by Bobbi Phelps
Before moving to Sky Ranch, I hadn’t a clue about team roping. I had only been to one rodeo in my life and that was at Madison Square Garden in New York City when I was about ten.
Since I’d been riding since I was five, I wanted a horse of my own. With that in mind I rummaged through classified ads and talked about buying a horse to anyone who would listen. On my trips to town, I’d see Larry’s beautiful black horse grazing in a nearby pasture along with a few other horses and several cows. As I passed the field on 4900, I saw that Smoky’s long tail almost touched the ground. He looked like he was not only a Quarter horse as Larry had indicated, but also part Saddlebred as his mane and tail were so long and thick. He stood as if carved from ebony among the other animals, none of them with any shelter no matter the weather: pouring rain, blowing snow, or blistering heat.
I told Mike of my conversation with Larry, and that I wanted to have a horse, whether it was Smoky or not. We had the space and I loved to ride.
“Okay,” he said. “I’ll have Mario and Melvin construct an electric fence around the back.”
Besides two acres of lawn, we had five acres behind our house. There would be plenty of land for one horse to roam. Since the ranch used center pivots to irrigate most of its land, each corner of a field covered seven acres. Sometimes a ranch family built a house on the corner, sometimes it would be put into alfalfa, and sometimes it was left unseeded, or fallow. Two men, along with Terry, had already constructed a small barn. The slate-colored enclosure had a box stall, inside lights, a heated water trough, and an outside light illuminating the entrance. Dirt covered the floor and a four-foot-wide opening allowed for easy access. Any horse I bought would be able to walk in or out as it pleased.
“Hey, Dean,” Mike called on our landline. “Want to help us catch Larry’s horse? Bobbi wants to buy it.”
“Sure. I’ll be right over.”
Mike fetched Shamrock’s lead rope, and the three of us ventured to Smoky’s field a half mile away. Mike left his truck and ducked under the barbed-wire fence while Dean walked to the gate. With a handful of oats in a plastic bucket, Mike shook the container and called to Smoky. Being curious and loving oats, Smoky walked right to him. As the black horse licked the bottom of the bucket, Mike attached the lead rope to Smoky’s leather halter and led him through the metal gate. I shifted to the driver’s seat while Mike and Dean planted themselves on the open tailgate, their long legs swinging below. Smoky stood patiently behind the pickup, waiting to respond to whatever happened next. I drove slowly to our house with Smoky following at a trot.
Mike walked Smoky to the field and let him loose while I retrieved my camera. Smoky ran back and forth across the front of his enclosure, neighing and prancing. He had left the other horses in our neighbor’s field and felt unsure of his new surroundings. While Mike and Dean surveyed Smoky, I photographed him. He held his head high, his mane flew upward in the wind, and his tail soared out behind.
“That’s one beautiful horse,” Dean exclaimed. “Glad I could help.” He turned and climbed into his pickup.
Dr. Bob Monroe arrived that afternoon in his white veterinarian vehicle, strewn with medical supplies. Bob stepped from his truck and joined me in the barn to examine Smoky. He checked his teeth, nose, and eyes; tested his feet; ran his hand over his spine and down his legs; and took his temperature.
“Walk him around for a bit,” he requested. “Then have him trot.”
I held onto the lead rope, led Smoky outside the barn, and did as he asked. After directing Smoky to walk and trot in a small circle, I brought him back to face Dr. Monroe.
“I think you’ve got a good horse there,” he said. “But if he stayed in your neighbor’s field without any shelter, he wouldn’t live another two years. With a barn and good food, he should give you at least eight more years.”
Before he left, he gave me a piece of advice. “Never leave him with a halter on when he’s out in the field. I’ve seen too many horses get their hoofs caught when they’re scratching their faces. That can be damaging and even life threatening.”
After Bob disappeared down our dirt road, I practically danced to the house. I immediately telephoned Larry Adams and told him I’d bring a check over in a few minutes. I was so excited, I couldn’t stand it. Once I returned from Larry’s house, I called Mike on the radio.
“Mike. Smoky’s ours,” I shouted with glee. “Please thank the guys for their help with the barn and pasture. Clear.”
I snickered to myself as I strode to the barn, skipping and laughing before I ducked under the hot-wired fence. Although I had owned a horse for a summer in high school, this was different. I now had a beautiful horse trotting around our pasture, one that I would have for years. Throughout the small barn, I arranged all my horse products. One basket held rags and another basket held a rubber curry comb, a stiff bristled brush, and a metal mane and tail comb. I then moved to the tack room within our shed and hung an English bridle, my half chaps, and a crop. The English saddle I had purchased from Vickers Western Store in Twin Falls already sat on a V-shaped mount, extending two feet from the wall and covered with a cotton dust cloth. Everything was in order and ready for Smoky.
After I had jogged back to the pasture and Smoky had calmed, I steered him to the side of the barn where Mario had dug a hole and inserted an eight-foot-high pole in cement. I attached his halter to a nylon cord, dangling from the post. His chin whiskers tickled my fingers when I gave him a carrot. He stood patiently while I brushed him and attempted to untangle his mane.
“Such a good boy,” I murmured as I touched him and moved around the large gelding, always keeping my hands on his body so he’d know my location. “I’m going to take such good care of you. You’ll love it here.”
After a thorough cleaning, I led him back to his pasture. While I had been brushing Smoky, Mario had brought in a tractor with its front scoop filled with a large bale of hay. The rectangular bale was four feet wide, four feet high, and eight feet long. It weighed about a ton. I held out another carrot and Smoky stretched his neck and gingerly took it. I rubbed behind his ears and he made a funny humming noise, his lips quivering in what looked like a smile. He seemed to be absolutely content, purring like a cat.
In all my excitement, I had completely forgotten dinner. I had been too thrilled with Smoky, the barn, and the tack room in our shed. Luckily, I could always fall back to salad, crackers, and a thick bowl of spicy chili, one of Mike’s favorites.
After a few days had passed, I called my nearest neighbor, Marsha, on our landline.
“Want to go riding?” I asked as I stood in the kitchen, looking out at Smoky in the pasture behind our house.
“How about Saturday afternoon? My chores will be finished, and the kids will be in Twin with their Dad.”
“Great. When and where?”
“Let’s meet between our houses, about two o’clock. We’ll ride to the gravel pit,” Marsha said.
And so we did. After lunch on Saturday I gathered Smoky from his pasture and walked him to the barn. Once inside, I pushed the metal bit into his mouth, checked the cheek straps, and pulled the leather headpiece over his ears. What a fine-looking horse, I thought as I gripped his forelock and twisted it over the browband. Once Smoky was bridled, I threw a saddle blanket and English saddle over his back and bent low to grab the girth strap and cinched it to his saddle. Before venturing to Marsha’s house, I rode him around his pasture, removing any quirks from his temperament. As we cantered down the dirt road, blowing tumbleweeds crossed our path and spooked Smoky, causing him to dance and twist. Marsha waited for me as I reached the halfway point.
“What’s this?” Marsha said as she laughed at my English riding outfit and black helmet.
“I’m so glad you’re not a wannabe cowgirl,” she remarked. “There’s no mistaking you for a city slicker.”
“I’ve been riding since kindergarten,” I stated. “I feel a lot more comfortable with an English saddle and bridle. The helmet
is used for safety. It’s the way I was raised.”
“Good for you. I’ve never seen anyone riding like that out on the range,” Marsha said. “Obviously, you’re doing fine.”
We cantered down the rest of the road with dust puffing out behind us and turned left and trotted up a rise on the rutted trail. The gravel pit extended north from her house, between BLM land and the Moss farm. We threaded our way into the depression and emerged on the other side, surging forward and loping along a path deep into government land. As far as we could see within our remote valley were tawny cheat grasses and teal sagebrush. The land seemed to go on indefinitely. Not another tree or any water in sight. It was void of roads and we melted into the sandy-colored basin. After dismounting, we walked in the sunshine among the different grasses with our horses trailing behind. As we moved further into the prairie, we stopped and listened. There were no sounds, no vehicles, no birds chirping, and no animals howling. This was the silence of the land. A sweet scent of sage sprang upward. I bent and looked at the subtle prairie. The closer you were to the land, the more you saw and smelled. Beautiful blue sky with puffs of white clouds floated lazily east toward the mountains. This was freedom. Not a care in the world.
“If we continued another couple of miles, we’d spot parts of the Oregon Trail. You can see a few deep grooves in the rocks near Milner. Thousands of wagons passed this way,” Marsha said as we remounted.
“I was told you can also see wagon ruts near Murtaugh Lake,” I said. “Especially in the winter after harvest. Amazing.”
As shadows fell and the sun began to set, Marsha said, “Time to turn back. I have dinner to make and I haven’t even started.”
“Oh, dinner. That nasty word,” I said as we turned our horses toward home.
* * *
From the day I bought Smoky, I switched him from Western tack to an English saddle and bridle. Instead of neck reining, as a rider does with Western tack, I used separate reins to turn Smoky’s head. English riding also means posting up and down while the horse trots instead of sitting and bouncing in a Western saddle.
And I switched his riding style to comply with what I knew: figure eights and jumping. I put on work gloves and used a wheel-barrow to bring in a few dozen cinder blocks to create a small riding ring. The concrete chunks were only eight inches high, but it gave Smoky an area to limit his paces. At least twice a week, I rode him around our end of the ranch and then into the ring. By shifting my weight and pressing his sides with my knees, he learned to walk, trot, and canter in a figure eight within the cinder-block circle.
During a subsequent month, I decided to try jumping Smoky. I took six logs and laid them on the ground about two feet apart within the ring. I mounted Smoky and asked him to walk over them. He had no trouble and his feet never touched any of the logs. I next placed some cinder blocks on their sides and raised the logs eight inches. Again, he did fine. I moved the cinder blocks to a standing position, like a squad of soldiers, and put a log on top. Smoky easily trotted over it. He had handled everything perfectly so far. I thought, Why not?
Christa, Mike’s daughter, played in the house with Matt while I rode around the ring. Oh, how I wished she and Matt had looked out the window when I attempted to have Smoky jump a fence. I dismounted Smoky and made a barrier about two feet high with an assortment of cinder blocks and two horizontal logs. Taking more logs, I created wings on the side of the hurdle, just like they do at professional horse shows. Now that everything was to my satisfaction, I put my foot in the stirrup and pulled myself up. He quivered with excitement as I arranged the reins. Once seated properly, I cantered Smoky slowly around the perimeter of the ring and then turned him to the middle. We were a team. Both of us moving as one. As we came to the hurdle, I cracked the crop on his shoulder and leaned forward, my hands on his neck.
Just as we approached the hurdle, Smoky abruptly stopped. I, however, flew skyward. My body performed a complete somersault, my feet snapped over my head and my legs stretched straight into the air. I plunged downward and touched the ground with my feet together, exactly like an Olympic gymnast. Smoky landed right beside me. He had decided to take the hurdle a nanosecond after he had unexpectedly stopped. We stood next to each other, looking into each other’s eyes, gasping and puffing.
“Gosh, Smoky, two old bats and we sailed over the fence just fine,” I said. “Next time, let’s do it together.” Smoky was not going to get away with that maneuver again. After remounting, we walked around the perimeter and both calmed down. Once we had settled, I had him canter the circle again and turned him into the jump. Just before we came to the hurdle, I gave him a sharp crack on his flank and kicked both sides with my heels. I felt the heave of his muscles and Smoky shot forward, surging toward the horizontal bar. He flew over the jump with room to spare. Patting his neck, I released the reins and let him leisurely walk around the circle.
“What a good boy, you are,” I said. “I am so proud of you. Yes! I knew it. We’re definitely a great team.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Grasshopper Infestation and Hay Fires
“What’s going on outside?” I asked Mike.
“It’s grasshoppers and they’re ruining our fields.”
We had never seen anything like it. It was 1985, and millions of grasshoppers were inundating Magic Valley. The flying swarms ate crops by the hundreds of acres, chewing their way from field to field. It reminded me of the Biblical locust invasion. Eventually, the government stepped in. Idaho State standards specified a dangerous level when eight grasshoppers arrived per square yard. The newspaper reported there were over two hundred grasshoppers per square yard!
You couldn’t avoid them when driving. They covered the road. One afternoon I ran a few errands and drove from Sky Ranch to Murtaugh, picking up supplies at Mark and Barb’s Grocery Store. As I moved along the paved road, my car crushed their hard, shell-like bodies. The noise loudly reverberated and sounded like cracking china plates as I maneuvered around the worst of the green-brown piles of carcasses.
On the return, the squished bodies across the pavement become slick and slimy. My vehicle actually slid across one section of the road. As I drove down 4900, I saw a huge military plane fly close to the ground over nearby fields. Its camouflaged fuselage looked like a flying dinosaur while it sprayed killing chemicals over the farm lands. Ultimately, the infestation abated, and Sky Ranch continued to endure. Its crops had survived.
* * *
“There’s a hay fire on 4900,” I heard someone call over the ranch radio. I listened in the kitchen to what our farm employees were saying.
“The hay stack is about a mile from the highway. I think it’s spontaneous combustion. Clear.”
I looked out the front door but could see nothing to the north, not even a smoke trail. Nevertheless, I was curious.
“Hey, Matt. Want to go see a fire?” I asked.
“Where?”
“Not sure, but it’s on 4900,” I said. “Let’s check it out.”
I bundled our four-year old into his car seat, tightened the straps, and walked around to the driver’s door. After snapping on my seatbelt and backing away from the garage, I headed out our driveway and started north on 4900. Then I saw dark smoke rising in the distance. As I drove closer, I saw an orange glow, ominous and threatening. I turned to the left and approached the giant inferno from a different direction. Sparks from a large haystack blasted into the air. It looked like the farmer was letting the fire burn out. There were no other vehicles nearby and the stack was in a plowed field, not close to any structures.
Once Matt and I advanced toward the burning hay, hot air struck the car windows. We were some eighty feet from the compressed stack, yet we could feel scorching heat inside the car. I backed up, not wanting to get any closer as flames shot upward from the middle of the bales. After a few minutes of staring and commenting, we drove home.
As Mike walked into the kitchen that evening, Matt ran to him, wearing his toy fireman’
s helmet, its siren blaring. With his arms outstretched, Mike reached down and lifted him above his shoulders.
“What’s up?” he asked. “Has Mom been cooking?”
“No,” I said and scrunched my face toward him. “Why does every fire mean I’m involved?”
“Well, look at the odds,” Mike countered as he placed Matt back on the floor and took out a cigarette.
“No. I had nothing to do with this. It’s about the hay fire on 4900,” I said while scrubbing a few potatoes for dinner.
“I heard about that. They said it was spontaneous combustion,” he stated as he drew in some cigarette smoke, slowly exhaling it upward.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Mike walked to the kitchen table and sat down. I brought an ashtray and sat across from him. Matt raced between the living room and the kitchen, still wearing his fireman’s helmet. Then he stopped to hear his father’s explanation and turned off the siren.
“They probably cut the hay when it was too wet. After a rain, we’d roll over the rows of alfalfa, letting air dry the hay. Then we’d bale it. They might have baled the hay too quickly, before it was completely dry.”
“Why would wet hay cause a fire?” I asked.
“Wet hay absorbs more moisture than dry hay,” he explained. “Water is made of oxygen. You know, H2O. Oxygen is flammable. Hay acts as an insulator, causing heat to rise within the bale. Then a fire starts.”
“Has Sky Ranch ever had one?”
“No. We’ve been lucky. But we’ve also made sure the hay is completely dry before it’s baled.”