Barry has his herd of horses down by the pond, and on our way back up I tried to use some of the natural horsemanship skills I learned in Lillooet to entice Black Jack to come over to me. He is such a sweet horse. He hasn’t been ridden yet, but Barry is going to work with him this summer, hopefully with my help. Soon many of the horses were lining up to get their necks scratched and their mane de-burred, even the little donkey, who is usually quite shy.
You can see a couple of Barry's white horses in the distance.
The dim lights of Gold Bridge from the side of the highway into town.
On Saturday I went out to Winterfest, which was held on Little Gun Lake. There were about a hundred people, locals and weekenders, a few folks that I even recognized up from Lillooet. I participated in a “poker run” where you have to find jars with numbers in them. You have to collect numbers 1-5, representing the 5 cards you get dealt once you make it back to the table with the five slips of paper in hand.
There was ice fishing and a hockey tournament, and even curling with homemade stones (pieces of wood painted and outfitted quite expertly). I also got pulled along by a snowmobile as I rode one of those skate ski things. I was pretty good at it actually; kind of like wakeboarding. One guy commented as I finished that “none of my teachers could ever do that!”
On Saturday night Ken, Shirley and I were invited to Barry’s beautiful log home for dinner, and I listened intently to his stories of life up here. He’s a great grandfather, raised his family on this land and even buried his parents in the yard of the property his son owns down the road. The place has changed a lot in his life; he has spent his lifetime up here, working with horses out on the land. So many stories. It's amazing to be at a crackling fire listening to a real old-time cowboy talk about the horses he's had, about the days working up in the mountains, out on the land for weeks at a time. No one but you and your horse and the wild, wild outside.
I’m hoping to bring the kids on a spring fieldtrip here to see Barry round penning the green horses. We can also teach them about caring for horses, how to brush and feed them, the life-cycle of a horse, and maybe we can all go out on a little trail ride. It’s going to be really cool to work with Barry and his horses over the warmer months. I’m eager to practice a bunch of the natural horsemanship skills I learned from my days in Lillooet. I have been sincerely missing my time working with Jane and the lovely Aurora!
Today I spent most of the day writing, as I have to submit a piece of work for peer-review in this writing course I’m taking. I cracked open a journal and typed out some rant about living in the darkness in the attic of one’s mind. Not exactly children’s literature, but hey, I am writing for myself first. Emotion-crazed teens might love it, but that’s not even the point at this stage. At the moment I would just like to “finish” a piece of creative writing. So yeah, that’s where I’m starting. I also worked a bunch, but that's not very exciting. Although, I do have a piece of exciting news: I am getting a new student tomorrow!!!!!! She is a wonderful young lady whom I worked with at my teaching post in Lillooet. Super excited to have her in our little school. Five kids! If I get another student I'll have to count them on two hands!
Sanford and I went for a long walk today, and we tracked a cougar all the way down to the river. Things were going smoothly while the cat was on the trail, skirting the trees to enable it to walk where the snow was thinnest. Then suddenly the prints veered off and vanished into the snowless woods, straight down a serious embankment. One thing about Sanford is that he is a bit of a wimp with going down steep hills (it’s probably my fault for dragging him slipping and sliding down hillsides to investigate the old mining equipment and abandoned shacks I find in the most peculiar placements). It took us a few attempts to find a trail that was animal-worn enough to be up to his navigational standards.
Cougar versus Jacquie
Cougar versus Sanford
The trail we took swiftly turned into an old road, now grown in with pine trees twice my height, and I found some more pieces of mining machinery left to rust and eventually become re-absorbed by the mountains that produced the metals to manufacture them. Such unnecessary waste. If things broke down around here during the boom times, it seems they were simply left wherever it was they decided to stop.
Sanford waited for me while I poked around the crumbling foundations we stumbled across, and then we continued on our exploration of the new trail. We made it all the way down to the river before we met up with the cat tracks again. We followed the animal along the edge of the riverbank until it found a spot to leap across the river on the pods of ice built up on top of the rocks in the middle of the river. No cat sighting today, although that's next to an impossibility with a St. Bernard on my heels. I suppose that's the way I like things, although wouldn't that be SO COOL to see one lapping at the swift water across the river from us.
Cat tracks along the river.
And the trail jumps away...
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