December

Sunday, November 25 through Sunday, December 9, 2001

The last week or ten days have been busy around here. I gave up the comforts of the lower ranch and turned them over to Frank. He is working with John on a miserable 2 mile stretch of fence out along the Az. border near Fox tank. John says he doesn't ever remember any major work being done on it and it's been old as long as he's ridden it. So it's at least 70 years old. There's a reason no one has ever worked it. It's the roughest, rockiest, steepest country we have. They are building a whole new fence line and it's a whole lot of work and nothing romantic or enjoyable about it at all. 

I came up top here a week or so ago and became ensconced in Maggie's Studio. Her Christmas orders are piled to the ceiling and the fax keeps spitting out more. Along with all those she has her big annual show and sale in Dallas. So I've been doing the grunt work of polishing, stamping, bagging and tagging. I have to admit I do enjoy it. We were going to leave on the Thursday and drive over to Texas. But we still had more to do. We hammered away from 6am till 10pm. We were leaving Friday morning...just a few more things. It's 15 hrs. driving time to get there, the sale was Sunday. Friday noon came and went and we were still at the work bench. Ok, I got on the phone, booked a flight for her and drove her to Albq. Friday evening.

Saturday there was a horse sale so I stayed over and went to that. Horse prices were really strong. I saw a horse I sold four years ago go through the sale, Sundance. He worked here for years making a lot of folks happy. I sold him to a young boy about 8 years old and was glad I did. The boy and his dad were at the sale and the dad thanked me for having sold him the horse. Said it was the perfect one for his son at the time. But the boy had out grown him in both size and experience. They later brought a man over to talk to me about the horse. The man was looking for one to give to his grandson. I told him what I could. Well Sundance went through the ring and sold for $300 more than I had sold him for! 

All the time we were camped out in the studio Lyndsey was here taking care of all the chores and horse stuff. She rode out every other day to check all the loose horses. Pretty much an all day sort of deal since they are all over the place in three pastures. On the 4th she was late coming in. The sun was going down and we were getting worried when I saw her come over the hill into the valley. She was pushing our three remaining yearlings. Even at half a mile away I could see something was wrong with them. I jumped in the truck and drove out to meet her at the corrals. The yearlings I could tell were weed poisoned. Stumbling and staggering, rearing and falling. It is a terrible sight to see. She couldn't really drive them as they were each in a different world...on a very bad trip. Finally she got them in the corral and let them settle. She had just looked them over two days before, and they were fine. It really happens fast. Seems they eat so much of it that it builds up the toxin and then BAM it sets off the central nervous system and off they go. There is nothing to do but try to feed it out of them. Keeping lots of hay and fresh water in front of them and grain three times a day.  These guys are pretty far gone. Of course its our three best that we kept for ourselves, Flash, Buttercup and Quinten. 
When I got back from Albq. on Saturday I sent Lyndsey down to the lower ranch for a little vacation and to keep Frank happy.  The weather had been pretty good. Clear sunny days but cold, cold nights. Days about
40, nights in the single digits. One night -2.

Frank reported things were pretty good down there, days in the upper 50's, nights in the 20's. It's been a long drawn out fall which we sure won't complain about or take for granted. But it's all over now. Monday the wind blew like a March day. The horses were all wound up and though the sky was clear I knew something was headed our way. Mid afternoon clouds showed up looming in the distance and moving fast, the wind shifted and came out of the east. Not a good sign, it means we are right under a low pressure system that is gonna' kick our butt when the back side passes. Just at feeding time the snow started, coming in small flakes driven by the wind feeling like needles. It takes about 2 hours to feed everything. As I headed into the house with the last of daylight being smothered we had about an inch. The wind blew all night and when ever I got up to put wood on the fires {every 3 hrs.} I looked out and saw it was still snowing small flakes but not piling up too much. At dawn we had five inches. It makes chores and feeding so much harder. I used the hay sled instead of the wagon for the first time this year. It snowed all day Tuesday, the wind dying down a bit. I used the day to get some inside stuff done and just watch the snow fall. At evening feeding we had about 9 inches and the wind picked back up. All night it blew, I could hear sheets of snow slashing across the windows and the howl it made in the chimney. I got up about 6am and it was still dark but the air was white with falling and blowing snow. As dawn came a dull gray, visibility was about 50 yards. When I went out to feed it was hard to tell how much snow had fallen. The wind had swept it into a bizarre tangle of drifts looking like huge moving serpents across the pastures and corrals. there was a solid 16 inches everywhere with drifts three feet. Chores were hard. Shoveling out hay bunks, trying to find buried feed pans, clearing water tanks of ice and snow. They refroze as I was doing it. The air temp was 14 and the wind cranking at a solid 20 mph.  As soon as I could I got inside but not before vowing I was not going to spend the whole winter like this.  The snow let up about mid morning and a bit of sun broke out. It didn't last long. Just in time for evening feeding it started up again. The wind was not as bad but the snow started coming down in bigger flakes and really piling up. When I was done at dark we had three or four more inches. No telling how much we will have in the morning.