That’s a bit how life has felt recently. Wonderful, unexpected, dramatic and a bit crazy.
Lots of great new wild horses, experiences, and opportunities, the tragic loss of our 2yo DG filly Cedar after a pasture accident, Lacy catching a bug, me getting Covid for the 3rd time – so annoying – and this past Thursday taking the NCE (National Counseling Exam) at long last. 4hours , 200 questions while sweating bullets, with hours upon hours of studying leading up to it.
It’s been a wild ride and I apologize for the balls I’ve dropped along the way. It’s nice having a little more headspace now. One more important test (immigrant stuff) coming up.
I appreciate everyone who’s supported, cheered me on and been patient with me through it all.
These photos are from the last day of our July pack trip. We were “just going to do a quick ride”, because we wanted to be back at a reasonable hour to pack up camp, ride out, sort our things and drive home. All during daylight hours, obviously. No problem, right? Ha!
We looked at this and then at that, and finally, while I was harvesting some particularly lovely bay boletes – yay for wild mushroom hunting – Tay Martin started acting rather strange and ran off into the forest, only to return with an enormous moose shed.
Once she was able to speak rather than squeal and sing, the question of “how do we get this thing down to camp?” arose. I offered to carry it if we could protect it (and me) a bit.
Taylor’s wilderness treasure traveled down the mountain cradled in my arm and wrapped in a sweatshirt. No trail, so it was looking at the app, directing my mount, climbing over deadfall and dodging low branches. Sounds safe, doesn’t it?
Not to mention the two loose young Mustangs and two German Shepherds that also all needed to be herded to our destination.
The first picture is me peeking over the shed, Divide Basin Mustang mare Lacy surrounded by the youngsters, Denali on a mission to go somewhere. Not pictured, Ranger, Taylor and the remaining Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy Ambassador Mustang Tiny (Salt Wells).
We rode out of camp at 8.40pm that night (second picture) with the moose shed (3rd pic) secured under the lash rope atop Twin Peaks, CA Mustang filly Echo’s load. We arrived at the truck around 10pm. That was some kind of a ride, but we made it out in one piece. Mostly. SOMEONE had a sad headlamp and steering malfunction, yet is blaming 400lb yearling Devil’s Garden gelding Griffin for pushing 1200+lb Tiny into a tree, resulting in a bruised (human) knee…
Here’s to embracing life, good friends, good horses and slowing down to take it all in!
#BLMmustang#DevilsGardenMustang#wildtowilling#wildhorseswillingpartners#backcountry#wilderness#adventure#makingmountainmustangmemories
