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by Dennis Bright I always look forward to the longer, warmer days that come each year with the arrival of spring and after this past winter, I'm sure you can understand why. One of the rites of spring around the Bright Ranch is the return of the beautiful flocks of Redwing blackbirds. With their brilliant scarlet red crescents emblazoned upon their wings, the males woo the solid black females in their annual courtship which turns the trees and barns surrounding our house into one huge blackbird nursery. Every morning I awaken to the enthusiastic chirping of hundreds of the these Redwing romeos outside our second story bedroom window. Already the birds have started their nest building and within the month I'll be rescuing babies who have fallen from the tree tops. This is an especially tough time for our two cats, "Stinky Stanley" and "Crazy Ernie", as the birds become very territorial around their nests. Every time the cats cruise through the backyard they are dive-bombed by the blackbird kamikaze squads. In all honesty, the cats have been known to do a little nest poaching on occasion. Our cats two personalities' are distinctly different from each other. While "Stanley" prefers to lounge lazily in the barn and wait for the mice to come to him, "Ernie" prefers stalking his prey out in our front pasture. "Stanley" resembles a skunk with his large frame and long black and white hair (hence the nickname "Stinky.") He considers himself the barnlord and the mice who live in the oat hay his tenants/appetizers. "Ernie", on the other hand, is our local tough guy, always on the lookout for other feline intruders as he patrols the borders of the ranch. He spends his days sleeping the hours away on "his" couch in the house and when I hear the howling and hissing of a late in the night, I know he's defending the ranch turf again. The past two weeks our daughter Katharine (now 3 years) has been spending more and more time outside enjoying the warm spring days. She is already horse crazy and loves to ride her donkey "Jenny" as I lead her around. When Katharine is asked if she wants to go for a ride, she gets a big smile on her face and rocks back and forth like the motion of a jockey riding a racehorse. I often try to imagine the lasting memories that she'll have of her early childhood. They're bound to be filled with an abundance of the sights, sounds and smells of our rural, ranch lifestyle. After a long hiatus, my wife Kristin recently renewed her riding lessons with her private trainer (yours truly) on her horse "Katrina" this past week. Like many of our lesson students, she prefers to ride when the sun shines! She did great and really enjoyed the opportunity to ride once again. The demands of motherhood and running a growing business have kept her out of the saddle for the last couple of years . Our goal is to ride together once a week when Grandma comes over to baby-sit and by the time summer arrives, we'll be ready to go trail-riding together up at Mt. Madonna Park. Thanks to everyone who called and stopped by to visit our colt "Stormy". He turned one year old on the eighth of April and has developed a very outgoing personality. He is the type of independent colt who is always pushing his limits with the other horses. "Stormy" doesn't hesitate to run off and hide around the corner of the barn to play with the older horses. He is also known to give "fly-by". nips to students and grooms that wander through his corral. "Stormy" is a lot of fun and this past month he learned how to lead as I take him to and from our front pasture. We had an excellent turn out for our Horsemanship Seminar last month. This was the first time we tried a three day format. Friday evening we had a ground class and set our individual goals for the week-end. Saturday we formed teams based on the experience level of the horse and rider and worked on riding exercises until sunset. Dinner with the group that evening provided a good forum for talking about the events of the day. Sunday, the teams continued working, and the confidence levels of the riders rose to new heights. Over the course of the week-end the riders learned many things about riding and about themselves. A few friendships were formed and the riders learned that from each other that they were not alone in their experiences. Now that Spring is well and truly here, we're looking forward to long warm days of riding and getting ready for our Cattle Working Seminar in June. Last modified: Sunday, July 28, 2002 |
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