This is where we parked and walked back upstream to fish. there are a lot of rafts put into the river here and float downstream, to the left of the picture.

Looking down into the gorge of the Colorado river, where we fished.

Looking east, on the way into camp.

Polly, the faithful pack/riding mule.

A bigfoot sighting, with his clothes on!

Our home away from home.

An ol’ geezer who we were camped with!

This was real cool barn we saw that I would be willing to live in. It was on our way home.

We decided to stop at Ft Laraime so our young sidekick could check it out. Helped him out with his home work, no doubt. We didn’t stay long, just stretched our legs and looked through the barracks and also the book store/museam. I had to buy a couple of books I hadn’t added to my library yet!

This the calvary barracks at Ft Laraime.

We got home about 8:30 that night and took our first showers for about a week. Man, we were glad for that, tho’ we did manage to stay fairly clean, what with changes of clothes and underwear.

Had a great time and hope to get to do it again in the future. Colorado has some beautiful country and I loved the mountains, tho’ I sure don’t ever want to live there. I am a plains boy, I like the wide open spaces and rolling hills. I didn’t see anywhere I liked better than where I live. But it was fun to visit!

Back to horse pix asap Mad!

A friend and his son and I took off Sunday morning, headed towards the mountains of northern Colorado. My friends father and buddies were down there elk hunting. We were going to camp with them and do some fishing. We started taking pictures when we got to the foothills.

Hmmm, not really what I thought of when I thought “mountain”.

We have a canyon with rushing water. I almost had to stop and see if there were any catchable fish in it!

Finally, we are getting into the mountains.

My traveling companions.

Look on the left side of the picture. See those little lines? Those are roads. We drove up those roads.

We are getting close to timberline. Quite the view.

See those trees up high on the left side. That is where camp was. About 15 miles back in there.

to be continued!

Last pony picture for a while Madison. I’m am leaving in the morning for Colorado. A friend is down there hunting elk, so I will hang out with him in the evening and go visit another friend who lives nearby and do a little fly fishing also. So I won’t be posting for a spell. TTFN. 🙂

This pictue is proof that, yes, the koala is still in the baby seat, for Minnies girls. They were pretty concerned we might move them! 🙂

This is a saddle I built about a year ago. A friend wanted to try it so I sent it to him. He brought it back and had me add rigging rings in back so it will be double rigged, or for you who are not familiar with this stuff, it will now have two cincha’s to attach it to a horse instead of one, the thinking being as usual, two is better than one.

It is a replica of the saddle the mountain men would have ridden and also the first Texas Ranger clear up until about the 1870’s. If you cover it with a large leather covering, or mochila, then it protects your tree and horses back from scratches in brushy thorny country. It has slots in the cantle for using as hand holds and also so that you can tie ropes to it and use it as a pack saddle.

As it, it is a skeleton rig. No more than necessary. Light weight and comfortable, tho’ most people don’t realize it. My friend loves it for it’s light weight and comfort. He’s kind of an old geezer like me! It has no sweat fenders and a lot less leather than most saddles have, tho’ most is not necessary, in this country.

“We’s buddy’s.”

These are the two colts I will keep here this fall. The other one, that I posted the picture of yesterday, is a young lady’s pick. She will go live at her house, with the two colts I bought at the sale.

I went and helped a neighbor move some of his cows and calves in to our pasture down south this morning. He is short on grass and I have extra, so it’s a good deal for both of us. His land is just across the road from me, so it is handy for him. When he ships his calves they will be real close and handy to get back to his house. If the weather and grass holds, he will bring the cows back after weaning the calves.

I then rode down south and got two bulls out of our cows. One of Chances cows had a sore eye and wanted to come with the bulls, so I let her and then gave her some shots to heal here eyes up, hopefully. She was more than willing to go back where she came from and go find her calf after that!

Other than that, I ain’t got too much done today! LOL

“You chopped off my head! You chopped off my head!”

“There, that’s much better!”

Don’t really remember what I’ve been doing the last few days, but I’m tired, so I must have done something!

I went to the doctor last week as I have some itchy little red bumps on me. I finally got the results of the blood test today. I have definately had chicken pox at some time. And that is about all they really know! They think I have some kind of a viral infection and it will work it’s self out. Great. For this I had to drive 60 miles one way? And pay them money?

I ain’t too impressed with doctors right now! Grrrrr!

Here’s a whole passel of ponies, Mad. 🙂

Went to Devil’s Tower yesterday, for the tenth annual Poetry Gathering. Hard to belive we’ve been doing this for 10 years. We had a nice crowd and some great performers.

It might just be my favorite place to do poetry. Under the trees, in the shade, the park staff treats us well and sets up all the mic’s and stuff. They even give us water!

This year we had Jim Hamilton who has been there at least once before and a couple of rookies, Slim McNaught and Hank Harris.

We had friends here from Iowa visiting and they gave me a ride to Sturgis where we met up with Cindy. Actually we absconed with her, from her job! They had to take off to head home before we got done, but I got an email that they made it home in fine shape.

Now, I just have to figure out who is going to come for the show out there next year! 🙂

This is Jake, Maddy. He belongs to Chance. He’s 4 years old. We got him at the same time as Frankie Blue Eye’s. They grew up together. But Jake hasn’t had as much riding as Frankie. Chance needs to come watch the place while I go on a short vacation and maybe he will ride him some more then. I rode Jake for a short ways last fall. He feels like your riding a spring horse, real bouncy, but in a good kind of way.

I had a young neighbor over today and he helped me catch the young horses and work with them and worm them. It wore me out.

We’ve got friends from Iowa here visiting for the weekend and the kids are supposed to be out on Saturday. Sunday we go to Devils Tower to perform poetry.

The annual Poetry Gathering at Marmoth ND is Saturday night. Wish I could go, but it’s too far and I have to travel on Sunday. Oh well, maybe next year. It’s one of the best gatherings there is.

Got more pictures of horses today, so I will posting them for Mad. 🙂

Here you go Mad. This is Grump. When he was a weanling colt and in with several other colts, he was always laying his ears back and bossing the other colts around, so I got to calling him Grumpy. He’s not that way now, but the name stuck. I just shortened it to Grump. A big boy don’t need a little boy’s name! LOL

He cut his right front foot this spring, pretty bad and it isn’t quite healed up yet. He was 3 this spring and was supposed to go to the colt man and get some training, but it didn’t happen because of the injury.

When he gets healed up he can go.

Right now he is just living off the fat of the land! 🙂

Here’s a picture of Cindy’s Lipstick plant with a couple more blossoms. She’ is so proud! LOL

Her is picture of a yearling filly I bought last fall. She’s done well this summer. She ought to make a nice trim mare who raises nice colts for me!