Rancho Vista LLC, now located in Dolores, Colorado, is a teaching ranch, providing quality instruction in horsemanship, mule handling, and driving since 1997.  Complete document editing and writing services are also available. 
 

Riding instruction at your own barn or at Rancho Vista. 
Serving  Cortez, Dolores, Mancos, Lewis, & Arriola. 

Rancho Vista Moments

9/13/2008 - Each morning after I feed or turn out the horses, it's time to set irrigation water for the day.  Sweet Pea--that's the little tortoise-shell cat--always knows when I go and appears from behind a clump of grass to supervise.  She walks up and down the ditch and field with me everyday.

It's still cool mornings and the water can be cold.  It's an old ditch and flood system with rocks and boards and dirt clods for gates.  The work gloves go on and off, on and off, as I have to get my ands in the water or warm them or dry one off when Sweet Pea comes close enough for a pet.

Ditch water is a puzzle--where it goes, how fast, how much--and sometimes I just sit in the grass and watch the morning until the water fills a different side ditch.  I watch how much the grass has grown and what is blooming and what weed need to be pulled.

When it's set for another day, I start back for the house and Sweet Pea streaks by me, off to her next adventure.