Jan. 23. Around the barn !

Around our barn: some of the round hay bales are stacked there and our barn cat Flower likes that mice habitat. She is definitely a little independent hunter, but also loves her "rolling up on the lap and getting petted forever" time. Our last year's Longhorn calves get their hay thrown over the fence as much as needed. A bit more this past week, when it was so cold (cold enough, that the school buses weren't running for two days ! Joe and Ben enjoyed the days home). But now it is much milder again, which makes it easier for the animals, for feeding, for driving etc. The barn itself has no animals in it. We do have three stalls ready if needed for an emergency, and the rest is for storage. On some of that softer storage Flower made herself a comfortable home. She has been with us for a good month now, someone must have abandoned her and all we noticed middle of December was tiny tracks in the snow mostly around the barn. She is very alert, runs to "her" barn as soon as there is an unusual sound, but also loves to be petted by us. Flower knows the winter routine very well; late morning one of us comes to feed the calves, then sits with her on a bench in the winter sun and spends half an hour petting her, then she gets her food in the barn.

Jan. 16. The horses warm up in the winter sun !

Late this Monday morning: our horses enjoy the sun after a cold winter night. Just for a few days we will be "in the deep freezer" in Alberta, Canada. A light snow started yesterday and a cold night with -27 C. The sun today will be so nice for our horses and cattle. They like to rest and warm up the one side, after a while turn around and warm up the other side. The use trees, bushes and hills for wind breaks, since they have to be out of the wind to get the insulation they need with their long hair trapping air.
Past week was still very mild and some spots got so icy, that I had to work on the access to the stock waterer for the animals. The cows got a trail with salt/sand and used that wisely (slow and one at the time). The horses didn't trust the new sandy trail and I had to move a water trough into the pasture, were it wasn't icy and filled it up with a hose from the house. Now, that there is fresh snow, the walking is good for them to be able to back to the heated waterer in the corral.

Lakes, small and big, have been frozen for several weeks, but due to abnormal milder winter, the ice fisher guys have been hesitant to drive their pick up trucks on the ice . But after this week, they will be happily driving onto nearby Twin Lake or Cow Lake, but mostly onto bigger Silvan Lake to get their ice fishing gear on there with ease.

Jan. 9. our Texas Longhorn yearlings !

Our cute bunch of last year's calves do enjoy to find some grass to nibble at. The strong Chinook winds we had again, blowing rather warm air from the West, melted a lot of the snow on the hill and West/ Southwest facing areas. The down side are the spots on the pasture, that started to melt, but not all the way yet and left behind skating rink like icy patches. Nevertheless, the cutie yearling Longhorns still like their daily hay, finding grass patches is more an entertainment for them than food value. And soon enough we will get fresh snow and cattle don't paw through the snow as horses do.

Jan. 2. Welcome to Ride the Wind Ranch's 2012 blog posts !

Ride the Wind Ranch (Kathy, Marty, Joe and Ben; the horses, Longhorns, bunnies and flower) wishes you all a wonderful 2012 !
For us the New Year started as a great ranch day; being outside, feeding the animals, fixing a couple of rails on a fence and enjoying a beautiful sunset.
Our Texas Longhorn cows know us so well and as all animals, they are very familiar with our appearance (height, way of walking etc.). Therefore they know right away, that it is us, if they see us walking somewhere. But yesterday when we went to fix a couple of rails on a corral, the cows startled and run away. It must have been, that caring the long rails on our shoulders made us look like aliens...?
Talking about cattle and recognizing voices: when they have a baby calf, they sing lots for the calf to recognize the mom's voice, so later they can call each other.
We only have a few calves and keep the yearlings in a corral until they sell in spring, so they naturally get very familiar with us. Of course, we always talk to them too. Nice story: we once went to visit a rancher, who bought a few yearlings from us over a year back. When we were standing close to his corrals, looking at all his animals and talking, the three yearlings of ours came walking to the fence, they recognized our voices after all that time !

Dec. 26. Winddancer and Kiowa trotting through the snow !

We hope you all had a very lovely Holiday weekend !

On Saturday we went out to fix the fence on our West pasture. We were able to drive the truck on the North pasture, feeding the horses hay, then had to walk all along the fence. We built a campfire to warm up and I was glad I could dry my winter boot a bit, since it got stuck in the snow. After three hours of work, we went to open the gate for the horses and in this photo Winddancer and Kiowa are trotting happily into the new pasture. At some spots quite a bit of snow, but on top of the hills, they will get easily to the fall grass. They love to dig for grass, they actually still had some hay on the North pasture, but eagerly waited for us to open the gate. True wild horse instinct? They come near the house for water, mineral block and sometimes grain, so we'll still see them often. But when they are on the West pasture they are pretty much on their own, independent and free.

Dec. 19. Horses on a snowcovered meadow, what can be more beautifully tranquil ?

This image represents so many of our winter days in Alberta, Canada. Light snow, sunny, crisp air. Just lovely and very serene and tranquil to watch the horses on the snow covered meadow.

Dec. 12. Red Cloud, the Longhorns and the Rocky Mountains !

Our horse "Red Cloud" is named after the chief Red Cloud of the Lakota Sioux of the mid-nineteenth century. Our Red Cloud was born at the ranch 14 year ago. Although his Paint mom and Paint dad showed white coloring, he is an all straight bay horse. Beautiful tall and elegant, strong in his chest and well muscled. In this photo he is trotting back to the field with more grass to paw for from the corral, where he had a drink of water and licking on the salt block. He is in quite a round shape from all the fall grass, which is good, it helps to keep him warm during the chillier nights. Our Alberta snow is dry and light, the horses can easily paw for grass and love to do it. It sure is in their nature and an adult horse can usually easily do without hay, if the field is big enough. Of course, they still love their grain ever so often, which also gives them the extra nutrition and minerals.