A photographic summary of The Ranch

Takin’ Down the Fenceline. Joder Arabian Ranch, Colorado, 2013

We could talk about the composition of this image…the use of leading line…the use of a close foreground, a main subject in the mid-ground, then a related background that lends a sense of place and depth to the picture…the choice of a monochrome conversion…and so on.

But it is the emotion of the image (I think, anyway) that I find interesting about the photograph. What is this older man with hearing aids doing, in a wheelchair, in the middle of a wide-open horse pasture, working on a fence line as if he were a young-buck rancher? What is the story here?The “young” rancher is my Dad, Bob Joder…and this is his story…

In the early 1950s, when still a teenager, he brought the first 35 horses here from Cheyenne, Wyoming, shuttling back and forth on the lonely two-lane blacktop, using a rickety but reliable, old Ford stake-side truck. His mother–my grandmother–Anna Best Joder was moving Joder Arabian Ranch (JAR) to this quiet spot just north of a tiny, obscure college town called Boulder…so Dad, a junior in high school at the time, did the horse transfers. (My grandparents were divorced in the early 50s and this had to be a scandal of galactic death star proportions, given the times. They never uttered a word about it, before, during or after, to my Dad or us grandkids.)

My Dad, educated at Colorado State University in Ft. Collins in Forestry, didn’t come back to the ranch until the mid-70s, spending 20 years or so with the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. He gradually took over the reins of JAR from my fiery and very outspoken (and opinionated!) grandmother, and he ran the place…well, until today, with a lot of help from his deceased second wife, Eloise Witt, and the many, many faithful and giving boarders, volunteers, employees and instructors we had over the years. (And with some additional help at critical points from sons Dan, Brian, and Greg).

Through those decades of the 70s, 80s and 90s, my Dad picked up where he left off at age 17 and became an accomplished horseman basing his work in the natural horsemanship philosophy (you don’t “break” a horse, you “gentle it”…horse whisperer stuff…see Monty Roberts, among many others).

In 2001, my Dad suffered a traumatic brain injury–the result of a fall from a horse (the helmet he was wearing probably saved his life). His speech, memory and balance aren’t what they used to be, thus, the wheelchair. His body may be giving out, but he still thinks he is that strong, “can-do” rancher who took over from Anna Best in 1975…so on this particular day in late May he wanted to help me take down the fence. On a ranch, you see, if there is something to be done, you pitch in and help–it is just what you do…no questions.

And you think I am going to be the one to tell him “no”?

In another month, Joder Arabian Ranch will be gone. The horses will be gone. The barn, stables, pens, horse shelters, kitchen-lounge, classroom, round pen, instructor housing, three outdoor arenas…all will be gone. Only the wind stirring the grass will remain–in turn, stirring up decades of memories. It is the end of a three-generation cycle. It was a good run and we hope many lives have been affected in a positive way because of the ranch…but it is time to move on.

So, to me, the image above is a visual summary. It summarizes the ranch through many changes of seasons and weather…the ranch with its countless ghosts and with its many special horse personalities who grazed its pastures…It is a summary of the special power of the horse’s mind and character…It is a summary, too, of the many humans who learned something about themselves through equus, of the generations of kids (mostly young girls it seems!) who learned of responsibility, how to work hard, and who found great love for the human-horse relationship…

Who knows where the ripples in this pond might end?

Finally, I think the image also summarizes those grander and more fundamental issues…life, aging, pain, joy, work, play, our place in the natural world, the inevitability of an end to all things and all lives…the inevitability of entropy…the constant breakdown of systems–and of us.

Thanks to all of you who were a part of Joder Arabian Ranch and who made it possible.