i’ll make it start again. do de do!

hey toots!  the water is bubbling!  I wonder why? let’s take down the PVC pipe and take out the air hose! that’s boring!  no more bubbling (Um, because the air hose is out of the water now.)

look!  i can carry the PVC in my mouth!  look out toots!  (Whack!) sorry!

Ok ok , I say, I will let you out! Whereupon LT finds Lacey, body slams her, and takes off.  Pretty soon she has Lacey and JD running around the barn.  Toots finds a corner and tries to remain inconspicuous!

JD is a big dun, LT is a light buckskin (with spots), Lacey is a sooty buckskin (with no white at all), and Toots is mostly white with red eye rings.  They do look beautiful streaming across the dry lot, changing leads, tossing their heads!

And in case any of us need more calories, so we can toss our heads and change leads, we can send off to Kid #1′s Honey in Hawaii for some Chocolate Covered Bacon Roses!  (Sent to L.A. via Fedex on dry ice!)

By Patty Wilber

I have gotten kind of creaky and stiff at my advanced old age of 51, so have embarked on two new exercise plans:

The Maniacal Minute (x10) and Move like a Ninja (in 5 minutes a day or less). Ok, and a little Tai Chi and some other very quick things.

I don’t have a lot spare time, you know.

I have been doing all this rigorously for about four days, and I have lost 400 pounds as well as regaining my high school form in the high jump!

It’s a miracle!

I’ll report back in a month…or two.

But really, despite my true delight in the Move like a Ninja find (the Internet is another miracle…), I  want to talk about my spotted mini tank: Toots (“real” name; Power Steering).

Toots' drive train

This photo

Horses are really hard to photograph well because they are long.  If the angle is not just so they end up looking plain-headed or weird-necked or super short (ok, Toots actually is pretty short)…anyway, this picture didn’t light my fire, so when Toots came of the trailer and I saw who she really was, my jaw hit the floor.

She is very cute!  And Stout. And Good Bone.  And my, what a Nice Hip ( or in layman’s terms, she’s got a Big Butt)

Yeah, so, ok, this picture isn't that great either!

I checked her height and weight-taped her*: 14.1 and 1150 lbs.  Penny is 15.1 (4 inches taller) and weighs just a little bit more….

I thought Toots might be an ordinary mover because she is so much like a teapot (Short and Stout), but this girl can really get after it, I’m telling you.

She has a huge,  athletic trot, an even, balanced lope, and is showing excellent potential for spins (Like a Ninja!) and hard sliding stops (which makes sense since her Daddy, MA Powersign, has something like nine World Championships in Reining and Working Cow horse and her mom is cow-bred way back).

Even better, she super easy going, and likes her work!

So, no matter that she’d never been off my place,  has only around 30 saddles of basic training, and I had never had her on a cow.  We went to the NM Buckskin Shaggy show to work the pens and push cattle back after the Boxing and Working Cow classes.

(It sounds like a bit of a crap shoot, but Wendy had told me stories about Toots pushing  fence-wreckin’, trespassin’, grass-thievin’, four-legged critters of the Bovine persuasion into a pen and holding them there–all by herself;  she’d already shown me she takes almost everything as though it was yesterday’s news.)

Toots got off the trailer, looked around, and took a nap.

When it was time to go to “work”, she warmed up in an arena she had never seen, with the commotion of a show which she had never experienced like It Was No Big Deal.

I rode her in the lanes, opened gates, put calves out, put calves in, and loaded calves in the trailer.

We moooved them dogies.

Quick and stealthy. (They never even saw us coming!) Like a Ninja!

Thank-you Caitlin Dralle for taking the cow pics while running the gate at the show!!

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* A weight tape is like a tape measure used by a seamstress except the measurements on it are horse height on one side and weight on the other.  To figure the weight, you wrap the tape around the horse right behind the front legs at the heart girth, and read the tape!

by Doranna

I’m slow off the mark on this one. I should have been celebrating out loud at least a week ago.  But it turns out that TAMING THE DEMON should have gone into production right about the time Sandy hit, so by the time they were able to get to it a couple of weeks ago, the time crunch was pretty crunchy.  And that means I’ve just done two weeks of back-to-back production rush.

*blink*  What day is it, anyway?

So I have good news, and I have good news!

For starters, I’ve just signed on to do four more Nocturnes.  Two will be in the Sentinels series, and the remaining two have yet to be decided.  We get to see how things go–after all, next year will see the release of the Demon Blade series.  Who knows?  Maybe we’ll decide to play in that seriesverse some more…

And speaking of the Sentinels…there’s a new book in the line-up, oh yes there is!  KODIAK CHAINED just hit the shelves!

So, you know, sometimes when it comes to settings for my books, I make things up.

No, really!

And sometimes I create Tardis-like areas in the middle of real places, and then I make things up, but within those parameters.

And sometimes I use real places and I research the patootie out of them.  It’s easier now with Google Earth and satellite maps and such, but boy, when I was doing Capetown for the FEMME FATALE novella I had to engage some serious research mojo, and I was thrilled when someone who’d been there said that I nailed it.

Every now and then, I have the chance to tramp around a book setting in person.

There should be a caption that follows me around at times like these.  “Step back!  Make room!  The muse is about to WALLOW.”

Last weekend, I should have been at an agility trial.  Instead, the night before the departure, ConneryBeagle was badly injured.  We cancelled the trip and there are some details and updates over on FaceBook, but for now I’ll just say it was a freak yard thing, and no, we don’t know if he’ll be able to run agility again, and yes, I’m still crying.

And also, that there’s only one thing to do when stuff like this hits: not only does the muse get to WALLOW, but I take her out to the kind of place that comforts me–up into rugged trails.

Convenient, then, that I’m working away at the third RECKONER book in the background of my other projects, and that a certain amount of the action takes place on the side of the very mountain looming up to the west of Casa Durgin.

So I grabbed up some company and I grabbed up Dart Beagle, and off we went.  For the first little bit, anyway–then the trail got more rugged and it was only me.

I didn’t have the camera for that part, which is just as well–it would have banged around a lot, as the trails were up and down and around and mostly carved into the side of mountain ridges.  Narrow little trails, and during the rare moments when I met up with someone coming the other way, I was very glad for Dart’s boingy qualities.  More than once I asked him to levitate up the side of the mountain to perch like a little mountain goat while other hikers–and their significantly larger dogs–passed us by.

(Dart, it must be said, apparently thought the “perching like a little mountain goat” was the best thing EVER.)

I was also pleased that all of those dogs were on lead, as they’re supposed to be.  That would have been a bad place for the “He’s friendly!” routine.  But everyone was pleasant and responsible, and for the most part it was just me and Dart, surrounded by awesomeness.  I love wandering the microclimes of a desert forest–everything changes so quickly with altitude and orientation.  Is it south or north facing?  Shaded by another ridge, or out in the open?  High or low?

Dart thought it was awesome, too.  Four miles of nonstop awesome.  At one point he was so excited by all the new scents that he started giving voice right there on the trail.  It was an Intensity of Want.  And it gave him a whole new perspective on what it’s like to walk together.  Real life stuff, not ho-hum down the road.

On the return loop, in the flatter, wider area near the parking lot, I did run into a couple who thought their three very large dogs were speshul off-lead snowflakes.  Naturally, at least one of these loose dogs was completely non-responsive to recall, and approached us with a dominant body language–head low, neck stiff, tail raised high and held tight.  I’d gone off the trail to put Dart up on a picnic table, but onward it came, so I smacked my nice stout walking stick in its face (against the table bench, which tells you how close it got).  “I don’t know you!” I said loudly.  Smack!  “You are not welcome!” Smack!  

Dog’s dawning realization: Crap, this lady is nuts.  Maybe I don’t care THAT much about bullying that Beagle thing.

Dog’s Owner (everybody, join in the chorus!): He’s friendly!

Me (with the stick still locked and loaded): I DON’T CARE.

And maybe I was channeling Garrie’s reckoner attitude, because I didn’t.  I’m tired of stressing over confrontation caused by people who think their dogs are speshul snowflakes.  Responsible dog owners make sure their beloved pets don’t cause problems for other people.

So they moved on to bother the next person who didn’t want to be visited, and we went on our way unruffled to finish up the hike.

Soo…  Connery’s still injured.  The world has still been sad and overwhelming lately, with the Lyme flaring up to greet it.  But Dart had a great time (and slept hard on the way home!), and I got to wallow in a couple of hours of hiking and not thinking, and the muse got to wallow in scene setting, and found some great story landmarks and even a couple of plot developments.

Soon enough, the season will turn, and those trails will be impassible with snow and ice.  But before then, the muse says, I’ll find another day for wallowing.

Where do you wallow?

by Doranna

As a book, Barrenlands has always been a bit adrift.

It’s a prequel to the CHANGESPELL SAGA with Dun Lady’s Jess, but it wasn’t marketed that way and not too many people picked up on the common factors between them.

It was written to have a sequel, but things being what they are in the publishing world, that hasn’t happened yet, either (although the chances of dramatically improved, thanks to e-publishing options!)

So there it was, tossed out on the shelves with no apparent relation to the things with which it really had a rather deep connection.

Not this time!

Now you know.  And now I can put the books together as the series they are, not to mention…maybe write that missing book between?

Order: Nook | Kindle | Kobo | Smashwords

Before there was Dun Lady’s Jess…

Magic, betrayal, and a twice-cursed exile–only one man’s determination can untangle the deadly intrigue that binds them together.

When Ehren’s sovereign and friend was killed, Ehren, First of the King’s Guard, was far away — sent on a wild goose chase by the First Level Ministry, whose number he now believes must contain at least one traitor.

When a First Level wizard orders him to stop searching for the assassins and instead to find and neutralize the dead king’s distant family, his suspicions deepen to near certainty.

And Ehren is determined to find those exiles – if only so that he may guard them with his life.

Other books in this series: Dun Lady’s Jess, Changespell, Changespell Legacy

By Patty Wilber

Day 2.

Our tireless guide, Seasoned Hunter Friend 1 (SHF1), Chuck and me headed east for the morning.  As the sun started to rise, 20 or 30 elk came out of the trees at a run, and paused in a meadow giving Chuck just enough time to get ready to aim, but not enough time to pull the trigger.

 They faded into the forest on the far side.  We tracked them (up hill of course) but they’d vanished.

Sunrise from the cabin--we were tracking elk up hill about now--nowhere near the cabin. No lazy bone hunters here!!

We met up with SHF2 and Ernie.  SHF2 and I headed on for more and the rest headed back for lunch.

SFH2 showed me how to creep along and we eased up onto Deer Ridge.  We saw a rack (on a elk) in silhouette above us. And it was gone.

We crested the ridge and then followed the sounds of bugling along the southern side. Deer Ridge drops down a series of meadows rimmed by the white trunks and golden fall leaves of aspen, to cliffs above the Brazos River that drop 500 to 1000 sheer feet to the water.

We stayed high and eventually arrived at a saddle.

There were two bulls fighting to the south and one bugling in the trees to the north. We snuck towards the tree-bugler and at one point I stepped on a stick. The bull called out a challenge and I thought he might charge out of the timber.

He did not.  I think it would have been fun to use a bull call to see if we could coax him out, but we did not have one.

After a bit, he may have caught our scent or seen us, and he departed.

The area got quiet as it was mid afternoon, so we went a little bit south towards the fighting bulls (who were apparently resting).

We ate lunch and took a little snooze.

View from the snooze!

When we awoke we could hear movement in the trees and gradually the cows and calves began talking to each other.  There were amazing and nearly continuous whistles and squeaks, as if there were whales in the woods.  I had no idea elk sounded like that.

Soon we could see movement behind the trees and we crept out of our aspen stand to a solitary spruce that gave us cover.

The cows started grazing out of the spruce forest into a low spot of russet-colored dried bracken fern.  They did not see us.

We were about 75 yards away.

I sighted in on some cows to the left and then on a group in front of me.  I remembered Lesson #1:  If you have a shot take it.  But I was having a hard time getting a steady view.

I’d forgotten to brace my gun properly and there may have been the beginnings of an Adrenaline Issue.

I pulled the trigger anyway.

I missed.  Completely.  Elk boiled up from everywhere (who knew there were so many right there!) and were swallowed by the trees.

Another cow appeared, just a little farther away and paused, but now I definitely was having an Adrenaline Issue and I could not hold the gun steady because I was shaking too much.  SHF2 tried to talk me down, but it was no use.  The cow departed.

Lesson 3.  Sometimes you have time to wait.  In this case I could have waited a lot longer.  The elk were just coming out to feed, they didn’t know we were there.  There were a lot of them.  Waiting would have given me time to get a better shooting position and maybe an even closer shot.  But I had learned Lesson 1 just  the day before:  If you have shot, take it.  I didn’t have enough perspective to recognize the difference in the the two situations.

It is true that most any SH wold have made the shot I missed…

The herd was still in the trees however, so SHF2 went to try to move them back to me, and I practiced sighting on bushes and oh yeah, bracing my gun to get a steady bead… Practice does help.

Suddenly, I heard shots behind me and moments later SHF2 strode toward me!

Did you get one?

Yes! Right here!

A bull had appeared in the meadow at my back just as SHF2 was returning to tell me our new hunting plan!

We went to find his bull, and could not (for about three minutes).

He said: But it MUST be here!

I thought: Well, didn’t you make sure it was DEAD before you left it?

And it was.  Of course he had made sure!  The elk was just about 50 feet west of where we were first looking.

That was how I learned that SHF2 could also experience Adrenaline Issues. It is more effective, from a hunting perspective, to experience those AFTER successfully hitting your target.

This is a 5x5 (five tines on each side). He is already gutted at this point.

It was late afternoon so we gutted him, propped open the body cavity  and had to come back to pack him out the next day, Day 3.

Here is a factoid I learned at Elk Day on 10/14 at the Valle Caldera in the Jemez Mountains.  Obsidian can be flaked to an atomic point, sharper than surgical steel. Thus, a skilled woman could skin and dismember an entire bison or elk with just one small, flat, and really sharp rock.

(I also learned that a hunter took a 7×8 bull off the Valle Caldera on 10/13.  7×8.  Wow. I am going to put in for the elk draw there for 2013!)

SHF1 (Peter), SHF2 (David), and me. Peter is tying a diamond hitch and I am in the middle of tying my box hitch. Squirt was again packing the neck, some day packs and some rocks.

Alameda says: i get the head again? sigh. David on the left, Peter on the right. Not a bad background either! The canyon for Barlow Creek is just over the edge there. The Brazos river is to the left (out of the picture obviously).

The guys took the horses to meet a truck and I hunted to that same spot.  Didn’t see anything.  It was 2 pm by then and too late to hike back to the cabin only to have turn around and head out again, so SHF1 and I went to Grass Mountain.

It was not as close as my feet had hoped.

We saw a some animals but no good shots.  We sat on a knoll for a hour watching in opposite directions.  SHF1 can sit on his knees.  Six knee surgeries make that not possible for me.  I sat on my butt and practiced sighting my gun (brace!).

Two pronghorn antelope sauntered by below us.  Didn’t even see us.  If I’d had an antelope permit, I’d have been good!

It was windy and dusk was falling. I started to get cold.  (Look of disgust from SHF1!!)

We snuck back towards a meadow.

SHF1:  Make sure your gun is ready because there may be elk in this meadow.

We eased over the edge and there, where the trees met the meadow, was a bull! (I had a cow tag…so could only practice sighting)  He may have heard us because his head came up and he moved into the meadow, but behind a small tree.  I eased forward and tried to rest my gun on a branch, but as it was a down hill “shot” the branch was too low.  The bull retreated and then,

started to track up the hill TOWARD us.

He came so close I could see the brightness and vitality in his eye, broadside.

A bird called in trees and he spooked back into the spruce!

We hunted until dark (and saw a marten and a had a coyote trot parallel to us  for a while us as we hiked without ever seeing us, so stealthy we were!)

Day 4.  SHF1 (our indefatigable guide and ever gracious host, who’d taken his elk on Day 1 but was still up at 4am every morning to help out us newbies), Chuck and I hiked up and up and up to nearly 12,000 ft on Elk Ridge. It was here I got my best look.

I climbed (some more)  up a rock slide into a gap in the rock and 25 yards away a cow appeared.

I sighted in and my gun was steady!

(I must have braced–I’d been practicing after all), but there was a big rock in my sights along with the cow, so I took one (smooth, quiet) step right and had her again.

That was when I saw the calf.

It was little.

I didn’t shoot.

The elk-fevered part of my brain regrets this.

The maternal side does not.  (The maternal side won, after all).

They spotted me and headed through the rock slides to their herd of 10 or so and were gone.

SHF1 and Chuck heard them but did not get a visual, so it was my own little amazing “moment”.

Those were the last elk I saw.

On Day 5 we gave it one more go.

Chuck was able to sneak right up on a cow (he had a bull permit!).

I rode Squirt out with my gun  and pack to place I’d been wanting to go on the far east side of the ranch.  I saw quite a few mule/black tail deer and a lovely herd of …bushes… growing peacefully near a few bovines that missed the cattle drive out.

The bushes looked like elk in the dusk. Really

And then we had to come home.

Loading the tack room of my trailer--not done yet!

SHF2 (David) and SHF1 (Peter) with their antlers.

The two bulls weighed in at lb 320 (David’s) and lb 325 (Peter’s) at the butcher.  I was there for both!

What an exciting and challenging week!  The best!

By Patty Wilber

The following was brought to you by my indefatigable guides and ever gracious hosts: David and Peter Harris

Holy Cow!  It’s no Bull!

Last week I went elk hunting with the Harris Brothers (click here for another such adventure) and four other folks including my friend Chuck.

By golly, we hunted.

Ok, so I didn’t actually get anything, but I probably hiked more than 50 miles trying to git ‘er done.  That is if Chuck’s GPS is reliable–and one of our outstanding hosts, Seasoned Hunter Friend 2 is skeptical–but hey–it spat out some impressive mileages, so I’m going with it!!

I have a (borrowed) .270 (with gun butt rubber) and Chuck has his .30 06. We are on the benches near Elk Ridge on the Brazos Box Ranch (Day 4).

Day 1.  Up at O Dark Thirty with a nearly full moon blazing in the sky.  We loaded our guns, shouldered our day packs and set off down the trail to the sounds of bull elk beginning to bugle.  Wow.

We hiked as quietly as we could.

We climbed up the benches shown in the photo as the sun was just rising.  It was steep. I crested a little edge and there in front of me, at about 150 yards, was a cow elk, broad side.  I looked at her, took a breath, fumbled with my gun, was unsure, and that was how long it took for her to move behind a stand of aspens drifting leaves like golden coins onto the late season grass.

Lesson Learned (from Host and Seasoned Hunter Friend #1):  If you have the shot, take it.

I figured she’d move past the trees and I’d get another look when she came out the other side, so I moved forward, met up with Chuck and SHF1, who told me to get there try to get a shot.

I scared them away.

Lesson #2:  You must get low and SNEAK.  You can’t just walk on up there. Doh (in hind sight).

It was the morning of the first day of rifle season. The elk were not yet aware of the danger, so even though they moved up the hill, we still had a chance.  Chuck and I went one way and SHF1 went the other.  SHF1 was stealthy.  Chuck and I: not so much.  We kindly pushed the herd right to SHF1, who deftly took down a bull.

Just like that.

It was not an easy shot, but it was well taken and effective.

We were all very excited (even SHF1, though he hid it well, being a Seasoned Hunter and all, because it was possibly the largest bull he’d ever taken!)

SHF1 turns out to be an excellent teacher and he coached Chuck and  me (Chuck and I???) in removing the entrails.

To some this may sound repugnant, but after all, I am a biologist and this is not my first gut pile–I’ve even been in elk innards before–rotten elk innards even–looking for intestinal parasites. Both Chuck and I (well I am speaking for Chuck without verifying, but I am pretty sure I am right) were fascinated with the process and the contents of the body cavity. (I did not get to go looking inside the intestines for worms–there was too much else to do.)

The heart is HUGE!

Too bad I don’t have pictures, but once you start the process, you get rather bloody, which does not lend it self to using a camera.  And of course I was more interested in participating than documenting.

After we finished, we propped open the body cavity (with a stick) to help cool the meat.  We headed back to home base to get the horses, Alameda, Cinco and Squirt.

Bull elk have a strong odor and so does blood.  Squirt kept pushing her nose on my shirt and inhaling deeply. She was curious but not upset.

We hiked back to the kill. I walked Squirt and she carried my pack, but I still toted my gun.  Not as easy as it might seem when leading a horse, too.

I have been to the ranch a fair number of times moving cattle around and I am confident I can get back to the cabin from most places (in the daylight), but re-locating that bull would have probably entailed as direct a retrace of my footsteps as possible followed by a zig-zagging search pattern.

SHF1 took an alternate route that was easier for the pack stock and led us right to the bull.  SHF2 showed up a bit later based on verbal instructions (and the sounds of our voices as he got closer). Impressive on both counts.

It was steep (it is uphill to everywhere!!) and I was pretty beat, so convinced Squirt to allow me to “tail”. I got behind her and held her tail so she could drag me up the hill.  Her lead rope was nice and long and I used it more like a buggy rein (I being the buggy).  I was pleased at how fast she caught on, especially given the lead-like feeling of my legs! It helped that we were third and following Alameda and Cinco!

Skinning and quartering a 500lb+ animal (live weight) to take all available meat,  keep it clean, while instructing green horns (Chuck and me) and keeping your knives sharp, is not fast or trivial.  SHF1 shot the elk about 9:30am and we were loading the quarters at dusk.

SHF1 (Peter, head), SHF2 (David, in blue), me loading the horses. Chuck is heading the photo shoot. Alameda and Cinco carried the quarters, Squirt got the neck and to balance that out, our packs and some rocks on the other side.

It was a long day. Eighteen miles all told (says Chuck’s Very Reliable GPS).

Long day!

We still had to hike back!  I ate five squares of a ginormous Trader Joe’s Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds before we hit the trail and then again every evening before our home bound treks.  The sugar and cocoa kept me from bonking every time.

We got back in the dark.

Squirt. not quite unloaded, but I have already undone my box hitch.

Cinco carried the hind quarters.

Alameda carried the front quarters and the head. She never batted an eye.

 It was a fascinating, and exhausting day. I don’t think I could have made it without the chocolate bar.

Next week:  The Rest of the Trip or How to Miss a Point Blank Shot.