Gratitude in the wake of grief
Lou Marzeles
Editor
Debbie Mutton, mother of Christopher Mutton, Goldendale’s most recently fallen soldier, recalls a particularly moving moment after her son’s untimely death. It happened on the plane on which the Muttons were flying their son’s body back home.
“It was announced that Chris was on the plane,” Mutton recalls. “And everyone on the plane broke into applause for Chris.”
The spontaneous ovation was one of several comforting moments that have sustained the Mutton family in their grief for Chris, who was killed in a training accident June 23 at Ft. Riley, Kansas. His memorial services were Friday, July 2, at Columbia Hills Memorial Chapel and graveside at Mountain View Cemetery.
“We are so grateful for the support and prayers from so many in the community,” Mutton says. “We’re proud of our son and all the lives he touched. I can’t fathom something like this, but it’s been so comforting to hear all the good words and see so much support.”
Christopher was killed helping to transport food to troops on maneuver at Ft. Riley. The Humvee he was riding in was headed down a tank road with packed dirt and gravel, and the day was stormy. The vehicle lost traction, rolled over twice, and Mutton was ejected from it.
Mutton was about to be promoted to sergeant, after a relatively short time in the military, which included a year in Iraq. “The last time he came home,” Debbie Mutton recalls, “was last October.”
She has high praise for the Army and its help after Christopher’s death. “The Army was fantastic,” she says. “They really took care of us. The memorial for him at Ft. Riley was wonderful. Everywhere we turned, strangers comforted us.” Army representatives accompanied Christopher and his family back to Goldendale for services here.
One of Mutton’s most striking memories involved four of the six pallbearers at Christopher’s funeral. They were all stationed with her son at Ft. Riley and had requested permission to attend the memorial and gravesite services in Goldendale. When the Army declined, these determined soldiers called their senators, who then contacted the Pentagon. The Pentagon reversed the Army’s decision, and their attendance was approved. Angel Flight, a charitable organization that provides free air transportation in cases like this, funded their flights.
Mutton has special gratitude for Derek Krentz, director of the Columbia Hills Memorial Chapel. “He was just wonderful,” she says. “He took care of everything while we were gone.”
Ride & Tie draws entries nationally and from abroad
The Applegate, Calif., father-daughter team of Jim and Sara Howard and their equine partner Magic Sirocco took the World Championship title in the sport of Ride & Tie, held recently in Trout Lake and around Mt. Adams, with a time of four hours and 37 minutes on a slow, wet course.
The team re-won the world title, which they previously held in 2008, riding and running the 35-plus mile course in occasional cool rain showers. Jim Howard, an ultra-runner, now holds a record eleven World Ride & Tie Championship titles. Sara Howard is 17 years old. The championship event occurred June 19.
The Howard Family very nearly did not make the long trek north to the 40th World Championship race in southern Washington. It was a big drive, their truck and trailer were age-weary, and they were not completely certain of Magic Sirocco’s race readiness. In this sport, no horse equals no race.
As a consolation, Sara’s uncle invited her to partner with him at the Descanso Ride & Tie one week before the World Championship event. Sara had just graduated from high school and was already in southern California helping to care for her grandfather, just out of the hospital from heart surgery. She jumped at the chance, they rode her uncle’s horse, and they won the race. Now she really wanted to go to Washington. Motivating her parents was the challenge, so she hopped the Greyhound bus and headed north to get them packing for the long haul.
At the other end of the spectrum were Steph Irving and her son, Lucas King, of Trout Lake. Irving was this year’s World Championship Ride & Tie race director, and her teenaged son had been on the team that won the man/man division at the 2009 World Championship Ride & Tie race. Through no fault of their own, the mother/son team came in last: in a time of eight hours and 49 minutes. Unlike the Howard team, they didn’t suffer from living too far from the race site: they lived too close.
Early in the race, sensing a moment of weakness when Lucas had only one foot in the stirrup, their shared horse Byz unseated his rider and turned for home. Undaunted, Lucas ran the five miles home, caught the horse, and proceeded back to the starting line.
Later in the race, it was mom’s turn. Irving was unseated and Byz again ran off. Irving ran home: no horse. She got on her bike and rode to town: no horse. Then came the phone call: the horse was found and tied to a tree near the race course. Back Irving went, got on the horse and continued the race.
The Best Condition title was awarded to Midnight Sky Ultimate Freedom, an 11-year-old half Arabian half Akhal-Teke, owned by Susie Morrill. Freedom, Morrill’s number one endurance horse, had no Ride & Tie experience, so his team spent the day before the race riding around camp and tying him to trees. Morrill has done a few Ride & Ties herself and has been leasing horses for the sport for more than 10 years. She plans to do a 100-mile endurance ride on Freedom in a couple of weeks, so she cautioned his runners, Ben Volk and Ira Hickman, to take good care of him.
“The guys rode him just perfect to win BC,” says Morrill.
“He was a joy to ride,” says Volk. The team finished sixth, 18 minutes behind the leaders. The Best Condition selection of Freedom by the veterinarian staff was unanimous.
Teams from across the nation raced at the 40th World Championship Ride & Tie. Some came from outside the United States for the event. The first international team to cross the finish line was Canadian Carol Wadey and her childhood friend, Dana Lacroix, who put in their bid early this year to represent their country with 21-year-old Gypsy as their equine partner. Both horse-crazy from an early age and friends since 10th grade, neither was much into running. It was Wadey’s daughter’s experience competing at the 2005 World Championship Ride & Tie that planted the idea. Wadey and Lacroix did a 10-mile Ride & Tie in Canada two years ago and loved it. They decided that if the sport’s signature race were ever to take place closer to Canada, they would try for a pair of the coveted World Championship completion buckles. When this year’s race was announced for southern Washington, the team began to train. On race day they turned in a very respectable result: 17th overall.
Premier sponsors of the 40th World Championship Ride & Tie were Black Forest Saddles, Moeben and Cool Riders.
At the Ride and Tie Association’s board of director’s meeting Thursday prior to the race, outgoing president Don Betts handed off to his vice-president, Melanie Weir of Orange, Calif. As the Association’s newly elected president, Weir hopes to increase the reach of the sport with more members and increased race participation.
“This is a fun sport for the horses and even for modest runners like me,” Weir said. “But it’s a lot more fun when there are other teams to compete with, which is why my focus as the new president will be to continue to get more people to try it.”
The Association’s new vice-president is Ben Volk of Pasco.
The 41st World Championship Ride & Tie is slated to run Saturday, June 18, 2011 at Cuneo Creek in Humboldt Redwoods National Park, Calif. All comers are welcome to race in this event, and the Ride and Tie Association provides a number of assists for people getting started in the sport.
About the sport of Ride & Tie
The sport of Ride & Tie combines trail running, endurance riding, and strategy. The goal is to get all three team members—two humans and one horse—across a 20- to 100-mile cross-country course by alternating riding and running. Everyone starts out together. The rider, being faster, rides ahead and ties the horse to a tree, and then continues down the trail on foot. The team member who started out on foot gets to the horse, unties, mounts up and rides past the runner, ties the horse—and this leapfroging continues the entire course. When, where, and how a team exchanges riding for running is almost entirely up to each team to develop their own strategy.
The Ride and Tie Association is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of the sport of Ride & Tie and safe endurance horse management. Over 150 years old, Ride & Tie originated in the old West, where frontiersmen discovered two men could travel great distances at a fast pace without wearing down the horse if they traded off. Ride & Tie was invented as a sport and gained national attention in 1971 when Levi Strauss sponsored the first Levi’s Ride & Tie. The Association offers a mentor program, partner matching, training videos, hosts practice Ride & Ties, and sanctions regional and national events. For more information about Ride & Tie, visit the web site at www.rideandtie.org.
Golden Pine Alpaca farm packs in alpaca packs
Rebecca Gourley
Reporter
Golden Pine Alpacas, a 15-acre alpaca farm north of Goldendale in Ponderosa Park, is going on their fourth year of production. Owners Pat and Barbara Patterson are retired alpaca enthusiasts who love their animals like their children.
They have a total of 17 alpacas and four of their females are pregnant; Eana is a new mom to a baby girl cria as of July 7. “Cria” is the term for baby alpacas until they are six months old and weaned from their mothers. Pat just recently built their new 2000 square-foot barn, designed specifically for alpacas.
Pat and Barbara make a big business from their alpacas. They sell the alpacas’ fleece, yarn and rugs made from the fleece, and even “paca poo,” as they like to call it, which is great manure for all of the gardeners in the area.
The fleece, some of the softest of fleece out of barn animals, is carefully sheered in May of every year. They do it in May so that the alpacas aren’t miserable in the summer and also by the time winter comes along, their fleece has grown back. Each section that is sheered in put into a separate bag (three sections are considered standard) and then a portion of the “blanket,” which is the fleece off of the back of the alpaca and down the sides to the stomach, is sent off to Yocom-McColl testing laboratory in Colorado to see the quality of the fibers. The fibers’ diameters are measured in microns; the smaller the diameter, the finer and softer the fleece is. If an alpaca’s fleece is 18 microns in diameter, it’s a really high quality piece of fleece. If the fiber diameter is over 30 microns, it begins to be very coarse and sometimes unusable.
The yarn they sell is in very high demand by their neighbors and other community members. Knitters crave the softness that the alpaca yarn has. Pat and Barbara sell their yarn at reasonable prices, they say. They usually sell a skein of yarn (four oz.) for about $16; regular prices are at about $25. Four ounces of yarn, when knitted, usually makes one scarf.
They also sell rugs made from alpaca fleece. The shorter fleece, sheered from their legs usually, is woven into rugs by a company located in Pendleton.
“Paca poo” is a great soil conditioner for plants. The numerous flower gardens on the Pattersons’ property are a clear representation of how well this manure helps their plants. The paca poo is very low in nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, which makes it “greener” manure. Straight from the alpaca, the paca poo is a complete fertilizer.
Overall, alpacas are incredibly people-friendly. They occasionally get into spitting matches with one another, but “I have never been spit on or kicked,” says Barbara. They are having an open farm day on July 17. It is open to the public to tour, see, touch, and learn about alpacas. They also will be selling alpaca products, including fleece, yarn, rugs, scarves, and blankets. For more information on the open farm day, call Pat or Barbara at 773-6184.
Alpacas are different from llamas, though they are cousins to one another. Alpacas are from Peru and the surrounding areas and are becoming more and more popular in the United States.
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