Boogies and Bullies

 Just WOW!!  Mother Nature put on her prettiest dress yesterday, along with a pair of nice high heels and sauntered through the day like a model on a runway.  Seventy degrees and barely a breeze as her dress swooshed past us.  I even opening the sliding glass door, the first time since I've been here.  Everyone send up a big high fashion cheer so she stays around for awhile.

In the meantime BOOOOO on Mother Nature's boogies!!  I saw this black spot above my cabinets in the kitchen.  I thought it was a spider, so I ignored it for awhile.  After all, there are NO scorpions out in the wintertime.  Apparently that's false information #29, because when I got closer, THIS is what I saw.  

He's no tiny munchkin either, but a big two-incher.  Rainbow bridge!!!  He's now in about twelve pieces in the trash can and I'm back to scanning every room from top to bottom as I enter.

I started quilting after that, taking a flashlight with me to check out every corner, but that ended in disaster.  A motor error stopped everything in its tracks, followed by a thread catch, after which the machine didn't know where it was.  I tried to show her over and over again, but nothing worked.  She's currently sitting in the dark because the How-To phone line is not open on weekends.  Big sigh!!

So it's back to rodeo and the bullies.  Actually the beauties came just before the bullies, so here's a couple of barrel racing pictures.  I used to do this on a big tall lanky mare named Cricket.  

If you've ever heard that geldings are sweet and mares are cranky, that would be correct.  Cricket and I didn't get very far in the barrel racing business.  One thing you do NOT want on the ranch is a horse that chases calves through the fence because they are used to running really fast everywhere.  You get yelled at ... and that ended my barrel career.

We had several bulls on the ranch, being a cow and calf operation, all of them as big as this guy ... maybe bigger.  The "clown" is Dusty Tuckness, the GOAT of rodeo clowns.  Last year he got stepped on and broke his femur in two places.  Six months later, he's back in business.  This is one tough dude!!!

As for the bullies as I call them, you would never think an animal that big could go through the gyrations they do.  I mean really, they weight in at 1200-1800 pounds of pure muscle.

Once old enough, these bulls are bucked out of chutes with mechanical dummies on their back.  After 8 seconds, the dummy automatically releases and falls to the ground.  That's how they tell which are the best of the best when it comes to bucking cowboys off their back.

You can tell this is not going to end well.  It doesn't help when the bulls butt comes around and sends you flying into air another ten feet, but at least you are far enough away to get up and run.

That isn't a cowboy under that bull, who happens to be a very mean little bugger ... that's Dusty Tuckness.  Luckily he wasn't hurt.

Look how high this bull goes!!  It's just amazing to see.  Imagine if you were on his back!!

It's the job of the rodeo clowns to distract the bull when the kid falls off so he doesn't get hooked or trampled.  As you can see, they hang out and are not afraid to get up close and personal.

This bull did some really wild gyrations ....  

and the kid made the 8 second bell.   He is trying to get his rope loose so he can exit gracefully.  In the old days, they wrapped their hands differently in the rigging, causing them to be tied to the bull even when they were bucked off.  It was the rodeo clowns job to get in there and get them loose.  Needless to say, there were a lot of bad accidents.

Now they are only allowed one wrap and it cannot be laced through their fingers.  All three of these clowns jumped right in front of the bulls, usually with a hand on their horns, in oder to give the cowboy a chance to escape.  I think these guys don't get paid enough.

At the very end, they always send out the meanest bull with no rider to let the clowns "play" with him a bit.  This is a little too close for me, but Dusty does it for the crowd.  He got hooked a couple of times and thrown into the air.  That CANNOT feel good, but he does it day after day.  So the next time you go to a rodeo, clap and scream LOUDLY for the rodeo clowns!!

One last picture of cutie Rocker walking across the arena to our section for a little fun.  Keeping the crowd active and loud brings them back for the next rodeo, which means a bigger paycheck for these guys if they win.

Today I'll be binge watching 1923 at the Chance house ... another spinoff from the show Yellowstone ... which I haven't watched at all, followed by lunch at Montgomery's Grill and Saloon.  I'm buying, so come on down!!!