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!!!  

Cowboys And Aliens

I don't want to jump the gun here, but I THINK the first day of spring has arrived.  The weather guessers say it's the last night of 30 degree weather and today should be 68 and "springy".  I'm ready for that since my gas bill to keep my house warm is now higher than the electricity bill.  Everyone is taking advantage I guess.

So ... we are back to the cowboys for a few more exciting shots of the rodeo.  This is team roping.  We did this occasionally on the ranch when we had cows and calves that needed shots.  It was much faster to catch them, then run up and stick them with penicillin, than it was to drive them all the way to the corrals at the ranch house.  I cheated ... I just walked up slowly and dropped a loop over their head.  

When we did vaccinate all of the cattle, we ran them through a long chute at the house.  We just walked along the walkway, vaccinating as we went, then they were all let out.  Cattle had to be vaccinated for lots of things that are hard to pronounce.  

These guys ... running as fast as they can down the arena are amazing with a rope.  Those headers ... they seem to just effortlessly throw the rope perfectly every time, well most every time.

Look closely at the calfs hind legs ... the heeler caught both.  Once the header turns his horse facing the steer, time stops.  Not the most exciting, but it requires LOTS of skill.

On to saddle bronc riding.  I can tell you that when you are up there and your horse starts to buck, you feel like this guy ... like you are 25 feet in the air.  Truthfully, with few exceptions, my horses would just crow hop a few times before they took off running.  If I stayed on, I felt like I was the champion bronc rider of the world.  

If I fell off .... well it hurts, big time.  The trouble was, you always had to get back on.  You obviously learned how to hang on a little harder next time.   

This was a young horse, a wild and twisty bucker.  They breed these horses to buck so it does come naturally, but they are actually tried a few times with mechanical dummies on their backs to see how they handle it.  Horses used for bareback and saddle bronc events are usually 6 years old and up.  

To put that in perspective, we started our colts at 3 years of age to be sure they were strong enough to handle our weight.  Nowadays, they start them at 2 years old.

On this day, not everyone rode their horse.  Seriously, these cowboys take a beating!

See that white spot on the ground?  That's the cowboy's number on his back and he's about to hit the ground head first.  

The pick up men hang out pretty close so when the whistle blows, they can get close enough for the cowboy to grab hold and be gently dropped to the ground.  Most times they get dumped, but it's better than this.  OUCH!!

And so ends another day of fun and bruises at the rodeo.  But what about the aliens you ask?  Well I just happened to step outside in the dark a couple of nights ago and spotted this.  I grabbed my camera instantly.  UFO's!!!!

Did anyone see that movie Cowboys and Aliens??  I of course loved it, even if it was weird.  It quickly came to mind, but my brain said no silly, this is Venus and Jupiter.  I don't think I've ever seen them this close before.

About an hour later, there came a message on my phone.  WHAT'S THIS?  OMG UFO'S!!  No kidding, back in California the folks in my neighborhood were going crazy showing pictures and asking what it was.  It MUST be aliens!!!  Panic seemed to set in.  I burst their bubble by saying it was Venus and Jupiter because I saw it from Arizona.  It was just too funny!!

I whipped up some stir fry for dinner ... not NEAR as good as Chef Patty's, but I tried.  I didn't have anything to make the sauce, so I went with Kung Pao sauce.  If you didn't know, that stuff is HOT!!!  There's still half of this in the fridge.

That of course brought about a frenzy of cleaning up the oil splattered mess on my stove.  This is very unusual behavior, so I took a picture to prove I actually CLEANED the stove.

And so another day is in the books.  I've got my camera ready though, in case any more aliens stop by to say hello.

AND ANOTHER THING!!!

 No kidding folks ... Mother Nature is throwing a tantrum.  That's three storms she's sent through the Arizona Territory, and just to be sure you are LISTENING, it's 27 degrees this morning.  My heater ran literally all night long.  Ask me how I know THAT!  So lock your doors and let's NOT let her back in.  If we are really REALLY good for the next ten days, temperatures will run between 63 and 71.  I could use some of that!

Here's an early morning train creeping along in the dark as it's snowing.  I lightened this picture so you can see it.  No doubt about it, when there's snow, these guys slow down a bunch.  They must have been stacked up because there were several that went by going this direction.  

This oldest section of track is almost a siding, used often to let trains go by the other section of track farthest from my house.  It must be a nightmare to control, since they go both directions all day long.

This was one of the army trains moving heavy equipment and tanks.  I do love seeing these!

The sun is trying to come out, but it's still snowing.

I think it quit around 10:00 or so, when the sun came out in full force.  It didn't take long for all of this beauty to disappear as Mother Nature ran out and slammed the door.  I think her last words were TAKE THAT!!

Just for giggles, I measured the snow on my trash can.  It's almost 8 inches.  Yes I probably could have gone out and built another one of my fabulous snowmen.  I actually did start to do that, but got distracted by the WARM inside and the COLD outside.  

There was one poor little dove sitting on this snow covered board waiting for food, so I scraped off a corner and put some seed down.  She was very thankful to have a snow free spot to hang out.  Later, I swiped all of it off so the quail could eat.

The quail were not very nice and chased this guy off to the tree where he waited patiently for them to leave.  I threw some more seed out and he had a nice breakfast.

I whipped up a batch of sugar water for the hummers who were sitting on the edge shaking from the cold.  I though maybe a little slightly warm water would help.  Once the snow was gone, this guy showed up.  Truly, all that snow completely melted in about three hours.  

Here was the disaster of the day if you don't count the quilt I was working on.  I am NOT a fan of dishwashing.  It wastes SO much water!  Okay, truly, I'm just lazy.  I hate doing dishes.  Especially when I swing the faucet out of the way and it goes over the counter (shouldn't it have a stop on it?) and floods the living room before I realize what's happening.  

Clean up on aisle four!!  It took me over an hour because I didn't realize that was happening until it dawned on me it sounded funny!

As to the quilting ... I'm an accountant ... a math person.  This is all about math.  How wide is the quilt, how long, tell the computer to pull up the design and make it fit ... which it is SUPPOSED to do.  Every single time, it never comes out perfect at the bottom.  It's frustrating.

So I call the manufacturer to have them tell me that's normal.  It's NEVER going to come out perfect.  WHAT??   I'm so disillusioned!!

I tried to "stitch in the ditch" along the border, but it kept going sideways.  If you mark it every six inches, it is SUPPOSED to sew along that exact line.  I couldn't get it to work.  By the THIRD time I called I was getting pretty frustrated.  

The nice lady finally told me how to make those little circles end up inside the black border.  YAY!!  But that didn't help the stitch in the ditch one little bit.  I'll get it eventually, but too bad I had to mess up this nice quilt doing it.  

Don't worry she said ... no one will notice it!  My accountant brain can't accept that.  Only one out of four borders came out right.  

I'm a machine person ... it's like when my dad told me I would get stuck if I took the D-9 caterpillar out to disc the wet field.  He let me go anyway, because I'm sure he wanted to teach me a lesson.  Wasn't he surprised when I came in at the end of the day and never got stuck ONCE!!  

You become attuned to the sound of the machine, the nuances of the controls.  The same is true of the quilting machine, except it has a thousand more controls.   I'll get it eventually.  I'm stubborn that way!!

Soft Hail ... Really?

Apparently in California they are calling this white stuff graupel, meaning soft hail.  I know they don't see it often, but it's actually known as SNOW everywhere else in the world.  The blizzard last night was an epic one.  The wind sounded like it was going to blow my house away.  

I had a thought of my RV being pushed down the cliff by the wind, but thankfully it was still there this morning.  And we have SNOW!  It's so heavy the limbs from this tree, that you can't touch in the sunshine, are now dragging the ground. 

Looks like about 5 inches from the trash can.  Cooper will attest to that as he tried to "get in the grass" this morning.  He wasn't all too happy about that.

No pretty snow covered cactus this morning since everything is completely smothered.  As I type, the huge flakes are again falling to the ground.  

Even my kitty cat is covered!!  Notice he puffy tail?  He doesn't like it either!  It's supposed to keep this up until noon, when the sun will finally shine again.  I see a great picture opportunity in my near future.

In the meantime, back to the rodeo.  THIS is steer wrestling, or bull dogging as they used to call it.  It was claimed to have been started by Wild West performer Bill Pickett (one of 13 children) from Travis County Texas in the 1890's.  Supposedly he watched huge dogs on the cattle ranches of old, grab an unruly bull by the nose and take him down.  

I rather doubt that particular event ... if you ever saw the bulls on our ranch, weighing in at over 1500 pounds, you would know why.  Anyway, old Bill thought he could do that from his horse, and so the sport was born for the Wild West shows.

This has to be one of the hardest cowboy sports to accomplish.  Jump off your horse (who is running about 30 mph), grab the horns, STOP the 700 pound steer, turn his head back and drop him to the ground, with all four feet sticking out.  And do it in SEVEN seconds or less to win.

Here's the stopping part.  Dig your heels in, paying no attention to the fact that they are filling up with dirt going up your pant legs.  This is a job for the big boys ... most of these guys weigh in like football linebackers.

Speaking of which ... this is Bear Pascoe, tight end who played with the San Francisco 49er's.  This is what happens when the barrel clown J.J. Harrison makes a comment to a bulldogger about missing the steer and just doing a drive-by.  Something like "excuse me sir ... you are supposed to jump off the horse and stop the steer".  Bear always has a smile on his face!!

The hazer rides along to help keep the steer going straight so the bulldogger can get close enough to fall off his horse.  Sometimes that doesn't work out so well.  Better to just ride to the end than risk a wreck, which is what Bear did on this run.

To be a hazer, you have to know how to read your cattle.  It's just something you learn on the ranch so you can position yourself to keep the steer moving in a straight line.  Every single steer runs differently.

Too far ahead and the steer will stop.  Too far behind and it will turn in front of you ... all bad news for the guy who paid the entry fee.  Amazingly, this was something I never tried, even as a kid.  I did lots of crazy things on the ranch, but trying to make a calf lay down was not one of them!!

It's going to be a gorgeous picture taking day ... assuming of course that the snow lasts more than a few hours.  It's still coming down as the tree branches touch the ground.  I guess it's going to be another INSIDE day.  That's a good thing since I started quilting a completely different way yesterday.

The problem is, I'm an accountant ... everything should come out perfectly because it's math.  Well guess what ...........

Git-a-long Hitch

It's going to be an interesting day.  Just about any weather you can imagine ... we're getting it today.  It's 37 degrees and the sun SHOULD shine for a few hours before the big 26 mph winds begin yet again, followed up by rain.  

All the while, it's STILL snowing in California.  Since they have no clue how to drive in snow, most every road has been closed down completely.  In Montana or North Dakota, they don't even require chains most of the time.  I drove that area once in a motorhome while it was snowing.  SCARY CITY!!!  

Anyway, Miss Elva sent this little ditty to me and she would be right!  Hopefully I'll live long enough to sew up all that I have in my sewing rooms.

I'm taking a break again from the rodeo ... no use flooding you with cowboy pictures!  Breakfast was a healthy low cal plate of veggies disguised as pancakes with Canadian maple syrup.  No really ... that's a plate of veggies sitting there!  My food styling skills are pretty good, no?
 

I needed the extra strength to fix the hitch in my git-a-long.  As I mentioned before, I loaned out the hitch for a year and it ended up in an accident that totaled both the truck and the fifth wheel trailer.  It seemed to be fine, but what do I know.

I had some trouble hooking it up and it was not level like I thought it should be.  The fact that it tipped the wrong direction didn't help with my anxiety.

I tried to get it checked out at a dealer locally, but couldn't seem to find one reputable, so I called B & W.  I didn't think I needed the entire $1300 hitch, just the receiver top portion.  I finally said SHIP IT (from Kansas).  It was not cheap at $500, but this old hitch is actually 30 years old, so they do last a long time.  Amazingly, four days later it showed up by FedEx ... free shipping.

They said it was exactly like the old one ... no changes have been made.  That turned out to not be EXACTLY true, but the differences were minimal. 

I got out my tools.  Really, all I had to do was lift the old one off and set the new one on.  Eight times later my back was screaming at me since you can't raise up without smacking your head on the garage roof.  Ask me how I know that.

This was the biggest problem.  This little spring keeps the receiver at the right angle to hook up effortlessly.  Apparently it got moved in the accident and wasn't doing it's job at all.  "You'll have to take that off and move it up" said the guy on the phone ... "but you're going to break it, so just order another one now".

I like nothing better than a challenge!!  I actually got it off and placed in the proper position WITHOUT breaking it.  Again, lift the receiver off ... replace it.  Lift again, smear silicon grease all over the bushing and replace.  By the time I got done, I had that grease from my head to my knees.

TA-DA!!!  Well almost. I didn't have any Allen wrenches big enough to bolt the handle on (the one sticking out on the left), so a quick run over to the Chance house and Dan fixed it for me.  Look how level it is!!!!  The old one was an inch lower on the left.  

YAY!!!  The hitch in my git-a-long is like brand new.  Now if I can only get that silicon ring over the kingpin so I don't have to grease the plate.  

Surprisingly, it's the second day and I'm not very sore at all.  All that heavy lifting while bent over didn't seem to age me much at all.  The cracking of bones in the morning is epic, but otherwise I'm in good shape.  

I finished up this quilt in the afternoon as I watched yet another rodeo ... this time in Houston. 

My shadow is patiently waiting for his breakfast, so I better get to it.  Too bad my disguising skills don't work on HIS food.  He can definitely tell the difference between veggies and MEAT!

I'm also off on another exciting day of shopping.  The first Wednesday of every month is SENIOR DAY.  Hey, I'll take that 20% off any time.

It's also time for CONGRATULATIONS to the Chance house.  FORTY THREE years later, they are still married.  THAT is an accomplishment that obviously I was never able to master.  HAPPY ANNIVERSARY PATTY AND DAN!!