The Wagonteamster Channel has it’s first video production - Journey To the Valley Of the Wild Horses

Wagonteamster

WAGONTEAMSTER .COM

9/19/12, Honey Lake, CA (Coord. N. 40 deg, 15.910 min; W. 120 deg, 28.404 min)

This was one of those really special days on the wagon.  The lads and I got a chance to visit an elementary school, then went on to meet some terrific people all day long.

This morning, before I left the retirement home, I was visited by Dede, a teacher at the Richmond school, located just south of Susanville.  She invited me to visit their school and talk to the kids. I made my way slowly across town, stopping often to talk to people and let other kids see the horses.  The two Belgians were pulling and Bill made sure they set a good pace.

At 10 am, i pulled in front of the school as the kids were filing out. The teachers did a great job keeping the children lined up so I could safely approach with the horses.  I really enjoy these sessions and try to make them as interactive as possible.  Having some rather large horses that really like kids, it’s easy to keep everyone involved. I talk for only a short time and try to ask a lot of questions.  Being a rural community, about a third of the children either have horses at home or interact with them somehow.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story of our visit to the Richmond School.

I started out by introducing Doc to the school.  Each of the children got a chance to pet him.  Doc is the undisputed master at moving around the small folks and really loves it. Next came Bill.  He’s doing a good job of adopting Doc’s ways and runs a close second.

Some of you may recognize this young lady from my blog a couple of nights ago. She is Bob and Nancy’s granddaughter, who along with her brother did a daring horse-transfer the other night from Bill to Doc. She also helped me out by driving Bob and Bill off the pole so I could tie them to the side of the wagon.

Both Doc and Bill loved the experience of hundreds of young hands reaching out to pet them.

You can see that nice peaceful look in Bill’s eye as I led him from one group of kids to another.

In this picture, I have both of Bob and Nancy’s granddaughters up on Bill.

Somehow, I think these young ladies and gentlemen enjoyed the visit.

The teachers at the school showed their appreciation by donating to me three large bags of sweet feed - Thank You.  I really enjoyed my visit to the Richmond School.

Leaving the school, I followed Richmond road back to US 395. After lunch, I pulled on to the highway and once again started my trek towards Reno. Traffic was fairly heavy but a wide shoulder made for easy travel.

This was a pretty neat looking old barn on the way out of town.

A lot of folks pulled over to chat, including a couple of people who made some nice donations to the travel fun - thank you.

After pulling a large hill, Bill, my 2 o’clock horse got tuckered out. After putting up with his baby steps for 15 minutes, I stopped the wagon and swapped him out for Doc. With a fresh horse out front, we once again started making some good time.

A very nice horse owner who donated to the travel fund.

A nice family who had an opportunity to meet the team.

I figured out why Bill wanted to walk behind the trailer - he wanted to scoop up some of Doc’s action and get the pretty girls on his back!

The mountains on the south side of the Susan River Valley are covered with ponderosa pine, which was a welcome change to the juniper covered hills that I traveled through further to the north.

Tonight, I have a roadside camp about 15 miles southeast of Susanville.  Not long after I settled in, several visitors started showing up. We ended up having a little roadside party with a bunch of folks that started out being strangers, but left good friends. While all this was going on, some good people brought gifts of hay, food and beer.  This was a real pleasant evening.

The young fellow I’m sitting next to is the Son in law of Retired Fireman Don, with whom I had dinner last night at the Senior’s Home (it’s a small world).

Tomorrow morning I have a two mile trek to refill my water jugs and eat breakfast.  This is compliments of some of the good people I met tonight.

Yup, this was a banner day!