Cowboys, Dryers, and Patience, Oh My!

New Years Eve Darryl went up in the canyon west of town to help a neighbor move some cows. He took Sarah. She hasn't been around cows much and he didn't know what would happen. She also hasn't been ridden much lately, due to the weather, so that added to the unknown of the ride. She did pretty well except she got really, really tired. These pictures are not in any order. In the above photo Darryl has left the group to ride over to the fence where I was. I drove out there to check it out.

Here he is rejoining the group he was riding with. Those are real cows out there and Sarah didn't mind them at all. I suspect one of them will be in our freezer next year. Okay, half of one. We just got our beef for this year a couple months ago. This is healthy, clean beef. Not like the stuff you get at your local grocery store. Our neighbor raises a few head for friends that want it. This year we had the option of having some of the beef made into sausage and bacon. The sausage is great! We have not tried the bacon yet.

Darryl isn't in this group but it's some of the other guys that went along to help out. Yup, real cowboys. Right here. In a beautiful spot. I drove on down the road to the campground to see if they allow horse camping there. It's about 20 miles on a very windy road. But it more rugged than most people think. They look like gentle rolling hills from either side but there's some rough country between the Valley and the Bay Area. I took some pictures that I'll post next time.

I took this so you could see how sweaty Sarah was. She's a flat lander. The hills were a bit much for her but she'll get used to it. When Darryl first started training her she wouldn't even go in a small ditch or up a tiny rise. Like from the road to a field. She didn't know how. She's learning.

And here is my favorite cowboy in all his glory. It's like when he's riding the tractor. He says he "working" when I know he's having the time of his life.

Okay, now for the dryer. You know those paddle sort of things that are attached to the inside of your dryer and they help tumble your clothes around? One of mine broke! It looks like one of the screws holding it on came loose and that stressed the other attachment point which then broke. Lucky for us Maytag designed this particular dryer so everything can be accessed from the front.
Darryl fished out the missing screw, looked up the parts on line, and I ordered the baffle today. It's $7 for the part and $18 to get it here in 2 days. Overnight would have been $10 more and the next option down would have had the thing arriving next Monday. Too long. No it's not available locally. So I figure that's still a pretty cheap fix for the dryer.

I remember when I bought the laundry pair being concerned about the size and durability of the washer because we wash horse blankets, tons of towels, big rugs and regular laundry. It never occurred to me to question the dryer. I have no idea why. They are both older now and still work just fine.

As for patience...I just got the new Vogue Knitting magazine in the mail and finished this post instead of stopping to flip through the pages. Not only that, I got not just one but two knitting catalogs in the mail today. I'm having a cup of tea and a magazine break as soon as I hit "publish post".