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almost forty!
    So a twelve-year-old Welsh sounds like a youngster. He could still have years ahead of him. Maybe the trouble with thispony is his name, “El Chapo,” the nickname of Mexico’s most wanted fugitive, Joaquin Guzman, head of the Sinaloa drug cartel, a mean and evil dude. Maybe the pony needs a gentle and obedient name, like
El Guapo,
handsome guy. Names often influence human personality, so why shouldn’t the same be true for horses?

    Saddling Up
Ladies Trail Lunch
    My good friend, the photographer Donna DeMari, is here for a visit. I show her my morning routine of haying, mucking, graining, grooming, and it is nice to have her help. The rain seems to be holding off, and I wonder how many more days we’ll have before the predicted deluge.
    This morning Helen is picking up Phil’s wife, Leslie Ware, in town and bringing her horse Bendajo over to ride with mine. I am letting Donna ride Barranca as I know he will puther at ease. While the clouds are building, the sun comes and goes, perfect sweater weather, and a good day for a lunch ride.
    The four horses feel like a herd moving out, going nicely up the hill toward Humboldt Canyon, but when we begin to canter, Tonka and Barranca jockey for lead position.
    Riding into the canyon, we anthropomorphize various tall standing rocks—one looks just like a Gila Monster with his eye on a little stone chipmunk across the way. This is a beautiful conifer-laden canyon with rock outcroppings of chartreuse and burnt amber. We spot a Madonna plaque high on the canyon wall, just outside a small cave that protects a statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Someday I’ll bring my tennis shoes and climb up there to have a look, but today we’re all wearing leather boots.

    Riding Out
    Last May, Mason and I drove the Ford pickup to the end of Humboldt Canyon to celebrate our anniversary. I brought along a picnic, as well as a nice bottle of Australian Shiraz that my son, Clovis, had sent from Sydney. Maybe it was the bumpy road that addled my brain, or perhaps I drank the wine too fast, but I got the spins, and had to walk back out, following Mason in the truck. The road never felt bumpy on horseback for some reason. Do horses have better shocks?
    Today, three of us are protected by helmets, but Helen is only wearing a baseball cap. This concerns me because several years ago she survived a terrible fall from a friend’s horse, bashing her head on a gravel road, ending up in a coma for over a week. But people out West rarely wear hard hats, as if they’re defying the possibility of an accident, defying gravity, so to speak.
    We ride on beside a little stream that trickles down through the canyon, and the dogs get a chance to drink. I ask Helen why she didn’t bring her Pit Bull, Brindie, and Helen admits, “I can’t stand the sound of her breathing.”
    At the end of this rolling trail, stiff green grass grows around a burbling spring that is always continually flowing. We loosen the horses’ girths, take off their bridles, and tie them up before settling down for lunch. I sit on a felled pine tree to eat and the sap sticks to the seat of my breeches. Once mounted, I find that I’m stuck to the saddle, so that when I stand in my stirrups, it sounds like ripping Velcro.

    Laura on Tonka
Cold Crotches
    It’s a brand new day—Donna and I saddle up early and head down the road to Blackwell Canyon. Though it is a very rough path, Donna is entranced by the intimate landscape, saying how she likes the grey light. A photographer always sees things differently. Now it looks like it is about to rain, but I think it might hold off. It seems like this storm is all anyone can talk about—we need winter rain so badly.
    Donna is having a good time on my best boy, but I am beginning to miss him, eager to let him know I have not forsaken him. Maybe I’ll go back to reclaiming him as
my one and only.
I don’t share my