Wild Horses

Somehow in all this , Sundays can be perfect.

Early Sunday Mari and I headed off in The Silver Truck to check our Blackberry,Elderberry and Huckleberry crop. (whispered aside), 'Have I told you how much I love my truck?'

We don't have anything to pick yet except the Elderberries and they were slim pickins'.

The interesting discovery was as we got close to the old mill site Mari yells "Horses!".

Now, when I am at the wheel and Mari yells any animals name my only alternative is to slam on the brakes.



"What do we have here?"



Someone has released into the forest two nice mares,one Cinnamon and one a kind of Appy/Paint blend. Now these horses appear healthy if not a little fat, neither is wearing shoes nor have they been groomed in a long time. They wouldn't let us very close but after we parked the truck guess who appeared out of the tree line and followed us down the trail!


In our county, rural property has held its value fairly well over the last 24 months. However, lots of folks got sucked into the "Lets take our equity out and buy a new boat/cabin/rv/any piece of crap I cannot afford" syndrome. I'm not talking about new home owners in our area I'm talking about 3rd and 4th generation ranch owners who got sucked into the scheme and are now loosing the house and ranch.


I imagine this is what happened to our two nice mares. They will be ok for awhile but winter will not be kind here in the Sierra Nevada .We will keep the location secret but not many people go where we were and I didn't see another soul in 35 miles of 4 wheeling. Keeping horses is expensive and both Mari and I have been down this road before so now we have another dilemma to solve.


On our way back to the house we did a little more exploring linking our normal route with a route that comes out on a paved road. We found a great skinny dipping hole filled with 3 to 4 inch native brown trout. Just a perfect place to cool off from berry picking, and where there is little fish there must be big fish..........


We ended the day with dinner at our friend's Reyna and Kevin's ranch. They have a nice place about two thousand feet lower than us. BBQ chicken, couple of salads and a nice bottle of Barefoot Merlot. I will never understand how a winery can produce and distribute a decent wine for under $8 a bottle. Kevin then sent us home with more vegetables and plums than we can eat in a month.
I guess I will break out the dehydrator early. Maybe find all the stuff to make some plum wine.


Another great day!



No