January 17th, 2009

A Day on the Farm

The drive to the grandfather’s farm was about an hour, however, if the roads were paved it would probably only taken half an hour. It was in a valley between some of the “hills” here. Slightly warmer, the vegetation was a little different with some of the more tropical looking trees. At the house, there were about 5 dogs: a german shepherd, a boxer, a smallish scruffy dog (that helped with the recruitment of the horses and cows in the fields), a dachshund and her puppy. There were several chickens and two birds that were gray with white spots, not quite sure what species they are. There is a pet parrot that lives in one of the trees in the yard and talks as well as fans itself with leaves from the trees. If you go down into the valley a little more the working farm begins. There is a lot of land with at least 20 cows and 5 or 6 horses.

When we first got to the house, we stopped in to say hi, but then headed to the actual farm where Danny ran into the field and hopped onto a horse and corralled the rest into the stable. Then the grandfather showed up, gathering the cows into the corral. Sara and I stayed out of the way and watched the gents lasso a couple cows as they could get sprayed for ticks (one of the few insects I DON'T like). Then the three of us got on horses, I was the only one on a saddle, and headed down the hill into a valley where a river runs through it. It was so peaceful and wonderful! The only complaint I had was that the horse I was riding was new and still needed a little bit of training so we had some disagreements, but other than that he was beautiful!

We went back to the stable and gave the horse back to the grandfather, so he could ride home and have a way to get to the farm the next morning, and the three of us went to the wide spot in the river. It was so pretty! I put my feet in the water and it was heavenly! I had brought a change of pants with me, but they were at the house. The water was too amazing to say no, so jeans and all I got in the water! Danny and Sara thought it was so cold, but to my and my standards being the rivers and ocean of western Oregon, this was perfect! Their goosebumps made me laugh! We finally clambered back into the car to go home for lunch.

The day was really fun! Hopefully we can go back, a couple times, and do more riding. We hadn 't given them much notice so there were no extra saddles in the stable, causing Danny to ride a rather bony backed horse, bare-back. I really like this family.

Hugs,

K