On horseback in the California Swine Country

© Phetsy Calderon 1995
[from email August 9th, discussing chance encounters with wildlife while horsecamping]

[Me:]..Wild hogs! Yikes, but feral pigs can be horribly dangerous!

...Yup--in fact, I did an excellent imitation of a wall-eyed, spooky wild mare when my friend from Massachusetts, and certified loca (ex-eventer) casually mentioned "wild pigs."

"Wild pigs?! Do you mean wild pigs, or do you mean wild hogs (javelinas)?"

"Oh, they're pigs."

"Are they feral domestic animals, or are they really wild."

"They're wild."

"Excuse me?!! WILD HOGS? DO YOU KNOW WHAT WILD HOGS DO TO HORSES?"

"Yeah, they come over & the horses snort & then they share their alfalfa."

[aside:] Holy Santiago, do you do non-Catholic horsemen?

"No, that's not what wild hogs do. They outrun horses and disembowel them if they aren't in a good mood."

Well, I called, did some checking, felt it was safe to proceed, and we did spot some porkers. If they were wild hogs, they were the biggest such to walk the Western U.S. I think they were many-generation feral. Worst thing that happened was the reaction of my friend Cassie, who was camping, first time, with her horse. We were sitting around enjoying an excellent camp meal (many-veggie stir fry, chicken breast slices, topped with a wonderful tamarind chutney over brown rice. Good zinfandel on the side). Suddenly Cassie yelped "It's a pig! It's getting in the food boxes!"

"Oh fuffle," I think, "I'm not quite finished with my zin."

"Phetsy! What do we do?"

I'm not really in a hurry to get up close & personal with this thing, but...my morning coffee stash is over there somewhere. "We go see if this is a pig or a hog--slowly & carefully."

We approach. We stay well out of the pig's threat space. It's a sow, with her trotters in our tortilla chips. And it is obviously not a javelina.

Aw hell, I think, we're gonna have food scattered from here to Fresno. So Cassie & I went into the stomp-whistle-yell routine that you do to rid the vicinity of undesirable alien animals.

Sow looks at us, thinks "Eh. Usual Ineffectual Two-legs," goes back to rooting in the Doritos.

I'm wishing my mom were around with her .38 (she once dropped a wild boar in a German forest with a pistol), Cassie is getting exercised. "Phetsy, she's not leaving. How we gonna get rid of her?"

"I dunno, but if she gets in my coffee supplies, we're havin' fresh bacon for breakfast & my pocket knife's gonna be dull. Hey, Cassie, where'd you go?"

Cassie had grabbed a folding chair. She heaved it at the ol' pig & beaned her right on the snout. Pig snorts, squeals, starts scrambling away.

Then she stops & looks back at us--Cassie standing in front of me (she's got the lantern).

"Phetsy, she's looking at me."

"Well, shoot, Cass, if a cat can look at a queen..."

Cassie starts backing up. Into me. She's a couple inches & 15 pounds bigger, and not ethereal in her conformation. She's moving me back toward the hitching rail where her 15.3 TWH is hiding behind my 14.2 Arab.

Her horse kicks. And his butt sticks out past HRH Prince SquirrelFoot.

"Uh Cassie..."

"God that's a mean looking old sow...What if she comes back? Omigod what if she runs at us?! What about the horses?!!"

"Cassie, she can't see this far. See, she's heading to somebody else's food. Cassie? Cassie?"

Cassie is Not Receiving. She backs me up farther.

So I calmly stuck my right index nail in her flank and said, "Pass left, pass left, goood girrrl Cassie, pass left, Whoa."

She did a beautiful transvers to halt.

Only other thing that happened were a few Arab snorts--HRH Prince SF thought piggies stink--and the old sow came & rooted at my emergency tools kit, which was sitting under the pickup tailgate for the night. I yelled at pig to "Go away & let me sleep." She did. Oh, & SF undid both himself & Cassie's horse Rusty on 3 different occasions, so I ended up tying the buggers on bowlines & threatening SF with no ride if he did it again. He may not know English but he recognizes the I Have Had It tone...

Boink!

© Susan Evans Garlinghouse 1997

Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 18:45:57 -0700
CC: ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject: Re: Night Riding

Hi,

Well, trust me to have some dumb story for all occasions, even including night riding. The only time I did a ride at night was the '93 Western States 50, where they started you at 1 p.m. to do the last 50 miles of Tevis about the same general time of day (and night) that you theoretically would be doing it a month later at Tevis.

I rode most of that day with Jeff Wall and Rushcreek Rawhide, he was getting ready for the North Am. Championships and I was getting ready for Tevis. We both wanted to do as much night riding as possible, so we squirreled around all afternoon long, taking 45 minutes at 15 minute holds, meandering along, etc., which not only used up alot of daylight but also totally baffled both Rawhide and Cato as to just what the heck we two yahoos were doing messing about like that. Around sunset, both horses finally were totally fed up with our wasting time and took matters into their own hands and went roaring off down the trail like scalded cats. Big fun.

Going down through the California Loop at night, even though there was a full moon, you were riding underneath deep shade from the trees and without light, you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. Neither of us were riding with flashlights or glowsticks or anything else, but the horses really moved along at a big trot (asking for canter, please) and neither ever put a single foot wrong.

Anyway, the last few miles of the WS 50 was along an old quarry road alongside the American River, where alot of whitewater river rafting trips were going on that weekend. The rafters camped at night alongside the river and apparently two of these happy adventurers felt the urge for a little more privacy and one-on-one camaraderie and so carried their sleeping bags up behind the camp where, lo and behold, there was this lovely flat bit of trail where of course, no one would bother them out here in the middle of nowhere, right?

Hee hee. Wrong. By this time, Jeff and I and about a dozen other riders all came roaring down out of the California Loop. All the horses were feeling really good, so we were letting them loose, running along baying like a bunch of congenital idiots at the full moon. Jeff was in the lead and all of a sudden, Rawhide gives an almighty spook, leaps something dead smack in the middle of the trail and keeps scampering on. Jeff, being a gentlemanly sort and never at a loss for words, turns in the saddle and shrieks back, "YO! BOINKERS AHOY!!!". Well, you'd warn other riders of a hole in the trail, wouldn't you? I was fifty yards behind him and sure enough, there the two little love birds are, except pretty much all you could see in the moonlight were giant staring eyes...well, all right, you could see alot more than eyes, but let's not get too graphic here. Feel free to refer to imagination and anatomy books, because it was all on display, though as far as I could tell, not very productively or impressively at that point. And of course Cato, who is a little light on Genteel Manners in the Face of Vulgar Public Display, just HAD to slam on the brakes, snort, stare like he's never seen such a thing (which he hadn't), prance past with his tail flipped up over his back, then spin and go scampering off like he thought he was being chased by the Great White Hiney. Talk about Riding In Denial---try riding this scampering imbecile and urging him to GO ON ALREADY while trying to nonchalantly look the other way and pretend you've noticed nothing, nothing at all, REALLY, and oh, look, isn't that the Little Dipper? To make things even more difficult, other riders are also now slamming on the brakes, more horses are piling into them from behind, lots of swearing, comments on "If THAT's all you've got to offer, fella...", and a ring of horses all staring, snorting, stretching out their necks to get a better look and making rude comments to each other. And one horse who had been apparently waiting for such a break in the festivities all night long and took the opportunity to stretch out and have himself a nice comfy splashy pee right next to the sleeping bags. AND so another rider could whip out her flashlight and turn it on to check the color and quality. Of the pee, that is. We already knew of the physiological condition of anyone else of interest .

Nobody got hurt except I believe to the egos of the river-rafters and eventually we all managed to drag the utterly riveted horses away and on down the trail to the finish line. Potato of course said that if he'd known they were gonna be there, he'd of sent someone down to hang a glowstick off whatever appendage seemed to be the most available.

Happy trails,

Susan and Cato, Who Has Now Seen It All