Whew, it has been a busy fall at the ranch and I realized I hadn't posted in a while. Ever since I got back in August we have had guests pretty much non-stop. We've had some interesting weather lately. We were hit by Hurricane Newton and it rained for a day and a half and we got 2 inches. A few weeks later we got another 2 inches overnight. That caused us to have a misty morning which is very rare. It was hard to take pictures of but it was very cool to walk in the mist in New Mexico.
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| Misty morning |
Another cool natural event was the Harvest Moon which shined brightly over the pasture in the morning.
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| Harvest moon |
One afternoon we headed out to the Pottery Mesa and I scored a mother lode! I found a half of a game piece with a perfect hole in it and I was looking for the other half when I found a very tiny arrowhead. Later on that afternoon I also found a couple pieces of bone jewelry. I was so stoked. It takes a practiced eye to know what to look for and I think mine is getting better.
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| Pottery Mesa finds |
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| Pictographs |
Despite all the busyness, I have still found some time to complete some cross stitch projects that Aunt Kathy sent me. One was a lumbar pillow and I was just going to wait until I was home to stuff it but when I got my new saddle there was a large piece of foam that I thought would work so I stuffed it and finished it off.
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| Lumbar pillow |
I also managed to get to town when we had a rare 2 days off in between guests. The timing worked perfectly because that's when my niece Hazel was born! I drove around T or C to 5 different public wifi spots before I finally found one that worked but I was determined to Skype the family. I can't wait to meet her in person in November!
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And with all that good news above, here comes the bad news. I had managed to avoid any major injuries so far this summer but my luck ran out when my ankle was run over by a horse. It was a guest arrival day so I was wearing shorts and sneakers to do the noon chores and as I went to shoo horses away from the gate to let another horse in for grain, he decided to just make a dash for it and ran right past me and hit my left ankle. I made my way back to my room and proceeded to RICE it because there was already a golf ball size lump. I felt awful because obviously I couldn't ride and we had 9 guests coming in. The timing ended up working out though because our friend from NY who caretakes for the ranch in the winter was a guest that week. He always helps me with all my chores and he was an even bigger help than usual so I am beyond grateful to him for all the assistance he gave me all week as I limped around. He even came bearing gifts of McIntosh apples (my favorite!), chocolate, and a new water bottle. It has been a couple weeks since and it is doing ok so I'm on my way to a full recovery.
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| The colorful side of the injury |
