August 16 The start of a 10 day holiday

Today I left with Jet, the bus and trailer and headed for the Reesor Ranch  for their cattle round up and branding week. As luck would have it good friends Margaret and Nelson were in the Cypress Hills Equestrian camp with Iris and Dave while I was at Reesors! I had supper with them that first night and left with the intention of re connecting with them for a park ride sometime later on in the week. Friday I was surprised at breakfast with the news we were to have Bob and Debbie Kaufman for the day to give us all any horse lessons we might want! They approached the day with the suggestion that we can all afford to go back to the basics with our horses and understand how to break things down to achieve success quicker. For instance, I wanted to learn to open a gate on hinges from horseback. Jet is terrific on a ride with me when I want to stop and open a field wire pasture gate. He puts his nose on the gate post perpendicular to the fence and I get off, open the gate and he follows me to the other side. I do up the gate then re board the horse and off we go. Now I want to learn to come up parallel to the metal gate, reach over and undo the latch, pull the gate towards my horse (scary for the horse at first) and go through the gate still hanging onto it. I need to manoeuvre my horse back and forth with ease to complete the task. We worked at it for part of the morning and both of us got frustrated. After lunch we were reminded to break it all down to one step at a time. Take one step. Stop. Rest. Relax, Take a second step and so on. Keep the horse in position. After lunch I had a new approach and we were successful. It was not pretty but we got through the gate! This involves whats called side passing. It would be like you taking steps to the side over and over again.

I think the 'break it down' concept is a good lesson for me in general life!

What a bonus! To have a horse seminar thrown into the week. We were given wonderful meals all week and I had no self discipline over scarfing down volumes of good food. My only complaint for the week- ME and no self discipline for food.

Saturday we rode and were shown the boundaries of where the cattle were. We were to round them all up and move them from pasture to pasture to end up closer to the corrals. Right before we got to the last gate I took Jet down a steep embankment away from the other horses and I think he took exception to my actions. He reacted  by shying and jumping to the left and I went to the right through the air and landed on my butt. I didn't get the wind knocked out of me but I did loose a boot. I checked myself out and determined I was just fine. Got back up shook myself off and re mounted. I was a bit sore but had no problem sleeping on my hip. No worries.

Sunday the 19th was branding day. We got up early and were in our saddles at 6 am to round up and move the bunch to the branding area. The cows and calves were separated. I later chose to sit in a lawn chair and take pictures instead of getting in with the thick of things. Anyone who eats meat ought to see this event. Pictures to follow. I had never had prairie oysters before. Have you? When calves are castrated their testicles are saved, the membranes are ripped off, they are flattened with a cleaver, dipped in a homemade version of shake and bake, then deep fried. Tastes like calamari. I had one for the experience. Others got right in there and roped calves, innoculated, castrated and ear tagged. Hot smelly and exciting. Often somewhat dangerous if you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fortunately all humans were spared injures.

Riding 'On the Bench'

Bringing the cow/calf pairs home for branding

Branding is all about team work

Joan does the castrating

Tuesday  we were up and riding at 6 am again to push the cow calf pairs up to the border of the Cypress Hills park. We waited for the ranger who counted 30 pairs which ran through the gate.

I was told Reesors land is the same altitude as Banff around 4000'. I did not take my gps unit with me to verify but will next time. The hills apparently were skirted when the ice glaciers came down years ago. This has left this area as its own little piece of heaven. Tall pines, its own climate, rugged landscape. Great riding area.

I met some wonderful people and had many great conversations. I often thought of Lee as we had planned to do this trip togther. It was all good.

Only other mishap happened as I came to a ditch where we went down sharply then up sharply. Jet took a leap to canter up the hill (not what I had planned) I flew up in the saddle and came down and landed my pubic area right smack dab onto the horn! YIKES. I survived and I walked away from it.