Fall Happenings

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.

Misty morning

Another cool natural event was the Harvest Moon which shined brightly over the pasture in the morning.

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.

Pottery Mesa finds

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.

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!

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.

The colorful side of the injury