9 Wild Horses. S Carol Johnson

      Winter in the Mountains

      Under the Family Tree

      Prologue

      Let’s get this out of the way at the very beginning. This is not a story about me. It is a story about trying to save a herd of wild horses from destruction by those that hate wild horses. But to understand the story I am about to share you kinda have to know a little bit about me. So here goes:

      When this journey started I had absolutely no horse experience at all. None. I had ridden someone else’s horse two or three times when I was in high school, but that was it and that was many years ago. I didn’t even know that a colt was a male baby and a filly was a female baby and that a foal referred to both. I didn’t know what a gelding was. I did know that the Lone Ranger’s horse, Silver, was a stallion and that was the extent of my understanding about stallions.

      I grew up on a farm in eastern Washington State with chickens, cows, rabbits, sheep, pigs, a dog and several cats. We had some fruit trees and a huge garden. We all knew that dad didn’t want creatures that didn’t earn their keep, so it never even dawned on us kids to think about owning a horse. It just wasn’t the plan. It seemed to me that horses were animals that rich folks owned and goodness knows, we weren’t rich or even close to it.

      I didn’t really have a plan as I started on life’s journey away from home. I was just taking it as it came at me. I had finished high school in a graduating class of 44 with the total 4 year student body being somewhere just under 200 kids. I always knew I was going to go to college in a small rural town in eastern Washington called Pullman – the home of Washington State University – it was about 65 miles from home and about that far from the largest town in the area, Spokane. Work opportunities for young women graduating from college at that time were limited in eastern Washington. It probably meant working in Spokane as a secretary or receptionist. Not that those jobs were bad jobs, but I wanted so much more. So when I graduated from WSU I didn’t stay in rural eastern Washington, I moved to western Washington where good paying jobs were much more plentiful for young women and I eventually started working in Seattle. Seattle was exciting to me (having grown up on a small farm) and somehow I felt I had become a real-life city girl – at least on the outside. I guess you could say the world was my oyster….

      On the inside I must have known the country girl was still there, yearning for expression – of some sort. But I stayed enamored with city life for years.

      That country girl surfaced again when, for whatever reason, some years later I started watching the Sunday Seattle Times want-ads (does anyone even know what that is anymore?) for rural property. As usual there was no plan – just looking to see what was out there. One Sunday morning I found an ad for some property in eastern Washington that piqued my curiosity – it was wooded, had a cabin and a stream nearby. I called the number and spoke with the realtor. (And that was one phone call that would eventually change my life forever.)

      The realtor I spoke with was friendly and full of information. He said he’d like to show me the place I saw advertised in the paper. So we (my brother, his wife and I) set up an appointment to meet with the realtor which meant driving over 5 hours to keep that appointment. I always kept it in the back of my head that this could be a wild goose chase, but we’d never know if we didn’t try. Following whatever force was at work, we headed over the Cascade Mountains over Highway 20 that goes through the North Cascades National Park, which was definitely some of the most spectacular scenery anywhere. After driving along the very winding and curvy high mountain highway we made it to north central Washington State so I could see this area for myself. Maybe it was the conversation with the realtor. Maybe I was ready to add another dimension to my life. Maybe I needed a weekend drive across the Cascades. I don’t know. But look at it we did.

      The realtor was amazing. I felt he was being straight with me and not sugar coating anything just to get a sale. That was pretty refreshing all by itself. He had a great sense of humor and was willing to drive us all around and answer my stupid questions if we were up to seeing the area. We left my brother’s car at the realty office and loaded into an old Jeep Cherokee. It didn’t take long to figure out why the realtor wanted to do the driving: many of the roads are more like cow trails than roads and the bouncing and jostling from the ride was significant!!!

      He took us to the property I had called about and I discovered that it had an older cabin, but was on very steep terrain and was not what I was looking for at all. Most of the 6 acres was hillside down to the creek far below. So the realtor drove some more and showed us some other properties. The one I really liked had a stream and a prairie and lots of trees – all on just 22 acres. It was perfect, but not in the cards for me because someone had already put money down on it and there was another party already waiting in case the first one didn’t work out. The realtor told me not to forget this piece because in these rural areas you just never knew what might happen. After driving over some of the most awful roads I had ever been on (roads that would have been better traversed on a horse) and seeing property with views to absolutely die for (360 degree views of the valley far below and the mountain peaks on the other side of that valley) but with no creek nearby and most with no trees, I left that day not thrilled with any other property and figured I’d just keep watching.

      Days later I got a call from that realtor asking if I was still interested in that property with the stream. I told him I was – I have never been sure what made me say that, but there were forces at work in this whole process that I’ll never understand. It turned out that both of the other parties couldn’t get the financing in place and it was available. Sold!!

      I was so excited that I was finally able to get back to my country roots to get away from the city noise, 24/7 lights and traffic everywhere all the time. To get away from the hustle and bustle. To find a way to be part of -- or at least closer to -- nature. Make note: You haven’t heard me mention anything about horses. Horses were not any part of this semi-plan – which, of course, really wasn’t much of a plan anyway.

      So much for plans or even lack of plans.

      First a note to self: Must be flexible.

      Second make note of a life lesson: Mother Nature has a way of offering up some version of a plan – doors will open and doors will close and choices have to be made…. don’t get too attached to any particular theme.

      Note: It is important for me to tell you, before we go any further, that, even though this is a sad story at a high level, on our smaller scale we are going to show you the very positive side of knowing, understanding, respecting, protecting and loving a herd of wild horses.

       When I first started photographing wild horses I had no idea I would ever need the pictures to help share their story. Some of the pictures are less than perfect, but they are what I have. The cover photo and some of the later photos were taken by Kat Gilles Photography and are perfect. Some were taken by forever homes on smart phones and also have their limitations. You will be able to tell the difference.

      Chapter 1 – First Encounter

      So if this isn’t about me, where are the horses? you are probably asking. Okay. Let’s get acquainted with this herd of some of the most beautiful, powerful and opinionated creatures this land has ever seen.

      It was a beautiful warm day in September of 2008 in the Okanogan Highlands in north central Washington State. The sun was shining and the sky was a beautiful blue with no clouds and no airplanes. This is the land I purchased and where I had been vacationing for quite some time. The altitude is 3286 feet and the mountains rose up all around me. There was a tree covered bank behind the house that led down to the creek and an open field that spread out in front of the house to the west. In spring the mountains would be snow capped and the fields and hills a beautiful grassy green, but by fall the snow was all gone and the fields were a golden brown – some because of lack