You never know what will happen in a day around here. I mean we usually wake up with an idea of what we will do the next day and then the day comes and something will happen that alters the plan............
Take yesterday for instance, we were supposed to get up and saddle horses and go gather cattle of ours that had gone into Tejon cause I can't close our gate. We have four gates to open, drive the car through, and close again to get out of here. And I usually have sandals on when I go to town, geez! So my stomach was upset and I hate to ride off without Jeremy and the kids, plus the area where they were is pretty big and I wasn't even sure they were still there and not heading to Arvin. So we decided to take the truck and dogs, locate them and then if need be come back with the horses. We pull up on the darn things, they catch sight of us, flip their tails over their backs and start to RUN!!!
Before anything can be said Jeremy and Paul jump out of the truck and run to the back to get their dogs and off they go. I am thinking they are nuts but at least I am in the truck! Naner naner. So long story short (and I mean long story, like where is the breeze we had yesterday, I am not in as good of shape as I used to be, where is my gosh darn dog!!! story short) drove the truck around and open the fence into our property and we get them back in.
So today we gathered to the East of here to have a couple to rope at our Practice roping we had here. Sage wanted so bad to go with me and I have never let her go yet cause I worry about her too much. She has gone with Jeremy but not with me, and specially without Jeremy there. So I am rolling around trying to get up out of bed when I hear a bunch of racket on the porch. Sage had gotten herself up and dressed at the crack of dawn cause she does not want me to leave her behind. AND she is on the porch playing catch with the dogs..........argh! At least she has stopped prying your eye balls open in the morning. Literally pulling your eye lids open. Not fun.
So I figure I will take her. I can do this. I have been riding my Poco mare and she is pretty unflappable, not yet as experienced as she could be but damn solid still. We head out and spot them all spread out on every ridge we can see.........damn, we were hoping the heat had kept them at the spring. Paul headed for the furthest ones and Sage and I cleared the canyons closest and headed them for the spring. Sage did damn good telling me stories the whole way. I didn't worry too much. Once I wanted to trot to get somewhere a bit faster and just told her to stay with me and she did but asked to just walk. I was pretty happy to hear that so I agreed. We met up with Paul and then spotted a calf that had gotten left behind and he went back for it. The cattle that had been with the calf were the same son-of-a-guns that we had cleared out of Tejon the day before. They saw Paul and just lit out running as fast as they could run. Left the calf behind and never looked back. Bad mother.
Sage and I are making our way down to the spring when I spot my german shepherd dog right near the road and then I hear the rattling of a truck coming. I freeze holding my breath cause she doesn't listen anyway so there is nothing I can do................I am frantically waving my arms to get the drivers attention, I mean there are always cows and calves out there and this truck is flying. On a dirt road and I kid you not doing at least 55 miles per hour. They are either heading up to White Oak or Tejon land. Thank God the darn dog did not keep coming toward us. Paul was up ahead of the trucks path still bringing that calf down and I am praying they don't get hit. The truck finally catches sight of Paul and slows just a bit and nobody gets killed. I plan to find out who that was. Not cool.
We get down to the spring and group up. We head them toward the pens and the renegade bunch takes one look at us and high tails it up the ridge and are heading south. Paul says to me, "what are we going to do?" I am sure he knows since Sage is with us and we are on a time crunch since the roping starts soon the situation might be different from normal. Thanks for knowing that Paul! I am a nervous basket case with her on a horse usually. I did okay today though. I say to him "we are going to hope the rest of the herd doesn't follow!" Thankfully they didn't and I am here to tell you, Sage was a huge help! Her and ol Chico did awesome. Nice and quiet and easy.
I wish I could say I had pictures to share, I just could not figure out how to carry that camera with out knocking myself out with it. Or breaking it. I also thought I had too much on my plate to think about taking pictures. By the way, my Poco did great also. At one point she had to lead since I wanted Sage behind me on a narrow trail. Sage's job was to stay right behind me without letting Chico touch Poco. They did fine. I love our horses!
So needless to say we are going to have to get some help (with Jeremy not being able to be horseback) and gather that bunch up. We will never going to be able to work that renegade bunch if they keep getting away with that. Wish me luck I am cowgirl enough on my green mare! Maybe if we live I will have to raise her price!