We arrived last night around 6pm to Arrow Mtn Ranch and received such a warm welcome from Joe and Judy. They settled us in to our living quarters, then fed us a delicious dinner. We played 'Mao' after dinner and agreed a plan for the next morning when they needed to move 40 cows + their babies to another pasture. So we all woke up at 6am this morning to be out on the horses at 7 am. In reality we ended up delaying the departure a little bit so that the sun had time to come over the mountains and warm us up.
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| Getting familiar with Bud |
Joe and Judy rode horses; Rhiannon, Tryfan and Gary the ranch manager drove the Kabuta; and Rhodri and I drove the truck with Lily the dog in the bed.
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| Saddled up and ready to go |
Rhodri and I drove around the back side of the hill and met them at the far corner of one of the pastures, while the other 5 of us gathered the cows and herded them towards the far corner where Rhodri and I were. It was pretty thrilling to hear and then see the 80 cows coming up over the brow of the hill!
Our next task was to calmly open the pasture gate and let them out, then drive them down the dirt road to another pasture. It definitely took all of us to make this operation go smoothly! Joe (on Twist) was on the far right side, Judy (on Pete) was on the far left, Rhiannon driving the Kabuta was on the middle right, I was walking/ running on the middle left, Tryfan was the back left and Rhodri in the truck was the back right.
We got all of them into the new pasture, Gary closed the gate and we headed back to the ranch! Job done!
We were done by 10:30 am after having been mentally prepared for an operation that was estimated to take until noon if everything was going well! We had a nice lunch back at the ranch and then spent the afternoon taking naps, reading, playing dominoes and snacking. Maura & Steve came over for dinner to join us that night and it felt like a party.
Our next task was to calmly open the pasture gate and let them out, then drive them down the dirt road to another pasture. It definitely took all of us to make this operation go smoothly! Joe (on Twist) was on the far right side, Judy (on Pete) was on the far left, Rhiannon driving the Kabuta was on the middle right, I was walking/ running on the middle left, Tryfan was the back left and Rhodri in the truck was the back right.
We were done by 10:30 am after having been mentally prepared for an operation that was estimated to take until noon if everything was going well! We had a nice lunch back at the ranch and then spent the afternoon taking naps, reading, playing dominoes and snacking. Maura & Steve came over for dinner to join us that night and it felt like a party.
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