Round Pen

Jake and Sierra are headed home next weekend so we've been busy making preparations. The dogs had chased a chipmunk under my truck last year and while trying to catch it they managed to rip out all of the trailer hitch wiring. When we bought the two horses, they came with a 2 horse, angle haul trailer that is in pretty good condition. The brakes and floor had been replaced and all the lights were working. Steve did a good job keeping it in good condition so there wasn't much for us to do other than take care of our tow vehicle.


It took me a week of evenings laying out in the mud under the truck bumper, but I managed to repair the damage and wire a new plug fitting onto the rear bumper and install a plug-and-play trailer brake controller . We picked up the required size tow ball and hitch and easily installed them into the receiver hitch on the truck. We wanted to test it all out towing the trailer before we had to bring the boys home with it. Saturday was a cold and snowy day and we had decided against outdoor jobs, but focused instead on the trailer and a couple of shopping stops, so up to Dreamscape we went.
Steve had parked the trailer there when he delivered the two horses. We backed the truck into position, dropped the trailer hitch down onto the ball, hooked up the chains and electrical connector and checked out the lights to ensure they were working correctly. We did find a grounding problem with the left brake light, but apart from that, everything worked fine. We towed the trailer down a very muddy and messy Long Lake Road and over the Roy and Patou's place. They have a nice area large enough to turn the truck and trailer around and the trip would be good practice. After driving over, Carol took the wheel coming back up to Dreamscape Ranch. She did great! I handled the "backing up" chores this time but I'm confident that she will learn to do it in no time.
In town, we picked up some "horsey" things at the Horse Barn that will complete the tack we need for Sierra, in particular.
Carol was busy this week, riding Sierra, getting confident with him and brushing up on her riding skills. I will be riding him this week for a lesson and then a trail ride and Carol will be giving Jake the once over. It should be a fun week, in that regard.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch (I've always wanted to say that!), we needed to put up all the rails on the round pen and do a little fence wiring work to finalize our other two paddocks. We will be needing everything once everybody gets home. I forgot to mention that Whisky, is away at Camille's Horses, having Jordan and Candice give him a proper start with a month of training. He is joined by, Chance, Lea's little rescued colt. Those two will be done early in May, but until then, we will have to make do with our two retired guys, Mystery and Acorn, until Jake and Sierra get home.
Sunday, dawned sunny and dry, and although it stayed cool all day, the sun was out so our round pen work went well. Of the 12 sections that comprise the pen, we completed 9 and managed to get portions of the other 3 ready to go. It will only take us a few hours one evening this week to finish it all up. Well, other than the tractor that is! Yes, you read that correctly, our tractor is disabled (the left front wheel axle broke and the wheel fell off) and is stranded inside the round pen. I was leveling the ground in preparation to put some sand down to improve the footing for the horses. While removing the dirt, I was manoevering the tractor, with a full loader bucket of dirt, and had the tractor in 4WD - apparently a big no-no. A nasty crunching sound, followed by the LF wheel departing its' normal place on the tractor, left me stranded exactly where I was at that time. The parts are ordered and will be here in a few days.

Snow's gone!

What a difference a couple of weeks can make. Easter weekend saw temps approaching the mid teens up here at the ranch. That nice warm sunny weather even hung around for several days after the holiday, the result being that almost all our snow is gone! Hard to believe if you know how much of the white stuff we had, but it's true. All the horse fields below the house are greening up with new grass shoots and even the muddy areas around the house are drying up. There are some very wet, soggy areas where the snow above is melting and running downhill, pooling in a few select areas.
The driveway, where we had all the crushed rock put on last summer is doing great! There are a few spots where we will need to add some more gravel but it has kept things much less messy than years past. Drizzling showers and cooler temps have moved in over the past few days but the water is being absorbed into the ground for the most part. Yay!
Last weekend we finished the drywall work in the upstairs bathroom (around the pocket door) and finally got a coat of paint on the entire room for the first time. It's been 9 months waiting to see the final result and we're almost there. We ran out of paint and had to get another gallon, so we will be waiting a little bit longer to see the final result. We have picked up trim for the windows in there so we can finish that room completely when we get to it.



Okay, so why haven't we done it? Finished it off? The answer to that question is simple. With all the new horses, we haven't had the time! I'm teasing you a bit here. As you know, we have 3 horses up here, but none of them can actually be ridden - 2 are retired due to age or injury, and the other one is a 3 year old who had just started his training. We have been looking for a horse that I (Mike) can ride. It would have to be a well-trained, tolerant horse that would accept a beginner rider (me) and be strong enough to carry a short, fat guy trying to look like a cowboy (again, me!).  Last week we got a phone call from Steven Mintz out in Vernon. He had a horse that might just fit the bill, in fact he had two of them, and he even had a trailer to pull them around with. We jumped in the car on Wednesday afternoon and drove out to have a look at them. Steven's place is just north of Vernon and only about 65 min from our house so it was worth the look. When we arrived we saw the two horses and couldn't believe it - they were beautiful!

Jake is a 15 year old palomino, foundation quarter horse and Sierra is a 12 year old bay paint. Jake stands around 14.3 HH while Sierra is the taller one at 15.3 HH. As a beginner, if I'm going to get on and off a horse to open and close the dozens of gates that litter the trails up our way, I would need to be on a horse that is relatively short and Jake fit the bill perfectly. The great news was that Steven wasn't asking the earth for these guys. We drove home very excited at the prospect of having a couple of real, rideable horses! Knowing next to nothing about horses we called our friend Lea (Dreamscape Ranch) the following day and asked if she would be interested to come and look them over for us. Lea suggested bringing Sara (her ranch manager) and Ray Scott (local horse whisperer/ex-cowboy/trainer/friend) along for a collective opinion, and oh yeah, could we go that same day, as she was going away the next day? We all met on the highway, jumped into Lea's new crew cab pickup, and off we went.

The weather was grim but Steven wasn't letting it get in the way. He has a great barn with a large area that could be used like an indoor arena so we could ride the horses around in there enough to get an idea of what they were like. I say, "we" in that sentence but what I meant was "they". Our panel of experts buzzed around the horses like flies on a hot summer day while Carol and I watched, tossing in the occasional "wow" or "isn't that one pretty" comment just to show that we weren't total greenhorns! The drive home was an hour long recap of the days events reaching the consensus that we should definitely buy these horses! Oh, and I would need to get some lessons from Ray.
We called Steve when we arrived home and made the deal. He would deliver them (in the trailer) to Dreamscape Ranch on Saturday morning. Yay!
Saturday was cold and windy but apart from a brief delay for an accident on the highway, we all arrived at Lea's place as expected. The Thorsons, as we knew, were away in Revelstoke for the weekend but Sara had the paddock ready for our new boys. They came off the trailer in great shape, excited at the change in scenery and a bit anxious. We showed them to their new digs, signed some papers, gave Steve some money and it was done! Ray and Sara will be putting the guys through their paces for a couple of weeks, getting them tuned up and ready to work. I will have Ray give me some lessons and when we take them home, we should be able to go riding. You read that right folks, riding horses on our ranch!