Sunday was a sunny day

But the snow was still here. I went outside to take a picture of the "big sky" which was a brilliant blue and the fields and mountains covered with snow. A beautiful image to capture. As I was walking around to get the image I wanted, I spotted Rafiki leaving one portion of the pasture and heading toward the area near the Grove Creek where I had put their hay. Through the branches of one of the trees, I took this picture. If you have seen Rafiki, who was born a bay and then shed out to the grey that he is today, you might wonder if he is getting another color as there appears to be muted colors in places on his body. He is still grey, just like his head and neck in this picture, but the leaves and branches of the tree blended in the picture to create the muted colors.

Clint and Al are waiting

As Clint & Al were accepted by the ranchers, they were given more responsibility and many times were sent off on their own to either move cattle or round them up. On this particular day, they were sent to a specific part of the forest to round up the cattle that Clint & Al could find in that area. They accomplished their mission and moved their cattle to the designated area for accumulation. They had been waiting for at least an hour, times were boring, and all they could do was wait. Clint had brought his small digital camera with him in case there was something of consequence to record.

Sitting on the crest of a ridge, Clint looks over his shoulder to see a perfect silhouette in the form of a shadow of Clint and Al. Out came the camera, and recorded for ever was this great image that is now a part of this blog. This is one of the events that prompted Clint to pursue his photographic skills. Today this image has now been creatively captured on a 70 million year old rock that Clint found while walking through a pasture on the Circle B Bar T Ranch. For more information on the Circle B Bar T Ranch go to www.circlebbartarabians.com.

Al and the local ranchers

Al was an a rab, as the local ranchers called him. They all had quarter horses and Al was an outlyer. Al and I were tested on many occassions to see if this a rab could cut it with the cowboys and their quarter horses.

Most of the exposure of Al to the neighbors was during cattle drives which usually took 3 days. That was 3 days to get them to their summer grazing pasture or 3 days to return them to their home ranch after the summer grazing somewhere else.

One day at the end of a very dry summer, which means the cattle were spread through out the 1000's of acres where they were grazing, Al and I were asked to join one of the locals who was riding a sure footed mule and to go into the back country of the forest to find some of the cattle. I'm sure Al and I were chosen to join the mule and his rider to test whether Al would make the trips up and down the steep slopes, across the streams, along the trails with sharp fall offs, and through the trees, shrubs, and brush.

After 8 hours of visiting the forest terrain, we had accumulated 7 cattle. These 7 cattle were taken to a common meeting place where the others on the cattle drive were told to take their cattle as well. The cattle would spend the night at this point of accumulation. Hopefully we had collected all of this ranchers cattle and tomorrow we would start the drive back to their home ranch.

We took our horses to a small pasture for the night and we, the ranchers and I gathered around the pick-up truck that had the coolers with the cold beer. This was the custom to celebrate the days work. We had hardly opened our can of beer, when the questions starting coming to my ranching companion for the day. Doug, how did Clint and Al do today. The answer they got as not what they expected.

Doug said, "they didn't miss a step, went everywhere that the mule and I went, and in fact went many places that I had trouble getting the mule to go".

This was just one of many experiences where Al earned the respect of the ranchers and started to gain the praises of the quarter horse owners.