Road Stories

There we were, kicking turds. It’s funny the kinds of things you find yourself doing in preparation for a photo shoot. I’ve pulled weeds, groomed horses, cleaned tack, set up jumps, rearranged panels, gathered cattle, trimmed trees…I even showed up early one time with two buckets of paint and went to work on a trainer’s obstacles for an article on trail courses.

Last September, senior editor Jennifer Denison and I were at Richard Caldwell’s facility in Alturas, California, getting photos for the training article series on vaquero horsemanship. It’s our cover story for the March issue. Richard has a nice arena. But it was my idea to do all the photos in his pasture, a small trap holding several horses. Even if those horses hadn’t been in the pasture at the time, let’s just say there was plenty of evidence that they had been there.

Horse people develop a unique tolerance for manure. No big deal if they step in it. And piles sprinkled throughout a pasture are almost invisible. But that tolerance completely disappears when they show up in a photograph. It’s like looking at a pretty sunset with those wind turbines on the horizon. Sticks out like a sore thumb.

So while Richard was getting his horses ready, Jennifer and I were walking around his pasture, giving the boot to dried piles of horse apples. There’s a technique to that, you know. If you kick a chip just low enough and with the side of your boot, it won’t break up as much and will go flying for 10 feet.

We got to laughing, wondering if Richard was watching us from a distance. What would he think of his two guests in his pasture, walking in eratic circles, holding their heads down and kicking dust into the wind? But I must say, we cleared an area fairly well. If you look a photos in the article “Handy with a Hackamore,” you’ll see Richard riding his horses in a pasture clean and free of horse chips…well, almost.

This winter, snowfall has been en vogue. Even in my home state of Texas, we’ve seen record snow showers. After getting an astonishing 14 inches at my house west of Weatherford on February 11, we’re experiencing more falling flakes today.

Texans aren’t used to this. Two weeks ago, I had to crawl onto the flimsey, shallow-sloped roof of my barn to shovel snow. It was on the verge of caving in. The horses were spooked at the cedar trees bent down from the heavy accumulation. Our road was covered in deep snow for two days (we don’t have very many snow-plows down here).

But it sure was nice to be able to get some good snow photos from the comfort of my back pasture. My wife hopped on her horse and rode around while I hammered out about 100 shots. Then I saddled a horse and we rode to the back of our property. Our horses snorted and acted like they were stepping into a different world, and so did we.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve returned my rental car covered in dust, mud caked under the wheel wells and dirt and gravel all over the floor mats. The soiled condition in which my rental wheels return is not out of disrespect. It’s simply inevitable that my photo shoots will take me off the paved roads.

You’d actually be surprised at the kind of terrain a Ford Focus can traverse. Bumpy gravel roads, rocky pastures and snow covered ranch driveways can all be negotiated as long as you steer, shift and hit the accelerator just right.

One time I got a pickup, which was helpful. Another time I was upgraded to a Mustang convertible. Nice. But most trips find me in a intermediate sized coupe. Nothing too exciting…until you have to go off-road.

It’s always surprising to me how many people think I have arrived in my own car. I have to explain that I’m a thousand miles from home, covered most of the distance in a plane, and “No, that is not my yellow PT Cruiser. It’s a rental!”