Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Baby beavers and horse whispering


Well there has certainly been a lot happening in these last couple weeks.
Janelle and I went out at twilight one night to hunt some beaver. They must have heard us coming because we didn’t see any after sitting there for 30 minutes. So changing our tactics, we proceeded to call them and throw things at their house. As you may imagine this too failed.
Then Roger and I went to the same spot a couple of days ago to pull the beaver dam. While pulling the dam, we heard Tuft (Rogers dog) yelp. She had gotten her head caught in a beaver trap. A few scary moments ensued as we frantically tried to get it off of her neck. Aside from being dazed and sore she was fine, but lucky that it hadn’t broken her neck.
Baby beavers take the cake! Eli found two baby beavers (there mother had been killed by some animal) last night and kept them in the bathtub. Oh my. I know I say this all the time, but they have got to be the cutest things I have EVER seen! Punky took them to an wildlife rescue centre in Williams Lake today. It was so hard to say goodbye…
But anyways, I seem to have a busier social calendar here than I do in Victoria, haha! Every weekend there is something fun. A couple weekends ago I went to the wedding reception of a local couple. Danced the night away until about 4:00 in the morning. I don’t think my dancing has improved much, but it sure is fun trying! Last weekend Janelle, Laura, and I went to the Tatla Lake gymkhana. It was fun watching the little kids on ponies go bouncing through the poles and around the barrels. On our way home from the gymkhana I showed the girls Charlotte Lake. It is a beautiful glacier lake with a lovely sand beach, great to swim in on a hot August day. Though, as we were driving in we saw a mama grizzly and her two yearling cubs. They were so impressive; it was incredible! This weekend I am headed to Kamloops to attempt skydiving. I haven’t yet decided if I am willing to cough up the money to do it… we’ll see I guess. Should be a nice getaway anyhow.
Been doing some more range riding lately and all of my jeans are getting thin/holy in the crotch. I was riding my mare (who is usually very level headed) while chasing about 200 head of cattle when she decided to give me a fright. She got worried about where the other horses were so she had a little out of control hissy fit. Thankfully I managed to stay on, yay! I was pretty cranky with her afterwards; we really weren’t having our best day.
When we got home we discovered that Punky hit a deer with her van on the way back from Williams Lake. Everyone was okay, but this will be her 3th van lost due to deer.
There are only two cows left to calve. My milk cow, Jessica, finally had her baby! It is really tiny. Needless to say I have been milking.
One night I was milking her out and randomly thought I should check the calving cow pen (we don’t do a lot of checking anymore). Walking out there I saw a cow on her back and just thought “oh no, I am going to have to tell them they have a dead cow”. But I hollered at her and she moved! So I booked it to the house to grab help and a rope. It only takes a few minutes for them to die of bloat when they are on their back like she was. So boy was it this cows lucky day. We got her flipped over and she had her baby just fine.
Three Circle hosted a horse clinic last Thursday and Friday. The guy that was doing it was an older cowboy named Evan, one of Punky’s good friends. He is the most amazing horseman I have ever seen, I can’t even describe it. The horses seemed drawn to him. He is just incredible at reading animals, calling everything the horses were going to do before they did it. He started (saddled and rode) four colts and worked with us on a few of the ranch horses. I didn’t really want to ride in the clinic at first (a bit daunting with an audience), but Wanda got me in there and I actually really enjoyed it. Learned a TON! He had my mare and I kicking a huge yoga ball around the round pen by the end. I think we might start a hoof ball team ;)  It was such a blast!



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