Rancho Oso

While visiting my sister Lori in Santa Barbara, one day we decided to go a little up the road from her and visit Rancho Oso. The thing that not everyone knows about where my sister lives... is that it is up in the mountains of Santa Barbara. Like... I don't get cell phone reception there. She has to put logs on the fire in a stove to warm up the house. People go up there to go camping. When I was younger... I went up there to go camping. In fact... my first couple of years at Girls camp were at Rancho Oso. So I was going back there for the first time since Girls camp when I was 12 & 13.

The kids like going there to visit the animals, so that is what we did. They have chickens (my favorites are the ones with feathers on their feet.

They also have goats

and horses

But who Lori REALLY wanted us to meet is Bob. This is Bob.

He is the BIGGEST pig that I have EVER seen in my whole life. He usually just lays there, but I happen to be eating an apple because I was hungry, which attracted all the animals towards us, including Bob. Bob got up and stuck his nose RIGHT at me. I fed some to the goats, but Bob got most of the apple core. I later learned that he gives kisses for apples. I was not looking for a kiss from Bob. ha ha

After feeding the apple to the goats and the Big Pig... we started petting the horses and I remembered that I had some left over carrots from the trip there from Utah. So I went to the car and crabbed them and fed them to two horses. I really do love animals, so I enjoy visiting them and petting them and feeding them. I used to think I wanted my own farm or zoo. Not so sure about that anymore. ha ha. But I do love Animals.

As I was petting and feeding the horses and saw a tree with water containers all around it and then looked into the fenced area and saw the horse trough... I had a flashback to girls camp. We had the option to pay extra to go horse back riding if we wanted to at camp. I of course did. The cowboys that lead our horses on the trail were big teases and they made up some rules for our ride. If you scream or are caught complaining or you are not smiling and looking like you are having fun, then you got a point. They said if you reached 3 points then you were punished. Somehow.. I reached 3 points. I remember giving out a screech once because my horse took off unexpectedly. That was point number1. I believe the other two were because they caught me not smiling. Anyway... I was not the only one that reached 3 points. However they seemed to give me the hardest time. Story of my life. When the ride was over I didn't think anything would really happen. The cowboys offered to help me off of my horse. I though.. oh how nice. Instead of giving me a hand down they lifted me off of the horse and he started to carry me into the horse coral. I started to get worried and cry for help... but he carried me right over to that horse trough and dropped me in it. GROSS!! I wet back side. Not just water, but dirt, hay and horse slobber. Ewww. I walked back to camp like that. I was the only one that got it. That year at Girls Camp, our theme was Indian. At the end of camp people were given Indian names based on what had happened to them that week at camp. My Indian name? Bathes with Horses. Yep. ha ha. Kind of funny. That memory is strong and came right back to me when I went back to the same place 17 years later. Kind of wish I had a picture of that moment. And the look on my face as I was dumped into the trough.