04 Aug For the Horses

The North Kaibab Ranger District is unique in that it has a horse program. When I started my position in the district, I inherited the care of the horses. We have four horses, Shorty, Woodrow, Scratch, and Charlie. During my short time here, I got to know each horse and its unique personality. This is one of the most memorable aspects of my job and one that I greatly cherish.
In the district, the horses have many places they call home. They are moved between these locations based on where they will get the best weather conditions. In colder months, they live at lower-elevation pastures, and in the summer, they are moved to pastures at higher elevations to escape the heat. Getting these pastures ready for the horses can require quite some work. But watching them happily run and play after exiting the heat makes all the difficult work worth it.
In July, we got one of these pastures ready for them, a job that required, to some extent, coordination, communication, and the help of four departments in our forest. Once the pasture was ready, we could move them from the field in town to the pasture on the mountain and watch their joy as they explored their new place. It made all the hard work worth it.