Flambeau's first endurance ride

Trotting out for the pre vet check. Click on pics to enlarge.

Warm up.
Paying attention at the pre ride meeting.Note the funny visor on my hat that lasted about................2 minutes!

Flambeau's first endurance ride
Flambeau's first endurance ride, the Kenlyn challenge in Aurora CO. was full of trials and tribs. It was a beautiful day abet a little on the hot side for this type of thing. We got off to a bad start the day before by getting stuck creeping in a traffic jam on I 270 for ONE AN A HALF BLOODY HOURS!! When we finally got through, we couldn't even see what caused it! There was however, a guy in a pickup stopped sloughed over the steering wheel fast asleep; or maybe dead! Everyone was just going around him of course assuming, as we did, that someone surely has called for help.So, needless to say, we arrived late and had to skip dinner and set up in the dark. Mernie was a little grumpy and he wasn't alone. We also had a friend with us who had a rotten cold and coughed a lot. But she was low maintanence, a really nice person and talented horse woman so it was great to have here along.The ride itself was beautiful and very well organised. An easy but interesting track right in the middle of Denver. It went along and through a river bed with lots of bridges and water crossings , through sandy tracks and up and down gentle hills.It would have been prefect if Flambeau had not been so wound up. It was a fight to keep him at a reasonable pace. I had to wrestle with him most of the time and because of this could not let my guard down long enough to get water for myself. Flambeau drank from the rivers really well! Therefore he vetted with all A 's and I dehydrated so badly that I did myself injure. I would be a great advertisement for Camel paks! Those pouches you carry on your back and sip from a straw. Maybe I'll call the Company and volunteer to admit my stupidity.I found a horse to pace with and we came in vying for 9th/10th place out of a field of about 50. It was the first heart rate down to 60 and Beau's took a bit too long to get there so the other competitor received 9th /place which put her in the runnng for the Best Condition award. Flambeau's heart rate hovered at 64 for about 5mins in which time a few other horses came in so I ended up coming 13th. Your horse's heart rate has to come down to 60 before they even consider you in. I blame his winter coat and being such a dill all the way. It took him the entire first loop, 17 mlies to calm down and he used up a bunch of energy he didn't need to use. As for me, I became so ill the next day I had to call the hospital for advice on my condition. I personally would never had passed the vetting if it was me they were checking on! We learned alot on this first ride and if i can get Flambeau setted down i think he could win 25s like this one. What's more, he could win them barefoot! The two big things we learned is, regardless of the weather, check the roads where you will be driving for unexpected harzards and alternative routes. It

seems that we didn't even need to be on 270! And needless to say, getta a camel pak and drink, drink, drink!

Alottadog!

We have some very strange looking 'horses' boarding overnight sometimes! Meet Nick, a 180 lb St Bernard. We didn't get to see him and his buddies as they came when we were in California. Sara our lovely temporary barn manager and UW Artmobile Curator (as a coincidence) took these photos. There were four of these guys in two stalls. That's one heck of alottadog!

Visiting Finley

Just back from California visiting Mern's son, daughter in law, his Mom and of course new Grand son Finley. Step Grandson for me! Yikes. It was lovely to catch up with everyone.

spring storm

It ain't over yet! Mernie said i should be alright if i just floor it and don't stop!

Silly Boy

I caught Flambeau (red hooved) hitting Amari on the bum with a rubber feed bowl. See in the second picture the guiltly look. I seem to get these silly horses. I remember years ago being told that my horse BJ was hitting the other horses in his paddock with a piece of sign board he found lying around.Click on images to enlarge them. Notice the pretty sunrise too.

March

Looking out our window this morning. Click on picture to enlarge it. See the full moon.

It's March and we've had probably the worst week of weather yet. Maybe not; it just seems that way as we are now anticipating putting away all those winter clothes and being an immediate 20lbs lighter! Better keep them out for a while yet methinks.

Still, I love it here in spite of the fact that the mercury hasn't risen above 0 (C) for quite a while. This week it was even too windy to bring horses the couple of hundred yards into the arena to exercise them. Just walking against that wind is exhausting enough.

Yesterday however was a little better so I rode three horses. My own and two others that I get paid to ride. This provides me with pocket money to feed my expensive habit of endurance riding.( Hey, I don't smoke, drink or hang out with loose men any more so I've gotta have something!) I have one horse I've riden for 18 hours in order to purchase a pair of hoof boots for my horse. I spend a lot of time in the saddle so my art practice is taking a back seat. The only thing I have done this month is a beginning sketch for a door mural for the arena. I'll get a pic of that as soon as I can. It's far too cold out there to paint it yet so its only chalked so far.

Mernie is in the middle of sorting out our accountng and doing taxes so he's been cranky. I don't blame him. If I had to do that kind of work I would probably be institutionalized by now.

See here Flambeau my endurance prospect.

cyote

Ok, how good are your eyes?You will need to enlarge these pics by clicking on the middle and look really hard to see something that looks like a big dog. You'll have to scroll the pic around a bit. It's a cyote and we don't usually get too many this close to the ranch. Probably has something to do with a couple of dead horses out there!

some kiddie lit examples.

Mural, Murray Bridge, South Australia. One of four in SA.
The Ishchick! (Part fish part chicken. And not happy about it!)
Funny Chickens.
Roughs from the dummy book for Peggy Lou the Emu. Please excuse the quality. Taken straight from the drawing board.
Please click on images to enlarge.

snow melt

Ok, yesterday we had two machines like this come in to move the bloody snow. This is the little one!! About three times the size of our truck. Today the sun is shining and the snow is melting ......and guess what.........MUD!

snow drifts

Looking out our back windows. None of this snow actually fell there. The wind blows really hard here, so drifts can form very quickly and can swallow things up before you know it. See the disappearing fence.

finished commission

My finished commission. Scoll down. Can you see any differences?( Click on image to enlarge.)

Artwork for Jan 07

It's been a busy month just keeping our heads above winter in wyoming. Thus only one piece of artwork and not quite finished at that. A commission for a Vicki Helmuth owner of two lovely quarter horse geldings here on the ranch. Here they are, my stylised version of Cowboy and Chico. Click to make larger.

woe is winter

Snow drifts big enough to swallow up a horse!
Mount Onastring is urupting. We have many such mountains around the ranch right now and our road continues to get filled with snow drifts. This has become a difficult winter what with snow, ice and temperatures below -23F.

sad week

A friend of ours and owner of the sweetest horse here on the ranch had a heart attack and died on Monday.He was a big, beautiful, gentle giant just like his horse.(see sept and october for pics of both.) Roger slipped on the ice on New Years Eve and hurt his knee. I called him on Monday to see how he was. He was in good spirits and guffed about how he wasn't even drunk at the time! That was about 10 am. They say he died at between 12 and 3pm. I may have been the last person to speak to him. We didn't know Roger for long but we felt a closeness to him and his horse that has us feeling a deep and painful loss. Roger helped us out a lot with heavy earth moving work around the ranch. In October his contribution to our big clean up was enormous. There is no way we could have done it without him. And just recently, with the onslaught of winter snow and wind, once again he was out there clearing the way for us to keep this ranch going. We are truely blessed to have had Roger in our life even for the short time we have known him. He will be missed terrible. We still have Tiny to remind us of his grand stature and we will ensure Tiny enjoys the best quality of life that we can bring him for the rest of his days. Roger's very good friends Amy, Sara and Ranie have offered to share his board but as it stands good ole Rog with all his hard effort has paid him up at least until the spring. The girls are setting up a 'Tiny fund' for the extras he will need. Seems to me that special caring people grow wild in this part of the country.

On Wednesday night Storm, one of the horses here on the ranch finally died after sufferring chronic bouts of colic over the passed few months. Her very caring and loving owner is grieving quite naturally. It was never hard to see that the two had an incredible bond. We are all very sad for him and the loss of a very beautiful horse. She is at least free from suffering and at rest now.

In comparison to the misfortunes above this may seem of little concern but seems to have started this whole run of adverse occurences. On Thursday of last week Mernie backed over a letter box in his company truck. This sort of thing doesn't go down very with a company trying to maintain a shining image and safety reputation. Which I think it does have. So there was a lot of paper work and hullabahlu about it all. Mernie of course went straight to work to make things good. He is a very responsible person and not one to take something like this lightly. He is also a very capable and careful driver but with the snow and all that nasty stuff that winter is dishing out right now, things like this are bound to happen. Maybe not in a perfect world.

If it is true that misfortunes came in threes we should be Ok now.

how to enjoy the wind in Wyoming

Click for a laugh. These guys are nuts but i love 'em! Ranie (featured high flyer) accompanied laughter and carryings on by Amy and Sara.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpf3r49aZbM

woe woe,blowing snow

We've had a bunch of snow, now we have a bunch of wind....result = major snow drifts. We had to move 6 horses to our front paddock as their huge water trough has been swallowed up by snow. The wind is blowing around 55 miles per hour and gusts of up to 65 mph can be expected.That's about 100 kilometres per hour! Its...get the horses taken care of then stay inside with a good book!
(PS. No pics as we don't want to subject the camera to this stuff.)

first roo dropping for '07

Advice on New Year's resolutions........don't make any resolutions concerning eating or drinking.You'll only set yourself up for failure!
Best resolution to make is to not to take yourself so seriously.
Cheers. Ronnie Roo.xxoo

Happy New year!

That's snow cooling the champers!

New Years Eve morning

It's minus 22 degrees C (-8F) here in Wyoming right now. I think it's going to be a quiet New Years Eve for us but who knows. It was a busy year full of many changes challenges and delights. I'm not writing about the year gone by as it's all here in my blog for the finding. Just look to the right and click through previous blogs and months. It goes back to September o5 when i first entered into the world of blogging. Happy New Year. Ronnie.xxoo

reminder

Blog readers don't forget that you can click on images to make them larger, you can look to the right for previous months and click on comments to say something to me. Cheers. Ronnie.