Cooking in the West

The horse market is pretty much through the roof right now, which is great if you are selling, but not if you are buying. I know that I sound like an old fogey, but I have bought many horses for $500.00 in my lifetime, and every one of them turned out to be a great horse. Now, I am facing the fact that to buy a high quality horse, I will have to pay triple that price and add another zero. I just can't quite wrap my head around that, and I sure can't wrap my pocket book around paying $15,000 to $20,000 for a push button horse.

The reality of the horse market has spawned a novel concept for ranch horses that might just catch on out of necessity. For years, I marveled that some of our ranch vacation guests own shares in a horse in a stable back home. They share their horse with other owners, so they work out a schedule for riding it, and they share all of the expenses of horse ownership with several other horse enthusiasts.

Recently, the idea of a timeshare horse has come to make a lot of sense to me. Thus, I discussed this idea with my friends, Steve and Linda Story. Now, Steve and Linda, who have been literally on the run for all of their working lives managing big ranches, have found themselves retired. They have so much time on their hands now that one day they came up to get my saddle, and when they brought it back a few weeks later it had been transformed. Steve did have a heart issue in the middle of the transformation, but he maintains it was not the saddle revamp stress that caused him to have some emergency stents installed.

Unfortunately, I do not have any before pictures of my saddle, but to say that it was a disaster is an understatement. No pawn shop would have given $5.00 for it. The best thing about that saddle besides being comfortable is that no one would steal it. The padded seat was shredded and leaking padding, the strings were all broken, the rope strap had been ripped out, and it had not been oiled for years. I could throw it in the back of my truck and not worry, because no self-respecting thief would consider grabbing it. I have a new handmade saddle sitting in the tack room, but my old saddle is so much more comfortable that I would not give up riding it.

When the saddle came back from the Story workshop, it was completely transformed. It had a new seat, new strings, the stirrups were covered, and it had soaked in gallons of oil. It would be completely unrecognizable to any of those many people who have mocked my saddle for years. I casually mentioned that I was extremely grateful for the saddle makeover, but now I need a horse to put it on. My favorite horse had been diagnosed with ring bone, and I finally resigned myself to having to replace him. Steve immediately went to work looking for a horse to go under my refurbished saddle.

He found a couple prospects, but they sold for three times more than I was willing to pay before I could arrange to go try them. Steve scoured the horse sale catalogs, and he found the perfect horse. His name was Greg, and he sounded perfect for old people and dudes. Unfortunately, he was a beautiful gray, and we knew he would sell for a king's ransom, which he did at $20,000.00. Needless to say, I just could not bring myself to pay more for a horse than we paid for our first house.

The financial reality was sinking in. Steve and I will have to share a horse, because a timeshare horse is all we can afford. First we had to figure out the devil in the details. What if we were both invited to the same branding? Who would get the horse? We decided maybe we would share the horse by the hour instead of by the day. I decided Steve could get the first hour just in case our horse sale bargain has a hump in his back. It makes much more sense for the horse to buck Steve off instead of me! You see, Steve is older, so statistically if he gets bucked off and has to hobble around for the rest of his life, it will be a shorter number of years than if I would be hobbling around if I got bucked off. Of course, I was not stupid enough to verbalize my bucked off statistic to Steve, but rather I tactfully said we should follow the adage, "Age before beauty." in determining who would get to ride our horse first.

The next wrinkle to iron out is which party should be responsible for saddling the horse and getting it to the branding we are both attending? I volunteered to do this, because I have kids and grandkids living on the ranch so most likely I could play the "poor old Grandma" card and guilt or at least bribe someone into catching, saddling, and loading the horse. It is lucky that I have a brand spankin' refurbished saddle that hopefully we can both ride so we don't have to do a tack change in the middle of the branding!

The next practicality to consider is getting on our timeshare horse. Ideally, we would like to find one of those horses that will lie down for us to get on. Since we probably can't afford that level of training, we have to find a horse that is no taller than 15 hands and that will stand dead still while we hoist our arthritic bones into the saddle. I said I would spring for one of those pretty plastic mounting blocks and be responsible for hauling it to where we need it. We can claim that the horse has chiropractic issues, and we need to get on with the mounting block so it won't put harmful leverage on the horse's withers. . . yes, that's it!

The only problem left to solve is finding that perfect timeshare horse. So this column is shameless in search of ad for the perfect time share horse. If you have been there and done that ranch horse who has no holes and is completely safe for two old timers to timeshare, please let us know. By the way, I was just joking about the horse having a cold back and risking Steve getting bucked off! We are looking for beyond bomb proof!

Yes, branding season has begun, so here are some easy tried and true recipes that work well for branding.

Mandarin Orange Cake:

1 box yellow cake mix (dry)

1 C. vegetable oil

4 eggs

11 oz. can mandarin oranges with juice

Mix all ingredients together. Pour into a greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool. Frost with icing below.

Icing:

20 oz. can crushed pineapple, drained

3.4 oz. box vanilla instant pudding (dry)

8 oz. carton Cool Whip

Mix pineapple and pudding. Fold in Cool Whip. Spread evenly over cooled cake and keep refrigerated. Can be made the day before as it keeps well.

Frito Salad:

1 can whole kernel corn, drained

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1/2 C. to 3/4 C. mayonnaise

1 pkg. Chili Cheese Fritos

1 can sliced olives (optional)

1/2 C. shredded Cheddar cheese

Mix drained corn and drained and rinsed beans in a bowl. Add 1/2 C. mayonnaise and mix well. Just before serving time, stir in the chips and note that they must be Chili Cheese Fritos not regular Fritos. Add olives and shredded cheese if desired. If needed add a bit more mayonnaise. Serve right away after adding the chips, as the chips do get soggy fairly quickly.

Grape Salad:

2 lbs. green seedless grapes

2 lbs. red seedless grapes

8 oz. sour cream

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 C. granulated sugar

1 t. vanilla

Topping:

1 C. brown sugar, packed

1 C. crushed pecans

Wash grapes. Mix sour cream, cream cheese, granulated sugar, and vanilla. Stir into grapes in a large bowl. Combine brown sugar and pecans and sprinkle over a bowl of grape salad. Chill overnight before serving.