The Tale of
Ali the Brave and Savanah the Bold
and
the Wildest Pigs in Wilder Ranch
A couple of weekends ago, Bonnie suggested that Big Al and I join
her and Savanah for a ride in Wilder. I don't offer ideas on route,
since I'm usually totally immersed in staying aboard,
rather than paying attention to where I'm going - so every ride's a
new ride for me. Anyhow, Bonnie suggested we do "Brian's Loop" - a
couple of hours with some good conditioning climbs.
Ride day was beautiful; clear and cool. My partners in crime are shown below - Vannie
on the left, Big Al on the right and Bonnie in the middle -
all were looking stylish, so we took off.
All was well until we got to the actual turn off to Brian's. Someone had
been pig trapping and there was a cage with 6 pigs in it: 3 full-sized and
3 piglets, and they were all irate. The cage (as can be seen from
the crime scene schematic below) was wire, so every time the pigs jostled, the
cage rattled. And the pigs were jostling. And all of them were grunting,
or however pig noises are described.
We rode up unaware, until Vannie and Ali started snorting, so we pulled them to a
psuedo-stop and looked things over. This was a stupid move because it gave
us all time to really see how angry the pigs were, and how ugly they looked. The Girlz were clearly in favor of cutting the ride short, sort of dancing and jigging
and snorting in concert with the cage full of pigs. Since I was going to give Ali a
treat at the junction, my saddle bag zipper was open. If you return to the scene, you
can probably find about 50 apple treats that she declined to eat in favor of hopping around,
hoping to end up pointing home, spraying treats at every sproing. So we turned around and
started to leave. This link shows the cage full of pigs on another
day - when there where only four pigs in the cage!
Then Bonnie said "This is too nice a day - Let's give it a try!" I am easily led, which
is how I got married, got a job, returned to school and involved myself in other ill considered
endeavors, so I said okay. We turned the horses around - okay we spun them and hopped off
when they were pointing the right direction - and led them by the cage, on the path to the
left, as shown on the drawing. Big Al was pretty good once she realized that I was willing
to walk between her and the cage. She just kept her nose pointed at danger side-stepped up
the trail. Vannie really felt like this was a major judgement error - she reared and hopped
all the way up the trail.
That's pretty much the end of the story. We got about 50 yards past the cage, came to a
halt and climbed aboard, and both Al and Vannie were cooperative - Whoo Hoo! They both
recovered nicely, and the return trip, on the other side of the cage was a non-event.
Great day, great adventure, great ride.
