Cattle Drive!

We left the house at 6 a.m. Saturday morning, horses and saddles loaded, to help a friend drive his cattle off pasture. It was a fun day, for the humans and horses alike!

Beautiful country - I only wish I had gotten more photos!!

Yes, me on horseback behind the cattle, hence the blurry photo.

This is what many of my photos looked like...
camera + horse = lousy pictures!

Hubby returning from search for renegade cow and calf...
they made a clean escape!

My ride on the right, hubby's on the left.
Yep, they worked hard - enlarge to see their sweatiness.

Our host.

His house.

The front porch.

The front door - isn't it beautiful?

My photos don't do their house justice. I've always loved stone houses, and this one was stunningly gorgeous. To the right of this front door was a side porch with a grill and refrigerator built into the stonework... further to the right was a stone fireplace with a flagstone patio, wicker furniture and an arbor over it, and to the right of that, a built-in pool. Can you just imagine evenings around that fireplace with a glass of wine in hand. I wish I would have gotten a photo of it.

Oh yeah, I could definitely live in this house!!

Flagstone and lush plants. Gorgeous!

Part of the stone garage.

The well-decorated roof.

The barn - I love the old stonework.

Getting ready to sort some cattle.

Our host, doing more sorting...

...for vaccinations, and preg checks.

Pastureland in front of house by driveway.

A few photogenic kids...

... and of course, the necessary ranch dog.
This is Ruben, a 6 month old Aussie.

The only thing I regret about our day - no pictures of me on Murphy!!! Hubby agreed we need to be sure to get pics of me in the future.

This was my first ride away from home on Murphy - I mistakenly thought since he's an older horse (25) that it would be an easy ride. Wrong! Murphy, being the old cow horse he is, was hard to hold back. His ears were cocked and he was excited to be back at his old job. He wanted to herd those cattle and nip at them! Plus the terrain was very rugged and hilly. Lots of rock ledges and very rocky fields to navigate - quite a jolting ride for this novice. But all in all, I think Murphy and I did pretty good - I enjoyed the challenge. I definitely need more practice on him. I need to learn how to remind him that I'M the boss, not him! He fought me every step of the way yesterday.

By the time we got home at 4:00, I was a little bit sore. But not near as bad as I thought I'd be. I was more tired than anything, and I think I crashed out by 6:00.

Midlife can be hell sometimes.