unusual weekend, with visitors

We had visitors on Pi day. A whole herd of Holsteins! One of the two year old Holsteins got into the lower horse pasture. Our horses were not amused. Brad said Nemo turned into a dragon. I missed the earlier excitement, but knew there was trouble in paradise when I saw Harmony running frantically. 

Our son noticed heifers coming through our woods. They crossed the lower hay field and eventually rambled onto a nearby neighbor's pasture with Hylanders. You may recall when they visited us. The Hylanders, not the neighbors lol.

3.14.26

There is only one Dairy Farm near-ish. We played telephone tag with a farmer friend that knows them.

Hylander imposters
waiting for their owner to arrive

We did not let the herd out of our sight. It would be a nightmare if they backtracked and broke our fences. Loose cows AND horses, no thanks! Do you think the Hylander owner/s came out to help? Nope. Not even when the herd was in their pasture, very close to their house.

The Holsteins belong across a large farm behind our property, and down a dead end road. A fair distance from us. 

The farmer and Brad mostly redirected and drove them with four wheelers. Our son however was on foot most of the time. He did the hard running/redirecting work. I was transportation and (not much) herd reinforcement.

back home where the escapees belong

That evening we celebrated Pi (aka Pie) Day!! Brad grilled Jerk Chicken. We served it with salads and seasoned tots. I made my son's fav dessert. After all that running, he deserved it.

Turtle Pumpkin Pie

Like many of us, we woke up to the start of a Winter Storm on Sunday. I tried to attend my grandsons State gymnastics tournament. Shortly after leaving home, I turned around and headed back. Thanks to technology, I was able to watch his events via video and Face-timed during awards. 

thunder, sleet and roads were pure ice

Our horses did not get turned out on Sunday, but enjoyed stall service. No less than three times. Koda was happy to have company.

Heading to the barn for round two of chores
3.15.26

6 seconds

As you can see, our barn is well lived in!

Koda, Purr and Tank

Leo & Hope

If you are in need of a smile after unwanted cold-n-snowy Winter weather, watch this: 

a work in progress

(11 secs of Hope)

More cold, wind and snow graced us on the following days. Dog walks ceased. It was not safe in the woods and deep snow freezes their legs.

We had snow and drifts in unusual places.

inside looking out
3.16.26

Brad spotted another unusual visitor. A Mink!! Odd. We are a distance from water. The black weasel looking thing ran out of an unattached PVC pipe. It was laying next to the barn. Not far from the human barn door. Yikes! Minks are nasty. Needless to say the PVC pipe got relocated. Hopefully the mink did also.

Horses went outside later that morning for snow much fun. They were full of it. I was busy and had to settle for phone photos taken through windows. 

nemo & harmony

cierra wearing snow war paint (after a good roll)

serious conversation about who Hope belongs with

hope is a tease

don't mess with mama bear



what hope thinks about Winter

the painted trees were absolutely stunning

Good news, we are already heading back to Spring like weather! 

land of wonders ~ december

December on Hidden Cactus Ranch started out much like November closed out. With snow, happy dogs, and snow shoe walks.

 

Tankee 12.1.25

Tank, Remi and Jameson

12.2.25

snow much fun (6X in December)

a snowy porcupine

Nemo is always concerned about my poles

12.3.25

Nemo (22 secs)

Grand dog Jameson turned a corner and is holding his own for now. He is on a raw dog food diet, and a couple meds. He has gotten so skinny. On cold and windy days, I put our old dog Sam's winter coat on Jameson (clipped up).

Heading down to the pines (18 secs)
12.5.25

Our weather turned cold(er) and we didn't go out on walks. I just can't leave J behind. 

Jameson on his fav bed
12.7.25

While flying high in the sky on our way to Vegas, I enjoyed different land views.

Brad said these are crop circle patterns
12.10.25

mountain view from Denver airport

I was in awe of the detailed texture, patterns and rich colors of the desert.

Nevada

It was below zero when we returned from vacationing. Purr was not amused.

12.14.25

A welcome return to gorgeous land sunset views...

close-up

...and more snow shoe walks.

12.16.25

whispy clouds

ground fog 12.18.25

Having recently returned from NFR Cowboy Christmas, we thought it was ironic when this swag bag arrived from Snake River Farms. Brad occasionally orders specialty meat from SRF.

As long as I am off the land topic, I wanted to share an updated photo of my most treasured plant. You may recall the Christmas Cactus I have had since I was 17. It was temporarily relocated to our bedroom in order to have space for a Christmas Tree. It is now 54" wide!

For a couple days, our land wasn't so wonderful. We had wild high winds and warmer temps. It melted and turned our snow into messy slush. What I call ugly snow. 

Jameson's mom took him to her new home for a few days. It had been a minute since it was safe to be in our woods. It felt odd to walk them with only one dog.

12.22.25

mother natures pruning

There were tons of deer tracks all over our woods. As if they held a dance party during my absence. Have you ever noticed some melting deer tracks turn into heart shapes? Beauty can be found in every situation. If you are open to it. I found so many heart shapes!

follow your heart

After Christmas Eve with our family at home and Christmas Day at Brad's parents, we welcomed the stillness of natures fog.

Cierra 12.26.25

We enjoyed a shorter slushy walk in our Enchanted Woods area, after the fog lifted.

Leo and Jameson

Hope & Harmony waiting to come inside
12.26.25

The closing of December was sparkly. Sparkles were literally blowing sideways past our windows. Glimmering reflective light crystals are one of the hardest things to capture. Much prettier than the video clip.

flying sparkles (7 secs)

On our last walk of the year, we found the winds had helped Mother Nature do some tree trimming in our woods. 

A large oak tree with a split had shifted. It needs to either finally fall, or get cut down. Which I understand is a tricky tree situation. I've been watching this tree get increasingly dangerous for years. The split is now complete and reaches the ground. The left arrow points to the trunk split. The arrow on the right points to a large hung up tree sized branch. Waiting to fall on someone’s head. It will not be mine, or our dogs. We turned around and will refrain from walking that part of our Y path. 

big two-trunk tree 12.30.25



little down branches

 

big down tree

Our grand dog Remi is a Bernese Mountain Dog that upon occasion goes rouge on our walks. She is very (very) routine oriented and stubborn. See the black dot at the bottom of the field, near the tree line below? We were going to walk the Western part of our property, but she likes to head north to the pines. So she did. By herself. I looked up from putting my trackers on my boots, and I couldn't believe where she was. Wow, that dog covers ground like a ranch dog!

In order to get Remi to stop, I hollered. Pretty sure they heard me in town. She plopped down to wait for us, as she often does. Sigh. I don't need her walking the woods alone. Remi might look like a bear with a big bark, but is fairly helpless. Although she might lick you to death.

12.31.25

see, Remi’s drop-n-plop

12.31.25

This my friends closes out not only December, but 2025 land of wonders. Onward.

more than photos

We do more with Hope than take photos of her. Throughout the months, we have continued working on daily handling and desensitizing. For various reasons, in various ways. Safety is at the top of our list. For her, for us and for those who help with her care. 

We felt Hope needed some fine tuning on putting her rear legs down nicer etc. Our Farrier recently had back surgery. We want all our horses to be really easy for him to trim. Not just pretty good. Because we asked, he suggested using a rope to lift and desensitize her legs further. Not just our hands. He mentioned we are probably lifting/picking her legs the same way every time, and he does it different. Good point. Leg placement/adjustment is also part of showing conformation. Everything should be done with ease.

We never did end up using the rope lifting suggestion. We do (still) make sure to change up how and where we lift her feet. Ropes of course are wonderful and useful for a lot of different training. Hope doesn't seem to take issue with wiggly ropes. In fact she likes some ropes a little too much. As with most youngsters, she frequently tries to put lead ropes in her mouth. This is something we continue working on. 

Our vet was out for Spring shots and said "she is still looking fancy". He was really impressed with Hope, more so with how she acted. In preparation for shots, Brad worked on desensitizing. He started using prickly brushes and progressed to poking her with a small screw driver that was sharp, but not too sharp. It worked! She didn't even move when the vet did a blood draw. Hope taped at 574 lbs.

3/19/24

If interested, here are some clips of Hope learning (day one):

moving hip away from pressure
2/13/24 (11 secs)

other direction (11 secs)


rope desensitizing (6 secs)



start to lunging (22 secs)

My skilled hubby recently whipped up a bridge. A good first step to upcoming trailer training. The very next day a swinging gate appeared in our arena. It will be useful for his show practice. They no longer allow rope gates in Ranch classes. 

I watched him walk Hope through the gate the first time with little to no resistance. She briefly paused, then walked through both directions. I don't have any visuals. I think I was holding my breath in anticipation of what might happen. I told Brad that Hope is going to make him look like a world class trainer lol. He is doing a really good job with little Miss Hope!

new arena obstacles
3/26/24

second evening session
3/25/24 (20 secs)

other direction (17 secs)

All the training continues. Including morning walk-a-bouts. Walking off bridge, paying attention, standing still, me leading etc. The following day Hope met the dreaded tarp. I walked into the arena in the morning to find Tank helping out. Apparently, this was a big improvement over her first reaction (backing up) to the tarp.

3/26/24 am

On the other hand, Brad's cat Purr was not as helpful. She decided to play with the tarp, diving under it etc. Great for unexpected trail training, but it was a little too much to start off with lol.

3/26/24 pm

I kicked the animals out of the arena and helped. We ended the first day with Hope putting her two front feet on the tarp, standing still. She willingly walks across the tarp for both of us now, and stands on it. I can tell she is not 100% sure about the weird slippery crunchy randomly lit thing that moves.

We can't leave the tarp out, because my other horse likes to pick it up and shake it all over. Hence the white patch of tape. Some peoples horses never grow up. Sigh. I wonder what Hope would think about Koda and a flying tarp. We will leave that lesson for another day.