Hey, is that a Fire?!

Fear profits a Man nothing.

Luck, often enough, will save a Man, if his courage holds.

How true. No more true enough then trail ride #2 on the big beast. After a hard work out in the arena (poor guy was actually sweating!), we headed down to the river to get a munch of grass and to stick our hot footsies in the cool river water. While going down I heard branches snapping in the woods and figured it was either a deer or a bum since both overrun that general area. So I spoke loudly about how Phooka and I were going to check it out and we headed in. Now one thing I am learning, and practicing that I attribute to Buck is, chase the scary thing!.. So Phooka was feeling pretty light so we headed in trying to figure out what was going on. As we did I got the wiff of something burning, yup smoke. So we foraged deeper in the woods and came on the bum encampment complete with roaring fire ( in the woods, in the summer ) and 2 loose pit bulls. Oh lovely.

Now, I was not feeling sure of myself because there were 4 bum guys, beer in hand, but I calmly stated from my 9 foot perch..
‘uh, what are you guys doing?”
‘Oh” they say “ we are having a yard warming party”

“really?” I say “ do you have permit for that fire?”

Since calfire requires a permit after April for all burns.

“No” he yips back at me

“ well” says I, “I am going to call the fire department and let them know”

I then turn Phooka around and head back, the guy yelling at me all the time and the two dogs skulking around… We made it back to the barn without incident.

Yet I have to say, Phooka is for all intensive purposes pretty well trained. I am so proud of the big guy…

LW