Today is the last day of our blog giveaway, and I’d like to announce that our winner is Bethanyy! As a faithful reader of CowgirlDiary.com, she wins a $25 gift code to use on HorseAndWildlifeGifts.com, a really neat website that sells all kinds of equestrian-related merchandise and decor. The giveaway was in celebration of this blog’s one-year anniversary, and I’m thrilled to be starting another year with lots of fresh ideas, helpful horse advice, and some really great horse stories.
My excitement stems partially from our just getting back from a good visit to Idaho where my parents live. We had the opportunity to help them move their cattle up to summer pasture in the mountains, and it is an all-day cattle drive, so I have seventeen miles of beautiful photos to share with you, not to mention a bunch of good stories. I love visiting my family out there—the scenery is always beautiful, the air is so fresh and clear, the horses are inspiring, and it just feels good to be around the folks who know me best.
Riding someone else’s horses often gives me a clearer vision of what I want to do with my own. On the drive home, I filled a couple notebook pages with plans and lists of what I want to accomplish (oh, and I also read that stack of horse magazines that I just haven’t had time for—thousand mile trips are great for that!) and also just talking “horse” with my sister and her friends gave me a mental boost.
In this post, I’m just going to give you a few photos from our trip. I have about 200 to share, and I plan to post as often as possible, so check back each day for more. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. My camera leaves much to be desired, but I’m happy that we got to see these sights, and happy to have a way to share and preserve them.
This is my sister Karmen on her AQHA gelding Challis, working along the edge of the herd to direct them. I was riding Belle on the other side, keeping the lead cows pointed to the northwest towards a gap in the mountains.
This is a friend of the family, Chuck Babb, who brought his horses and son to help with the cattle work.
Here is one of the mountain landscapes I captured on horseback. It is exhilarating to think of how vast and wild these places are, and how few people have the privilege of viewing this exact spot in the universe.
This is my dad riding his faithful horse Red. He was heading up to move some cattle that were grazing in the sagebrush ahead of the herd, and we didn’t want ours to get mixed in with them. Red is an amazing powerhouse of a ranch horse, he must have covered 25 or 30 miles that day.
