patches

Alas, it's the circle of life.

Within the first two weeks of being here, I had to help Linde and Slim move Cheyenne to the horse graveyard. And I really hoped that would be my first and last experience of that while I was here.

However, this being a dude ranch and needing old trusty horses, I knew that would probably not be my fate. Unfortunately though, it wasn't one of my older horses who passed.

Patches was, I would guess, in his early 20s, which, compared to Dusty who is 37, was pretty young.

Patches was one of my favorite horses...although I do have a few. He was great because you could put a kid on him and he would be the gentlest horse. Or you could put an experienced rider on him and he would be responsive and fast. He was awesome!

But as fate would have it, he got skin cancer. Dan had it removed last December, but these things come down to business decisions and we couldn't afford to pay to have it removed again 6 months later.

I was telling Justin how bad I felt for Patches and Justin reassured me that Patches would let us know when it was time for him to go, when he was in too much pain.

And just as Justin promised, there was a night I walked through the paddock, saw Patches, and just started crying. I knew he was done.

I was fortunate enough not to have to take part of it, but Dan did make, what I considered, the best decision and put him down.

Patches will definitely be missed.