About 15 years ago Bob and I took a vacation and went down the Oregon Coast. We love the Oregon Coast. But that is not what this story is about. We decided that on our way home we would to to the Hermiston, Oregon Horse auction. We were just putzing down the highway. We thought, we would have lunch in Burns. Off to the north side of Highway 395 there was a sign - "Wild Horse Corrals". The tires went uuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrch and the car made a U turn.
Al little back ground here - when Wild Horse Annie first began her campaign to stop the random murder of the wild horses, I was one of the many school children to write letters. In the 50's thousands of children wrote letters which helped stop the eradication of the mustangs. Bob and I were, are and will be horse nutty and we had been reading about the mustangs. We had talked about going to see them for some time.
So the car spun around and we pulled in to the corral parking lot which was the first of many times though the years. And we were in love. We met Lloyd and became friends with home. We walked and walked around the corrals and looked at all the beautiful horses. One big buttermilk buckskin caught Bob's eye. She was obviously pregnant. Lloyd said she would be going to an adoption in the next couple of weeks to western Oregon but if Bob wanted to fill out the paperwork, he would submit it to the BLM.
We went on to the Hermiston Auction, it was fun but our minds were on the buckskin mare in Burns. We got home, Bob prepared to have carpet tunnel surgery and the telephone rang. It was Lloyd calling to tell Bob he could adopt the mare but would have to be there on Tuesday, the day after his surgery. So, the day after his surgery he and our son in law headed for Burns and picked up Christmas Valley Sand AKA Sandy. She was from the Paisley HMA. She was beautiful but never really learned to trust us. Six weeks after she came to us she surprised us with a beautiful buckskin colt. We were surprised because she had not bagged up or any other of the signs we were accustomed to. The colt was sweet and grew up to be about 15h3 and weighs about 1200 pounds.
About 10 months later came Pepper. I will share his story another time. He is my fat boy plodder from Riddle Mountain HMA.
Anther time we went to a Kiger adoption. It was our anniversary weekend and I wanted a Kiger filly. I had picked out 5 or 6 but they all went for more than I wanted to pay. Bob bought the last filly to go through the auction. She was a five month old dun filly that I named Cricket. After the adoption auction we went out to the corrals and looked around. They had a buddy horse program - buy one and get another for 25.00. Bob looked and looked. He picked our a pure black filly we named Abby. So home came the two fillys. Abby was 2. She is from the Sheepshead HMA.
Cricket grew into a beautiful mare. I eventually gave her to my grandniece Caroline. She went to live in Massachusetts and when the family moved to Mississippi so did Cricket. We gave Abby to our wanna be granddaughter Katie. Abby still lives here.
We now also have Raven who came from Ravendale, CA HMA, Rusty from Beattys Butte, Liberty who belongs to a neighbor who moved to Wyoming and lift her. Also boarded here is Coyote Ice Cream AKA Cody from Coyote Lakes HMA, and Amelia that was abandoned up by USK, WA. my sisters husband has adopted her but she is living here. She is from the Ely, Nevada area.
We sold Sandy and still have Wrangler. Also since I wrote this I adopted a 15h1 black and white pinto mare from the Paisley HMA. She is Sage that I have written so much about.
We have been BLM volunteers since our first visit to the corrals. Mustangs are like potato chips, you can't just have one.
Blessings
