[Cordillera Cowboy]

How beautiful! I'll bet you miss it.

I do. I love the people here. I haven’t seen them for over 2 years. But the goodewyfe’s sister lives in the plain vanilla suburbs. I try to stay busy writing. We do have some appointments to update IDs and such, and getting some medical stuff taken care of since I can’t use my Medicare in the Philippines.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

It’s Christmas Eve in the US, Christmas Day will dawn in a few hours over the Philippines. We are visiting our US family for the holidays.

Here is my mother-in-law by the Christmas tree in the home of my sister-in-law in Virginia. The tree is a potted calamansi tree brought indoors to protect it from the winter freeze.

 

[whisperbaby22]

Merry Christmas to you all.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

we are still in Virginia for the holidays. Spent Christmas in the southwestern part of the state with my side of the family. We had our family Christmas party on the 27th. That was the best day to get everyone together. All of my several siblings were there, with their kids, and their kid’s kids. It was funny to watch so many heads turn when some little one yelled “Grandpa!”

Aunts, uncles, and cousins were there as well.

There were 3 bonfires going. One, off away from everything so the kids could roast marshmallows.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

We rang in the new year in Virginia with the goodewyfe’s family. House full of people and mountains of food.

Sitting in Detroit now, waiting for the 2nd leg of our flight back home to the Philippines. We have over 20 hours in the air, plus layovers, then a roughly 6 hour hump over the mountains to home.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

We made it home. We got out of the US just before they shut down all the flights.

Approximately 20 hours in the air. A 6 hour layover in Detroit. About 7 hours in a van from Manila to our student boarding house in Bayombong, then a bit less than an hour getting organized into our own pickup truck and up to the ranch. We arrived there about 8:00 AM Wednesday, local time.

We unpacked and had a bit of breakfast. The goodewyfe went to check her gardens, and speak with the folks working there. I went down to the barn to see things there. One of our helpers had already fed the horses. So I piddled around a bit. The crew had cleared some brush around the barn, and kept the inside nice and clean. I was pleased with that. The horses noticed I was there and started hanging around. I gave them each a bit of rice bran and checked them out. They seem well.

Since we’d had a late breakfast, we skipped lunch and did a bit more organizing. We sat down in the easy chairs about 2:30, and zonked out until the wee hours. We had a bowl of Cheerios and coffee. The goodewyfe went back to organizing, I went downstairs to get some more sleep.

I got up about 6:30. The goodewyfe had not slept any more. We had a proper breakfast and went about our normal chores. At lunch with the crew, we discovered that it was Thursday, not Wednesday as we still thought. I guess that jarred us out of our jet lag.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

Today I fiddled around with our saddles. I took the blue plastic stirrups off of our Filipino style saddles.

I put a pair of rawhide covered stirrups on the goodewyfe’s saddle.

And a pair of bent wood stirrups on mine.

I had taken the bent wood stirrups from my antique Hope saddle. They were replaced with solid wood, brass studded, Mexican style stirrups.

 

[knightrider]

It's nice to go away, but isn't it lovely to be HOME!

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

It's nice to go away, but isn't it lovely to be HOME!

It certainly is.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

It’s good to be home.

This morning was foggy

And the sunset was gorgeous.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

More settling in. Filipino breakfast this morning. Eggs, langanisa sausages, and fried bananas.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

Busy day today. I was planning to have a little ride, but the horses didn’t come in to the barn for breakfast. I wasn’t worried. If they are on the far side of the pasture, it can take a while for them to come in after I whistle. I did my cleanup chores, but still no horses by the time I finished up.

I was mostly worried that they may have breached an internal fence and gotten into the standing corn. I called Dennis, our manager, who said they were not in the corn. He started walking down the access road by our south fence line. I was walking about a half kilometer or more behind him. Dennis found them out on the access road eating banana trees. He continued on to find where they had gotten out.

I caught Skippy and put a halter and lead on her. Rode back to the barn with Pinatubo following. I put them in the corral until we get the fence mended.

The goodewyfe drove down to get a haircut this afternoon. She found a dump truck dropping gravel in preparation for paving another section of the one lane road on the other side of the river. She managed to squeeze by. But we sent a day worker down to shovel out a pathway for the pickup when she comes back.
Once they pour the concrete, we are stuck until it cures. I’ll ride out tomorrow morning to see if the road over the mountain in the other direction is passable.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

I rode Pinatubo up the mountain to see if the road that way is passable. My first concern was the muddy places, especially in the forested parts. We’ve had no significant rain for about 7 days now. The mud wasn’t terribly bad. But there is a tree hanging across that will need to be removed.

We had heard that there was road construction in that direction also. But Filipino descriptions tend to be short on details. I found that the lane and a half road towards the main road was being cemented. Crews usually work on hall of the road, leaving the other half open for traffic. But this crew was using the “open” half of the road for their stockpile of sand and gravel. Bottom line is that both of our routes off the ranch will be closed off soon.

Right now, our plan is to stage the goodewyfe’s SUV on the town side of the construction. We can drive down to the construction with the pickup truck, & change vehicles. Tomorrow we will drive through and pick up a supply of rice bran for the horses. It’s no fun lugging 40 kilo sacks between vehicles. While we’re at it, we will stage the other vehicle.

Hopefully, they won’t start pouring cement while the pickup is on the town side of the construction.

One of the muddy spots, and a fuzzy pic of the down tree.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

We took the pickup to town one last time before we are blocked in completely. Picked up some heavy stuff that would be a pain to carry the length of the construction (roughly 75 meters), 2 sacks of rice bran, some cooking gas, and groceries for a barbecue we’re planning for tomorrow. We staged the goodewyfe’s SUV down in the barangay (village just across the river). So now, when needed, we can pony express between vehicles until the cement is poured and cured.

One of our ranch helpers walks up from the barangay in the mornings. He reported that the road was passable. By the time we got there, they had dumped another load of gravel right in the middle of the road. We were able to get by by climbing the shoulder of it in 4 wheel drive.

When we got back this evening, they had dropped 2 more piles in the road. They were also in the middle, even though there was ample room on the side to dump it leaving room for light vehicles. We called our helper to bring a shovel when he came down the hill.

A neighbor produced a broken piece of PVC pipe. I used it to start scraping gravel from the side of the first pile in our way. Another neighbor came out with a shovel and went to work on the second pile. Our helper arrived with a shovel and started knocking down the third pile.

Between the shoveling and the space on the side, I was able to wind around and out with the 4 wheel drive.

At any rate, we now have a workaround for our first world problem in a third world environment.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

Still catching up on barn chores. This morning I drained and scrubbed the horse trough. I let it set for an hour with about an inch of bleach water in it to kill the algae, and drained it again. I refilled it from the rainwater cistern.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

We were out of town for a couple of days. Went down to the Subic Bay Freeport for some business. We got back late yesterday to the news that Adobo, one of the ranch dogs, had been missing all day.

Our fears were that she had wandered off site and been snatched up for a traditional drinking snack of dog meat. The practice is supposedly banned by law, but it does still happen.

We were in the big communal kitchen having coffee with Imelda, our primary all around helper, when I heard some dogs barking near our house. Snoopy, our other dog was with us. One of the voices sounded like Adobo, so I went to investigate. I whistled for her as I walked towards the house.

About halfway there, I saw Adobo, followed by one of her frequent suitors. The boyfriend hung back, because I tend to toss rocks at him whenever I see him. Adobo came to me with her head and tail hung low, as if she was embarrassed to be caught out with her lover boy.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

Adobo hasn’t been around all morning. This afternoon, I heard dogs barking in the pasture. I took a look and saw Adobo with 2 suitors. One was a dog who’s been around before. The other was a shaggy fellow I haven’t seen before.

The new guy was barking at the horses. Pinatubo was stoically ignoring him. I knew he would have big problems if he got within range of her hooves. Skippy was advancing on him at a jog with her head down and ears back. On our early rides off property, I had taught Skippy to chase dogs. The dogs wisely retreated.

When they circled around to the house, I tossed some slippers at them and they scattered. But I knew they would rendezvous again out of sight.

 

[lb27312]

are puppies on the horizon??

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

are puppies on the horizon??

No. She’s been fixed, but still comes into heat. So the boys come a calling.

 

[Cordillera Cowboy]

The view from our house this morning. The river of clouds in the valley.