Wayne in BC
New member
Someday whenever the Spring breaks through
Warm as the wind, soft as the kiss of snow
Till then, my sweet, think of me now and then
Godspeed, my love, till you are mine again.
From Dr Zhivago, Lara's theme, one of my all time favorite songs, if you liked it also, it will be in your head for a while now ..........
A rare warm Oct 20th some two thousand feet or so above the upper Saskatchewan river, deep in west central Alberta and that is what i was humming while leading my horse back and forth across and up a steep slope dotted with boulders and slippery patches of exposed limestone.
The ancient trail, used for probably for centuries by game and men alike, had been eroded and washed out too much to chance staying in the saddle. Only a few yards to the top of the slope now........ warm as the wind, soft as the kiss of snow ........ SUHHHHNORT!!! and me being suddenly swung around by my grip on the halter shank! Landing on my back, my first thought as i struggled was, "the frigging rifle is in the scabbard"! In those moments i was sure we had blundered into a Grizz cause my good horse was pitchin a serious fit, all nutty eyed, hopping and vibrating, he was all for dragging me back down the nasty slope with him!
Get him calmed down! yell "whoa you sonufabitch!" real loud to make an impression and hopefully tell whatever awful critter which spooked him that it has maybe bit off more than it can chew....just maybe, i hoped. I lunged up and grabbed the Ruger after several seconds of dancing the three step and avoiding hooves, all the while looking in every direction at once for trouble! Now do i let go of this dancing snorting idjit to get a round in the chamber? Nope take a chance with a quick wrap around my arm with the halter shank cause i know he will run full tilt down the mountain and kill himself, costing me the few hundred i would soon get for him from the meat buyers
Locked and loaded now and i still could not see no Bear or bogeyman anywhere near us Neither could the glossy dark Crossfox who stood on a rock 20 feet above and looked real puzzled why a 1200 lb hoss was acting so nutty! Yep, soon as this hunt is over your going to the meat market you dumb bastid!!!! Panicked about a dang Fox popping up??!! Of course i had said that to him so many times that he weren't worried a bit and he still eyed the Fox suspiciously, sure that it was a horse eating Fox and what did i know about it anyway? "Homer" didn't much care, his curiousity was satisfied and he foxtrotted off, he was up for a Ptarmigan hunt someplace where these goofs had not scared them all away.
some day whenever the spring breaks through..........
Another little crisis avoided by the steely eyed , four eyed, and mostly lucky guide, so we bashed onward and upward to the home of the Bighorns. No huge trophy Rams on the agenda, today i had a Ewe or Lamb tag and was thinking braised Sheep ribs. Bighorns do not much taste like mutton and are some of the best eating game anywhere. I stopped on a knoll and set up my spotting scope, pointed back down at our camp across the other side of the meadow below the mountain i was on. My buddy was there with his spotting scope and would now start giving me hand signals to indicate where the herd of Bighorns that i would not be able to see most of the rest of the mile of stalk were and if they were moving. Time to tie the idiot horse to a stout little scrub pine and hope a hungry Grizz came along while i made the rest of the stalk afoot ..........
You'll come to me out of the long ago......
Maybe old pony hated that song, having been tortured with it more than a few times
The next hour or so and a couple more stops to check with my bud had me 200 yards away and slightly above the herd of Sheep. They grazed on a slope just below the talus slide i was perched in.
Now i had not gone to all this trouble just for a lil mountain Sheep who might weigh 80 lbs field dressed. It was a side trip of opportunity while we were hunting Elk and i need to back up a bit.
Two days previous at daybreak my hunting partner had shot an Elk in the meadow half a mile from camp. It was now hanging under a bushy Spruce near the tents after spending a night in the creek to get the body heat out. (and attract Bull Trout for the frying pan ) Freezing at night but 60+ degrees during the day, it needed shade. We were fixing to hunt the same herd of near 30 head that young Bull had come from. That night we heard the Cows chirping and Bulls bugling a mile east of us, we were up well before daylight and set out on foot but a couple other hunters had come in on horseback. We did not know that until several shots had boomed out . Kinda ticked us off because that herd would be long gone now but they had every right. We then planned on moving a few miles west to hunt but leaving camp where it was. I knew the Sheep were there and saw them every day so the plan was laid for me to make a quick Sheep hunt, taking the horse up to haul the game back.
I had lots of time to look over the herd and felt kinda silly because they had spotted me and were mostly ignoring the critter leaning on the rock. As i scoped them to choose a volunteer several sets of eyes like binoculars met mine in the scope
I would hike back down now after field dressing, get the Hoss and ride/walk to my game, a nice two year old Ewe.
Lifting and securing the critter across the saddle was tough and i nearly halved it, then the brain kicked in and dragging it up onto a hump first did the trick.
That horse was always good about packing game and not bothered by the blood like some so i reckoned he could have a reprieve from the packers......this time!
Somewhere a hill blossoms in green and gold
And there are dreams, all that your heart can hold..........
Warm as the wind, soft as the kiss of snow
Till then, my sweet, think of me now and then
Godspeed, my love, till you are mine again.
From Dr Zhivago, Lara's theme, one of my all time favorite songs, if you liked it also, it will be in your head for a while now ..........
A rare warm Oct 20th some two thousand feet or so above the upper Saskatchewan river, deep in west central Alberta and that is what i was humming while leading my horse back and forth across and up a steep slope dotted with boulders and slippery patches of exposed limestone.
The ancient trail, used for probably for centuries by game and men alike, had been eroded and washed out too much to chance staying in the saddle. Only a few yards to the top of the slope now........ warm as the wind, soft as the kiss of snow ........ SUHHHHNORT!!! and me being suddenly swung around by my grip on the halter shank! Landing on my back, my first thought as i struggled was, "the frigging rifle is in the scabbard"! In those moments i was sure we had blundered into a Grizz cause my good horse was pitchin a serious fit, all nutty eyed, hopping and vibrating, he was all for dragging me back down the nasty slope with him!
Get him calmed down! yell "whoa you sonufabitch!" real loud to make an impression and hopefully tell whatever awful critter which spooked him that it has maybe bit off more than it can chew....just maybe, i hoped. I lunged up and grabbed the Ruger after several seconds of dancing the three step and avoiding hooves, all the while looking in every direction at once for trouble! Now do i let go of this dancing snorting idjit to get a round in the chamber? Nope take a chance with a quick wrap around my arm with the halter shank cause i know he will run full tilt down the mountain and kill himself, costing me the few hundred i would soon get for him from the meat buyers
Locked and loaded now and i still could not see no Bear or bogeyman anywhere near us Neither could the glossy dark Crossfox who stood on a rock 20 feet above and looked real puzzled why a 1200 lb hoss was acting so nutty! Yep, soon as this hunt is over your going to the meat market you dumb bastid!!!! Panicked about a dang Fox popping up??!! Of course i had said that to him so many times that he weren't worried a bit and he still eyed the Fox suspiciously, sure that it was a horse eating Fox and what did i know about it anyway? "Homer" didn't much care, his curiousity was satisfied and he foxtrotted off, he was up for a Ptarmigan hunt someplace where these goofs had not scared them all away.
some day whenever the spring breaks through..........
Another little crisis avoided by the steely eyed , four eyed, and mostly lucky guide, so we bashed onward and upward to the home of the Bighorns. No huge trophy Rams on the agenda, today i had a Ewe or Lamb tag and was thinking braised Sheep ribs. Bighorns do not much taste like mutton and are some of the best eating game anywhere. I stopped on a knoll and set up my spotting scope, pointed back down at our camp across the other side of the meadow below the mountain i was on. My buddy was there with his spotting scope and would now start giving me hand signals to indicate where the herd of Bighorns that i would not be able to see most of the rest of the mile of stalk were and if they were moving. Time to tie the idiot horse to a stout little scrub pine and hope a hungry Grizz came along while i made the rest of the stalk afoot ..........
You'll come to me out of the long ago......
Maybe old pony hated that song, having been tortured with it more than a few times
The next hour or so and a couple more stops to check with my bud had me 200 yards away and slightly above the herd of Sheep. They grazed on a slope just below the talus slide i was perched in.
Now i had not gone to all this trouble just for a lil mountain Sheep who might weigh 80 lbs field dressed. It was a side trip of opportunity while we were hunting Elk and i need to back up a bit.
Two days previous at daybreak my hunting partner had shot an Elk in the meadow half a mile from camp. It was now hanging under a bushy Spruce near the tents after spending a night in the creek to get the body heat out. (and attract Bull Trout for the frying pan ) Freezing at night but 60+ degrees during the day, it needed shade. We were fixing to hunt the same herd of near 30 head that young Bull had come from. That night we heard the Cows chirping and Bulls bugling a mile east of us, we were up well before daylight and set out on foot but a couple other hunters had come in on horseback. We did not know that until several shots had boomed out . Kinda ticked us off because that herd would be long gone now but they had every right. We then planned on moving a few miles west to hunt but leaving camp where it was. I knew the Sheep were there and saw them every day so the plan was laid for me to make a quick Sheep hunt, taking the horse up to haul the game back.
I had lots of time to look over the herd and felt kinda silly because they had spotted me and were mostly ignoring the critter leaning on the rock. As i scoped them to choose a volunteer several sets of eyes like binoculars met mine in the scope
I would hike back down now after field dressing, get the Hoss and ride/walk to my game, a nice two year old Ewe.
Lifting and securing the critter across the saddle was tough and i nearly halved it, then the brain kicked in and dragging it up onto a hump first did the trick.
That horse was always good about packing game and not bothered by the blood like some so i reckoned he could have a reprieve from the packers......this time!
Somewhere a hill blossoms in green and gold
And there are dreams, all that your heart can hold..........
I am happy that you gave that horse another chance to redeem himself. 
