Every Now and Then...

...I take a peek at my blog stats. Blog stats are fun because you can see how many people visit your site on a daily basis, where they come from and how long they stay. It's not 100% accurate, of course, but it gives you a feel for whether or not your blog is being seen.

Around here, I get a whopping 20-50 readers a day; usually closer to the lower number. At Carpenter Creek, that number is just over 100 per day. Nothing compared to some blogs out there. Fun, just the same, to see.

This evening I was taking a look see at the stats for the Diaries here and noticed that one of the referring links was this one: http://extrememustangmakeovermontana.blogspot.com/ Interesting, I thought; an EMM blog that I haven't seen before! Naturally, I had to click the link and check it out. Not many posts, but certainly gives you a feel for how quickly mustangs take to training.

I recently came across someone who stated they'd never met a trainable mustang, nor one that was good looking. They were pleasantly surprised by pictures of both Jet and Sunny, and seemed genuinely interested in knowing more about their trainability. You know me...think about turning the knob on the door and you'll have me barging right on in with my mustang love!

But back to the folks who came to visit...they haven't got a place to comment on their blog. I was so disappointed, as they even have a link here to the Diaries, and I wanted to thank them. So Zane and Holly, if you read this...Thank You for adding my blog to your links. And please, please enable comments to your blog so we can visit and tell you how wonderful we think you're doing. And be sure to know that I'll be sending folks who doubt a mustang to can be trained to see the quick progress of Algore (good golly, you crack me up with that name! And I really think you need to explain yourselves, lol!)

Five Things

The Ghost is now just a ghost of a dream.

Five things I’m pondering today.

First, why did I say I’d do a blog carnival about five things, when I can only think of four?

Second: I’m in mourning. The Ghost horse was sent to Utah, along with that stunning red roan. The Burns Corrals are being remodeled, so they’re holding tons of adoptions between now and the one up here in WA in June. Excess horses are being sent to other states. My two favorites were among them. Boo Hoo…

Third: I really like Sunny. Did you know that? I’ll be putting her up for sale once she’s titled (February 2008), and I think she’ll make a dandy all around horse. Not an all around show horse, mind you, but something that can be worked off of on a farm, or a nice trail horse, or some 4-H project. I don’t think she’s a jumper type, but who knows? Maybe even pony club.

Fourth: I wish I had a spare half million dollars. Don’t you? I’d like to completely re-do my fences, as well as subdivide them. Then I’d fence my neighbor’s property in. Afterwards, I’d put up a new barn. Nothing fancy, maybe just add onto the one we’ve got. And a truck and trailer…that would be such an awesome thing to have. Right now we're having to beg and borrow.

Fifth: We’ve booked another date for Quiet Storm. She’ll be visiting a local feed store in town the weekend prior to the Monroe adoption. The BLM sent me a gross of pencils, a bunch of postcards, and a handful of very neat pens to hand out. I think we’ll also make a few coloring pages for the kids, then when they’re given back to us, we’ll post them on the blog. I got that idea from Janey Loree at Mustang N Cowboys.

Sixth: Come to think of it, I do have five things! I'm going to be putting together some of the photos I've taken over the past couple of years of wild horses and put them into a calendar. Each Wedensday over at Carpenter Creek I hold caption contests; be sure to stop in and offer up your suggestion. Each winning entry will be put into a drawing and someone (or two?) will win a calendar!

Wild horses in Burns

Burns, Oregon

View from one of the highway passes in Eastern Oregon.

We're home from Oregon and the Wild Horse Corrals. It was great fun, but I'm happy to be back in my bed!

I must say that, after driving the passes from Northwest Washington over to Burns, Oregon, I have a great deal (more) respect for those who pull those trailers full of horses over them! It was all I could do not to get dizzy as a passenger; it can't be any fun pulling a trailer.

It was a one day drive over, so our second day we visited the corrals, plus drove to the Steens Mountain in hopes of seeing the herd there. I had a horrible headache, however, so we never made it through the complete loop.

Rocky cliffs near Burns, Oregon in the Steens Mountain area.

Gary and Kid...okay, in reality they were in the corrals working, but I couldn't resist seeing what they'd look like out on the range!

Horses on a steep hillside. Very little vegetation aside from sage brush grows here.

How many pictures can a person take of one horse? Well, if that one horse is this roan, the answer is plenty! That mane of his shone like flames in a fire.

There are currently approximately 200 horses left in Burns; by June they'll all be gone as the corrals are being repaired. Horses that haven't been adopted or sent to prison training programs will be moved to other districts.