Well, I found Gladiator.
And maybe we should just get this out of the way right off the bat: Gladiator is a terrible band stallion.
Gladiator – lots of beauty & brawn, but brains? Not so much.
No really. I love Gladiator, but he is simply dreadful at his job. I cannot blame Fibonacci, Belle, and Spitfire for finding a different stallion to join.
But maybe I should start at the beginning.
Man that title sounds really over dramatic. Unfortunately, I went on a pun-filled Cream binge earlier today (the band, not the dairy product though I had some of that too) and consequently used up my allotted number of song references. Sorry, not sorry.
I like to think that Gladiator stays on the top of my list when it comes to visiting horses in White Mountain. The reality is that most of the time, Gladiator hardly even counts. I don’t find him so much as wake up, put my contacts in and bam! There Gladiator is.
One Sunday in October my truck broke down. So I walked up to White Mountain from Green River. Even in the most ridiculous of times, Gladiator has a way of showing up
I always have a mental checklist in my head when going to White Mountain. Documenting a herd of horses is not any more difficult than going places that I do not actively document, but it does put a slightly different slant on how I spend my days in the herd. In other herds my list consists of:
My checklist for White Mountain this past weekend looked a little more like this:
Saturday morning dawned cloudy and gray, but filled with promise. As my friend and I drove along getting a feel for where the horses may be, a fuzzy black shape appeared right off the road in front of us. Check off the first on my list! Fibonacci is the only black horse who stays so far South, so it had to be her. But the band Fibonacci had joined was obscured by the hill.
After a simply agonizing and suspenseful wait of… oh, fifteen seconds or so, I had my answer.
Oh snap!
I thought my last topic would lend itself to talking a bit more about Heaven’s temporary 2012 buddy, Ender. And yes, I may have named Ender with the hope of one day having an excuse to write a blog post titled ‘Ender’s Game’. I apologize for nothing.
Ender lives in interesting times. Regrettably, that is very much a curse. In 2010 and 2011, Ender was a thorn in the side of a powerful bay band stallion. It was hard to say whether Ender would be successful. He had the determination, but he also took some pretty bad licks.
Ender
Merry Christmas everyone!
It’s been kind of a rough year. That might explain why I have yet to post a fun write up in my blog this year. Every time I have sat at the computer and tried to write something, the words just won’t come out. I think it’s because of my grandpa.
Grampa was my rock. He was also the only person in my family who was interested in my “hobby”. Every time I came to visit, Grampa would want to know how the colt with the hurt foot (Flint) was getting on or if that crabby old horse (Gladiator) had won a mare yet. Not having someone to spin my tales to in person has taken the wind of out my sails a little.
But if ever there was a time to not be mopey, it would be today. So let’s talk about Heaven, shall we?
Before I start with the fun stuff I need to make a quick announcement: tomorrow I am heading up to the Pryors (yay!) for the first leg of my epic summer vacation (double yay!). So if you have been champing at the bit to purchase of my photographs, then you clearly have excellent taste. Kidding. What I mean to say is that the next 10 days would not be the best time to place an order. I don’t really care for how the website does the purchasing anyway, so I plan to try to get some photos up and selling on Etsy once I get back.
Now back to your regularly scheduled blog:
There are several wild horses who I label as my “favorite” horses. The problem is that tends to go against the meaning of the word favorite. Which is why I have an absolute favorite wild horse – Gladiator. He’s kind of like Cloud, only cooler. (Should I duck to avoid death glares and airborne projectiles after typing that?)
Gladiator is a bay roan stallion up in White Mountain. I don’t know when I saw him for the first time, but last year was the first time I really took notice of him. It was a lovely morning in the first week of June and quite a few bands had congregated in a lovely little meadow.
