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Category Archives: ranch

A Visit to Horse’n Around Rescue

08 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by ninagarden in Arizona, cowgirl, horse, horses, ranch, Tucson, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

horses, ranch, Summer

In May, I went to Tucson, and my dad, my niece and I went on a day trip to Horse’n Around horse rescue in Hereford, Arizona. I saw some great horses here, and it is a truly beautiful location — right next to the border with Mexico. In the background of this picture below, you can see the fence. It’s that black line on the horizon. It looks like a train track.

It’s also on the photo behind this giant donkey in retirement from the Grand Canyon.

We were there about three hours and saw all 48 horses. They had some great horses and some sad stories to tell. Like this gorgeous guy below who broke his knee in a team roping competition.


You can’t tell now, but if you ride him about an hour he begins to favor it. He is in a mountain pasture where he has to climb around a little and they hope it rehabilitates him.

Here are two mares I wanted to adopt. The first photo is of horse I keep thinking about– Desert Rose, the appaloosa. The second photo below is a mare named Kaluha that I learned was already adopted this since my May visit — she will be a great horse for someone! Dad liked her because she reminded him of a horse he had a long time ago. He is feeding her in the picture below Rose.

They were from a seizure of more than 40 starving horses at an old dude ranch– so sad.

I may go back and ride Rose soon! She is stuck in my mind, and I keep thinking about her. I love her color and her markings. I love the idea of helping her out. She was so thin when they got her.  Now she has filled out and grown up. She looks like a cowgirl’s horse…

If you are looking to adopt a horse, please consider going to Horse’n Around Rescue Ranch. When you adopt a horse, you pay a fee (basically you buy the horse) and you get 10 hours of riding instruction with your new companion before you can take her/him home. When I brought my horse Bayito to San Diego, I learned that it isn’t very expensive to trailer a horse to Southern California so if you are looking, you might consider one from Horse’n Around.

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Pictures of the Ranch

03 Wednesday Feb 2016

Posted by ninagarden in Arizona, cowboy, horse, ranch, Uncategorized

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Tags

horse, ranch

When I was back in Tucson a couple of weekends ago, I found these pictures of our old ranch near Wilcox (the O-bar-O).  I thought I’d share so I could see these pictures and not forget.

This must have been a rainy year because the grass looks good and the stream is running.

byoungobaro--o-o4o-o5o-ostream

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Cotillion Cowgirl

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by ninagarden in Arizona, cowgirl, horse, ranch, Tucson, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Agua Linda, farm, horses, ranch, Tucson

I inherited some of my Aunt’s photos a few months ago, and looking through them, I was inspired by this fact — my aunt, who was always glamorous and social, who wore beautiful clothes and surrounded herself with beautiful and glamorous things, was also, a cowgirl.

For the first time, as I looked through the numerous photos of her in ballgowns, costumes, tutus, pearls and neat 60s sheaths, I also saw her riding a horse. A horse!

She grew up on the Agua Linda farm south of Tucson and had ranch in her blood. The “farm” was more about feeding cattle than raising crops, and while my grandpa had sold the old ranch headquarters, he still had the Aros Ranch for a while. I never thought of my aunt as a ranch girl so when I found all the photos of her on horseback, I was surprised. I never saw her on a horse, or near one, for that matter.

But in this old plastic bag of photos that I collected from my brother’s dining room table after he retrieved the remains of her estate, I found a few hints of the cowgirl my aunt once was.

Most of the photos, of course, display her understated glamour — many show dinners with my grandma and grandpa, lady’s lunches and social gatherings.

As a stewardess for American Airlines in the 60s, she had her hair styled by Vidal Sassoon, wore her uniform with pride and lived, no doubt, the high flying life of an elite flight attendant jet-setting around the world. Just look at her expression! Don’t you want to know what she is thinking?

auntninaflightattend

Before she left home, she wore quite a few ball gowns. Here (see girl on right) decked in satin shoulder-length gloves, her hair golden and shimmering as any movie star, she posed for photos at parties I can only imagine.

auntninacotillion

But here she is on my Grandfather’s  horse Tom Thumb, Nov. 1958 in Prescott. The faded inscription on the back says something about “camp on Plum Creek” and “just before sold” is written below  in purple pen. I can’t even believe she’s wearing jeans and look at her belt buckle! (That saddle looks oddly familiar. I wonder if that’s the one I use today.)

cowgilrauntnina

Standing in her white satin cotillion gown, pearls at her neck and bow encircling her tiny waist, she looks pensive. I love how the  black tree enhances her white gown and flowers. The picture is inscribed Dec. 1963, and I wonder where she is heading after this photo shoot? Did she have to drive 60 miles to town or was she already at her destination? (I called my mother and she told me that my aunt was probably heading to the Tucson Symphony Cotillion.)

auntninacotillion2

In the photo below, she smiles at the camera while riding a “big red horse,” as I like to call them–where? I do not know but it looks like somewhere near Tucson. Tamarask and eucalyptus trees rise to the monsoonal clouds.

cowgirlnina

Then years later,  in her red slicker and equally red nail polish, she grips the reins on a winter day. I know that signet ring on her pinkie — I hope one of my nieces have it.

latercowgirlnina

In her 50s and 60s she moved away from Tucson to live with her husband on a homestead in a log cabin in Mule Creek, New Mexico. She had acreage, fought brush fires, and hung wreaths on all the gates along the highway at Christmas time. She seemed to love that life just as much as her Jr. League days. Whenever she went back to Tucson, she let you know how much she despised the traffic. She was content with her country life.

She said, “you go back to what you know.”

When she passed away, way too soon from breast cancer, my sister and I drove to New Mexico and cleaned out her closets. While she had adapted her wardrobe to her rural life, she still had many of her clothes from her old self: lace, satin, and many brocade shawls. The main thing that struck me was how many outfits she had hanging in her two walls of closets. Probably five hundred different outfits were neatly arranged on tiered hangers — each hanger held two or three different outfits: pants and a shirt with a matching shawl. She had more shoes than we knew what to do with–many of them mail ordered and still in plastic wrappers–unworn.

Something of the old cotillion girl hid there in her closet waiting for the next ranch potluck, or maybe, an invitation to a fancy gala in an exotic location.

We can only wonder what possessed her to keep all those clothes.

*********

Here I am as a baby in her arms. I am her namesake and I am proud to have been her niece.

 

meandauntnina

Here’s two other photos that I wanted to share–in the first, she’s in some kind of costume that she no doubt invented and she’s holding a cat ( also in costume) and the other is of her and her favorite dog. I’m not sure here it was taken –maybe along the banks of the Santa Cruz.

auntninaandcatdressup
autN&dog

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Day of the Cowgirl

27 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by ninagarden in cowboy, cowgirl, horse, ranch

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Tags

Bayito, cows, Flagstaff, horse, Memorial Day, Memorial Day weekend, ranch

My sister called me the other day and told me about the National Day of the Cowboy celebration coming up on July 25, 2015. She wanted me to come to Flagstaff and Prescott and write about. That sounds great, but I am going to Flagstaff later in the summer so I can’t go in July, too.

A few days later, I sent her this picture of me cutting calves last Saturday with my horse on my friend’s ranch.

cowgirl

I sent my sister that photo and told her that last Saturday was National Day of the Cowgirl! (It was for me, anyway!)

My horse Bayito looks really good. He lost all his shaggy winter hair and I could move the cinch in a notch. Did he loose a little of his hefty girth or did all that hair just make him fatter? (He is a fat horse, I won’t deny it.)

He loves to chase after the cows and make them behave. See how his ears are pinned bacK? He is very serious. Those calves had better not misbehave around Bayito.

Here he is on the round up taking a break for a photo. He really just wants to eat grass.

Mayroundup corrected

I’m wearing that Carhartt flannel shirt in May on Memorial Day weekend because it was 48 degrees in the mountains last Saturday. Yes, in the mountains outside of San Diego! It was freezing (and drizzling). My sister just gave me that shirt last week and I thought I would not wear it until next December — well, I was wrong!

(Also, to my newphew, do not make fun of my helmet.)

Our kids were so cold they sat in the car and waited. I told them to watch when the cows we rounded up came through the gate. I remember round ups from growing up and hundreds of cows and calves moving in a great dusty herd down the road toward the barns. I forgot that we were only rounding up about 40 cows and cavles. I don’t know if the girls even noticed the cows coming in! However, they were very taken in by a new born calf on spindly legs. Some things never change!

 

 

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Christmas Dreams Do Come True

01 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by ninagarden in horse, New Year's resolution, ranch

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Arizona, Christmas, horse, new year's resolution

Every Christmas since I was a little girl I dreamed Santa would bring me a horse.

Even as an adult I glanced into the back yard Christmas morning hoping my husband, who is known in my book as being generous and wonderfully over the top, would figure out how to give me a horse.

And if you read my blogs from this year, you will know that I went to a colt sale in Arizona where my husband was sure I bought a colt. (I did not, althought I wanted to.)

That said, I knew it was impossible, impractical and not something my husband would ever really do…not really in my realm of possibilities with all the other responsibilities we have.

For whatever cosmic reason, at the end of November,  my dad decided to give me his horse Bayito…

You might say, wow, why does your dad have a horse? If you read my blog, you will know that he is a third generation rancher and farmer. Since we sold the ranch 15 or so years ago, his horse has lived on a neighboring ranch where he was used by a friendly cowboy to round-up cattle.

It might be one of those serendipitous events or some kind of chain reaction that I can’t explain. Or maybe it was this blog and writing about it!

(And also, it was my friend Audrey who decided to get a horse for her kids).

My dad is  friends with Audrey’s dad who is also a rancher, here in California and suddenly, there was a place for the horse and two families to ride him. And my dad trusts them with his horse, probably more than he trusts me with his horse.

So one cold day in December, my horse arrived from Arizona. The horse hauler picked him up on the ranch near Douglas, Arizona where my dad was waiting to say goodbye.

It was sort of bittersweet, I’m sure, to let go of the one thing left of our ranch and our cattle raising days. Bayito did not want to leave. After an hour of trying to get him in the trailer, with ropes and apples and other encouragments, he heaved a sigh and walked in to begin the journey to his new life here in California.

Here is “Bayito,” loosely translated, I think that means Brownie in English. His registered American Quarter Horse name is Tru Tru Holey Sox!

/home/wpcom/public_html/wp-content/blogs.dir/51b/9390764/files/2015/01/img_1347.jpg

2014-12-13 11.45.34

I am very happy and my only New Year’s resolution is to take care of and ride Bayito!

So if you are dreaming of owning a horse, it can happen one day, even in an unexpected way. Keep dreaming and maybe one day your dream will come true.

Happy New Year!

Thanks, Dad!

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Babbitt Times Review

14 Friday Nov 2014

Posted by ninagarden in Arizona, cowboy, Flagstaff, high-desert, horse, horses, ranch, Uncategorized

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Tags

Flagstaff, horses

Thanks so much to The Babbitt Times Review for mentioning my blog in its latest issue! Stay tuned for some exciting news in the horse department!

IMG_3034.JPG

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Hashknife Ranch Colt Sale — Part I

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

Posted by ninagarden in Arizona, auction, BBQ, colts, cowboy, Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, high-desert, horses, ranch

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

auction, colts, Flagstaff, horses, ranch

My sister and I planned for the last year. We would go to the Hashknife Ranch Colt Sale in Northern Arizona in mid-July.  And last weekend we did it! Since my daughter and I started horseback riding together a year-and-a-half ago,  I think about horses about 20 percent of the time. You can call this a mid-life obsession, I guess, crisis seems too harsh a word. The Hashknife Ranch Colt sale has given me more to think about.

The sale is a yearly event that the ranch owners treat like a holiday. The mood was one of excitement from the guests and the sellers who were going to make some cash that day. Little children helped the Christmas-like atmosphere. Who can’t resist pens full of adorable colts and fillies milling around on spindly little (and some not so little) legs?

We got there early because I couldn’t believe it started at 11 a.m. Nothing on a ranch starts that late in the morning.  We parked in a lot full of trucks and waiting trailers as if the owners planned to haul away a string of horses.

But backing up, the Babbitt ranches encompass some of the prettiest country I know. Last year when we took the train to the Grand Canyon, I fell in love with the sweeping yellow grassed mesas and rolling hills of the Northern Arizona ranchlands. Driving from Flag around the North side of the San Francisco Peaks, you drop in elevation from fir trees to a high prairie of dried grass. The painted desert sits off in the distance. The sky was blue and huge and white puffy clouds floated across it as picturesque as it was cliché and it was like stepping right into a postcard of a ranch.

2014-07-12 12.48.42

Anyway, my enthusiasm for this ranchland has continued and we can’t help thinking our father and grandfather and great-grandfather picked the wrong place to have a ranch in the Sonoran desert. But don’t get angry at me–I love that place too, I just haven’t been there for a while. And I seem to like things colder as I get older. And Kale. (I like kale, which seems almost unnatural or maybe too natural, but I digress.)

We walked up to the barns and tack rooms passing the tarp-covered picnic areas and entered a pen where some risers had been set up in a semi-circle around a corner of the corral. This is where the horses would be auctioned off.

A small herd of mares and babies stood in the next pen and we couldn’t stop from rushing in there to see them, even though we weren’t really shoppers, we were lookers, but hopeful one day, we could be shopping here too.

My girls smiled huge smiles as they watched the fuzzy babies stamping around, moving as a group, shuffling as the lookers like us, as well as the seasoned professionals, scoped them out.

“They move in  a herd!” My ten-year old exclaimed. Okay, that is sad. She has only seen horses in an arena or in a stall. She has never seen a horse on the range. “Why are they doing that?” she asked, “Why?”

Lesson one: horses are herd animals.

Wow. I had no idea she did not know this.

So we try to explain, suggest she read a book on horsemanship or the psychology of the equine species.

My sister recounts horses she’s owned: Holy Smokes, Socks, Shu-ga (Sugar).   Every horse I “owned” was really my sister’s–Sassy, Kathleen and another one whose name was changed to Chapalene. I never really owned them, they were just assigned to me. Every since I was a little girl I wanted to wake up and find a horse in my yard. Not some ratty bike. I tell my husband this every Christmas. That is why he was very afraid when I went to the Hashknife Colt Sale.

Anyway, we went to learn something and the frist thing we learned (or my daughter learned) was horses run in herds. Then she learned you don’t wear a dippy Disney Channel fedora from Target to a cowboy horse auction.

She got harassed by the old cowboy sitting behind us for that. Well, what do you expect?

2014-07-12 09.59.31

The wrong hat.

Speaking of fashion: my sister and I realized we need very long hair that we can braid.  One long silver or blonde braid down your back will do. Then you need to wear lots of turquoise jewelry — huge rectangular blocks of turquoise dangling from your ears. Big sunglasses. If you are in really fancy Western dress, you can wear a tiered broomstick skirt in shades of blue to match your turquoise top and accessories. Or you wear your Wranglers and your braid and your round toed boots and a straw hat. We notice that kind of stuff and talk about it. We can’t help it. Next time we go, we will be fancy. This time, I was basic and in tennis shoes because my boots are too pointy.

This time, we were taking it all in.

And all this was before they even sold one colt!

2014-07-12 10.01.58

My sister and the girls.

 

 

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Dark Morning

02 Sunday Sep 2012

Posted by ninagarden in dog, moon, morning, ranch, summer, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

garden, Moon, Morning, outdoors, ranch, Summer

I wake up and I’m outside a lot earlier these days because of the puppy. While I wish I could sleep in, the morning sunrise and the stillness is something I love. I remember the mornings on the ranch when my mother would wake me in the dark, and my father would already be awake drinking his second cup of coffee and listening to the weather radio. The weather was what set his mood—rain was a happy morning and a brisk walk to the barn. When it was bad news, we’d drive the truck, late from listening more to make sure the radio hadn’t changed the forecast in those last few minutes.

The barn was dark and still with only one light on in the tack room, and in the dark corrals, the horses stamped and shuffled, waiting for us to saddle them.

The sunrise would build behind the western hills and the sky would turn from dusky lavender to yellow then orange. The sun was seemed like it didn’t come up for hours (even though it was probably only one hour) as we rode out to find the cattle. When the sun did come, it was blinding and its rays seemed to ignite the sharp yucca leaves and grasses.

The sound of dark morning was always peaceful and silent even with birds chirping and the jingle of spurs, the slushing of horse legs and saddles. Maybe a whistle or low whisper of Spanish about the weather of the work to come.

Unfortunately I get about ten minutes of silence nowadays—from the time I sat down to write this until here on the page.

Now dogs are barking in my house. The senior grandma dog just woke up and she is wheezing and puffing. Chairs are rattling. The kids are humming and buzzing and building fairy houses and singing a song about the puppy to Ode to Joy (boy, that is a big theme in my house). The chickens are cackling to be let out of the pen. Feet are scuffling across our hardwood floors. And my husband is calling my name with a question mark at the end trying to find me to cook breakfast or bring him a dustpan.

Fortunately, I was already outside at 6:30 a.m. and caught this picture of silence (below). See the pretty morning moon. And here are some pictures (2nd and 3rd down) of the ranch so you can get an idea of what it was like. You can look at them and imagine the silence.

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