Thursday

Boy, it's hot today - 92 in the shade, but it's not the same kind of hot as that in Western North Carolina, a lot less humid. This morning after a breakfast of fruit, grapes, granola, yogurt, and a hamburger-sized sausage patty, Toby said that we needed to drive a cattle herd down the road about a mile or so into a new pasture. Gathering them sure was tricky, though, they were yearlings and very curious and very nervous beasts. Mom and Hannah and Scott and Daddy went in with Kate to gather them up, which is easier than it sounds. They had to get some help from Hank because the cattle decided just to run back and forth in front of the gate instead of outside it. Hank had to change their minds, and their direction. Once on the road they moved quickly, although some of our horses didn't. We saw a cloud of dust up the road and knew there were cattle there, but Val's horse Hammer and mine, Soldier, just weren't interested and seemed to forget that there was cattle that we were supposed to be driving, simply because they lost sight of them. We're told this is what happens. The horses can also forget you're on their backs at all if there's nothing happening and they're just walking along.

But we got them there and Hank shooed them in the new gate. Toby and Jody brought out the big horse trailer and picked up Mom and Scott and Daddy's horses, took them all back to the ranch, then came back and picked up Val and me and Hannah and our horses. Hannah rides Kid today because Daddy was assigned her usual horse, Leo. Scott's threw a shoe two-thirds down the road and he wound up having to ride in the grass like me, because Soldier has no shoes on, with no explanation as to why.

We stopped at another gate, the Corner pasture, Hank picked up his horse, Ugly, we offloaded our three, and we started over the hill to look for 12 cattle that we couldn't find anywhere. We met up with Mom and Scott and Daddy who were also looking, and then Mom decided to go back to the ranch and rest, and Scott had to go in for his massage. Me and Val and Daddy continued on with Hank and wound up going up and down in the hills and up the #3 coulee for about 8 miles. What a great ride! We wound up back at the ranch at about 1:15 or so. My massage was done after Scott's at about 2:30 by Vianna, a great massage therapist.

At that point, all slick and relaxed, we got in the van and drove to visit Bill Allyson's saddle shop. We wound up buying several souvenirs there and learned about making saddles. Daddy was fascinated. But on the way there I spied one of the horses, all saddled up, outside the barn eating hay. Evidently, Val's knot didn't hold!

Tonight after supper we're going for another ride. Hopefully the good weather will hold out, then it's another 1/2 hour in the hot tub. And Thursday will be over. Sad.