Hi everyone. Spring has sprung here and we are trying to get the yard and gardens in shape, work with the dogs, while Kerry travels on business. And I want to go fishing darn it! I haven’t fished in years now which is just ridiculous. I just didn’t have time to write much so I’m reprinting a story that, according to the metrics from two years ago, no one saw. Hope you like it and make sure you hit those buttons to make me popular!
I have a soft spot in my heart for dude ranches. (Some might say the soft spot is in my head.) I shod horses at several of them over the years. The vibe is so different than shoeing at a ranch or competition barn. Everyone is happy. The guests are excited about their adventures. Children end up visiting me. We talk about horses, I show them a few horse handling skills, tell them stories of my adventures and in lieu of an admission fee, I get them to steal cookies or brownies from the dining hall for me. Many times, I would stay at the ranch overnight to save the commute time so I would get to talk with guests after dinner. It was fun to meet folks from all over the country and even the world.
There are different types of dude ranches. Some do wilderness camping experiences. Others are a family vacation type. Still others are a corporate property used as a reward for employees. They are all fun in their own way and of course all of them include horses as their main attraction.
While watching a movie at home one Sunday I got a call from a corporate dude ranch looking for a shoer. They were desperate. The guy they hired got hurt and couldn’t shoe the horses. He had recommended me. With regret, I couldn’t help them out. I couldn’t spare the time to shoe 60 head during the busiest time of my year. There was a great shoer I knew who might have the time. My friend Tom. He ran the local university’s shoeing school and shod full time for the summer. I gave them his number with my apologies. 15 minutes later the phone rang, and it’s Tom. He had the same time issue as me, but he thought we could team up and split the horses. We should be able to get them done in two days if he brought his apprentice to pull shoes and clinch. He had scheduled them for the end of the week.
“Even old guys like us can do 7 or 8 horses each a day if a young back is under the horse half the time,” Tom laughed.
The ranch would feed us, catch horses, and he even talked them into providing all shoes and nails but we charge our usual rate. We would split the apprentice’s wages. This was a deal I couldn’t pass up. Dude ranches tend to hire you every year if you do a good job and repeat customers are a horseshoer’s bread and butter. I made a few phone calls to rearrange my schedule and then called Tom to say I was in.
The dude ranch was amazing. Its was a gated community of sorts. A whole Old West town had been built. Most of the buildings had been rescued from around the state and hauled to the site in various stages of disrepair. Once there, they were renovated into places for guests to stay while on the ranch, but they were set up to look like the quintessential western town you see in the movies. The dining hall was beautiful and the food fantastic.
The barn was a horseshoers dream. It had a covered porch facing the corrals that had a concrete floor that was level and flat. We would be in the shade when it was sunny, and stay dry if it rained. All our supplies were in the attached barn and our first four horses were all tied up and waiting for us. They obviously had been brushed so we wouldn’t get too dirty. Our wrangler, Annie, was pretty and quite the hand. She set up a large fan at one end of the porch so the breeze would help keep us cool and make life hard on the inevitable flies.
“I thought you guys would want four so you could just keep on working after finishing the first two,” she said with a smile. “I’ll just keep checking on you and always keep four on hand. Oh, and I have water in the little fridge in the barn. Holler if you need anything. I’ll be in the barn doing stalls.”
With that she strode into the barn grabbing a pitchfork off the wall on the way. Its funny, the whole thing reminded me of how I met Kerry.
Tom and I watched our apprentice picking out feet while we finished our excellent coffee.
“Tom? I’m getting a little emotional about all this.”
“Why? You worked on the A circuit back East. Wasn’t it like this?”
“Yeah, but it’s been a very long time. On Monday I had to provide my own halter, catch the horse and tie him to a tractor bucket. The grass and weeds were so high I dropped my knife and spent ten minutes looking for it. The guys check bounced and when I called him, he complained about my prices. The switch in circumstances is a bit … abrupt. Know what I mean?”
“Yes sir, I do.”
Annie came out of the barn with a wheelbarrow full of manure and pushed it over to a big pile surrounded on three sides by concrete containment walls. Her long brown hair was in a ponytail under her feed store baseball cap, she had on a purple tank top, faded jeans, and work boots that had seen better days. She gave a quick smile at us and rushed back into the barn. Tom and I both sighed and then laughed hoping we weren’t being too obvious. Our apprentice Bill had snuck up beside us.
“You guys going to girl watch or work?”
“Yup, lets get at it!” I said.
Our day was uneventful. We worked through the horses at an easy pace. Having an apprentice to do finish work made things faster and easier on Tom and I. We played around doing things in the European style where the apprentice holds up the foot for us to fit shoes. Tom had taught Bill, and our styles of shoeing were very close indeed. Bill would trim feet when he could, and it was easy to forge shoes to fit.
While heating up shoes, I noticed something. There was a gray mare who stood alone by the water trough, and she was definitely the boss. The three of us watched during a break. No horse could drink without her permission. It was all done with body language that was so subtle I kept missing it. We wondered what she would be like to work on. Dominant mares can be a handful.
We were about to find out because our wrangler went in and caught the mare up. As soon as the gate closed a palomino mare walked down to the trough and took over. The lead mare was now tied up on the shoeing porch and was very unhappy. Smoke was coming out of her nose and her ears were laid flat back. I warily walked up to start on a front foot. There was no need to be cautious. She gave me a little knicker and leaned into my hand as I stroked her neck. She picked her foot up and was good as gold. She never took her eyes off the usurper, however.
Tom had been watching us.
“I think she is being nice to you because she figures you’ll let her go to the corral and kick that mare’s butt!”
When she was finished, we all stopped to watch what happened next. Annie led her to the gate. The palomino ran and buried herself in the herd. Once inside the mare politely bowed her head so Annie could get the halter off. The mare just stood there staring at the wrangler, ears forward. Annie turned and went out the gate closing it behind her then turned around. The two of them faced each other for what seemed like forever.
“OK.” Annie said. That mare wheeled and blasted off into the herd. Horses were scattering, feet clacking on the stones. Bodies were bouncing off the rails. It was chaos. Then our lead mare found the usurper. She spun around and got in a couple kicks to the belly then chased the palomino down to the water trough where she got in several good bites. The palomino ran back to the herd. The lead mare stood by her water trough, and I swear, she grinned at us.
Annie said, “I ride her. It looked terrible, but she really didn’t mean it. If she had meant it, she wouldn’t have let up. You watch. They will be friends again in a while. The palomino just got too big for her britches.”
Sure enough, at the end of the day, Tom came over to me and nodded towards the corral. Both horses were drinking from the trough at the same time side by side.
‘Pretty good lesson for people, isn’t it?” he said.
Annie came around the corner of the barn.
“Could you guys come with me for a second? We have a problem.”
We followed her over to the mounting blocks that were set up to help folks mount their horses more easily. A very large woman was sitting on a horse. She was red faced and when she saw us wailed, “Oh God. They had to get the blacksmiths!”
Tom murmured in my ear. “I’m going to let you take the lead on this one.”
“Oh, thanks a lot,” I replied.
I walked up to the lady and asked, “Can I help you ma’am?”
“I don’t know. I’m stuck.”
“Stuck how?”
“It’s like my hips are locked. I can’t lift my leg over the saddle to get off.”
“I see. Do your hips hurt?”
“Only when I try to move my legs.”
I waved my team over for a consultation, explained the situation, and asked for ideas. Bill piped up.
“We could take her over to the powder river gate by the corrals, put a rope around her. Throw it over the cross beam then lift her off with a winch or a come-a-long.” Tom punched him none too gently on the shoulder.
The lady good naturedly said, “No. You are not going to do that in front of everyone. I’ll look like a side of beef.”
“No,” Tom said, “we won’t do that, but what if John and I make stirrups with our hands and you put your feet on them. You just keep your legs straight and we will lift you just high enough to clear the saddle. Then Annie will walk your horse out from under you.”
“But I’ll tip over!!
“No, you won’t. You put your hands on top of our heads to balance. We will do this over by the loading dock. Bill will be on it and when the horse is clear he will grab you under your shoulders and we will swing you on to the dock where you just sit down.” Tom grinned. “Nothing to it.”
“Have you guys done this before?” The poor woman whimpered.
“Sure have,” Tom said soothingly. “Isn’t that right, John?”
“Sure at least five times over the years. Don’t you worry.”
Annie’s eyes had gotten very large. She knew we were lying our butts off.
But it worked! The lady did yelp with pain one time but once we got her on the loading dock, she was happy. The ambulance crew came over (yes, they have an ambulance on duty at this place) and they took over her care, so we went back to the shoeing porch to finish up our day.
We were sweeping the porch and putting away tools when the lady we helped rescue showed up. She was a little gimpy but not too bad.
“Hi guys! I wanted to thank you for getting me off that horse. I used to ride a lot when I was younger but haven’t in years. I think the all-day ride was too much to start off. I signed up for the half day ride tomorrow. Hopefully I won’t need you again!” She said with a laugh.
“You are more than welcome!” Tom replied. “But we will be here just in case,” and winked at her.
“I wanted to give you something for your trouble.”
We protested assuming she was going to give us money. We all said it wasn’t necessary, but we appreciated the thought. Then a man came around the corner carrying a cooler. We could hear ice sloshing around inside with every step.
“My horseshoer always liked a couple cold ones at the end of the day so we brought you this. Thank you again.”
Inside was a twelve pack of very cold beer on ice. Enough for today and tomorrow.
We pulled out some benches from the barn and got Annie to come and sit with us to have a beer, to talk, and to watch the horses in the corral. It was almost time for them to be turned out for the night, and they were using equine telepathy to try and get us to open the gate. It was very funny. You could feel the eyes on you.
“Well, I better turn them out and get cleaned up for dinner. Thanks for the beer boys, and I’ll see you in the morning,” Annie said as she headed for the gate.
Tom pulled out a bandana from his back pocket with a flourish and dabbed his eyes, then blew his nose as she walked away.
“I think I’m getting emotional about this place too!” He said with an exaggerated sob.
Bill looked on in disbelief. “You two guys are too much. I’ve never worked with farriers like you before.”
“And you probably never will again!” I chortled.
Tom pointed west.
“Look at that!”
The herd, led by the grey mare, had streamed out of the corral at a trot then accelerated into a gallop. Bays, chestnuts, palominos, paints and whites had formed an undulating ribbon headed for where they remembered the grass was green and plentiful. The lead mare stopped at the top of the nearest hill and let the herd pass. She looked back at us and bobbed her head. With a loud whinny she bounded after the herd and disappeared from sight leaving nothing but dust and and the thunder of hooves on the evening breeze.
The three of us turned to each other and shook our heads.
“You don’t think she was saying goodbye, do you?” Bill murmured.
“I don’t know.” I said. “Ask Tom. He is practically a horse whisperer.”
“Time to go boys. Tom replied with a crooked grin. “Its been a great day.”