Bucking Horse Sale Parade 2012

For my friends and family who are not on Facebook.
That's why I don't put many photos there; I like them on my blog, where the whole entire world can see what an exciting existence we lead, not just certain friends.  If you've already seen these on my FB wall, scroll on through!  (They're bigger here,though, so you can look through the crowd pictures for people you know...from Rhode Island and Alaska.)

We joined Elise Reilly and her kids for our yearly date in front of the Saddlery.  Truly, we only get to see each other once a year! So we just go ahead and take all day; it's great to have parade buddies.  This year, Ben and Allie Glasscock got to come with us, too.  Richness!

Maggie and Addie can SEE the parade starting!  And you know what THAT means...
C-A-N-D-Y

Sheriff Tony Harbaugh carrying Old Glory...

I don't know why I'm still astounded at the number of people who come to the Bucking Horse Sale, but it's incredible.

True confession #397:  Someday, I want to be a little old lady wearing a cowboy hat and ringing bells in the BHS parade.  I wonder if I can get my nieces to push me?

The cavalry band from Sheridan, Wyoming; they're a GREAT band!

 These little guys made TWO loops of the parade; I'm sure they just fell down asleep that afternoon, exhausted from the stress.

If you can't find a horse to ride in the parade, there's always a unicycle!

Ben and Cameron Riley!  I think this was Cameron's first parade and he was SO proud! Love his hat.

Really...if you're gonna wear something as subtle as a lime green shirt, you should probably dress it up with some zebra chaps.

Love the black horses! Don't they look sharp?!

There's Kamryn Grace!  My little niece, in the MCC truck with her dad.

The coolest Caledonians in a 5 state area! Have I mentioned that the head piper is our friend Scott Glasscock? (And I really miss the puffy socks that were so in vogue a few years ago.  These just look like your garden variety black boot socks. Except with the red tassel.)

The dancers put on a little show for us!

I love this picture! Isn't she lovely?

Check out this brand, Dad!  Would that be a stick horse brand?  I thought it was neat.

Old cars....

MORE old cars...

This is a nifty little whistle that all the kids got, so that when they were good and hyped up on all the candy, they could incessantly inhale and exhale, making as much noise as possible.  Nice.  Ours have disappeared, strangely enough....

I'd drive THIS old car!

When it got to the 120 tractor entries that weren't throwing candy, the kids sat down to take inventory.  They ate candy as fast as they could, because they knew that after the parade, it would be rationed.

This was an intriguing old tractor! A McCormick with wood on the wheels.

Courtesy of Judd and Jay Twitchell!

It's an election year, so the candidates were out in FULL force.  Elise and I decided we'd base our votes this fall not on the issues but on who threw the best parade candy.  Not looking good for Tester...

Then, Elise and I took the kids to the park and spent THREE hours visiting, throwing dirt, eating picnic food, knitting AND purling (thank you very much!).  It was so much fun!

The Perfect Hotdog

At least that's what Jasper thinks he roasted!  He said it should be photographed, really, for posterity and I grabbed my camera.

*It turns out hotdogs are really not all that photogenic.  Even perfectly roasted ones.

Zee chef! He IS photogenic, but has that "secret agent" thing going on with the sunglasses.

Because I have foodie friends, the menu was as follows:

ANGUS Ballpark hotdogs (the only kind we buy now, for obvious reasons), Wheat Montana buns, watermelon, baked beans, potato salad, three different kinds of chips and, of course, marshmallows; quintessential picnic grub. 

Maggie ate about half a watermelon all by herself.  I'm not exaggerating! 

Maggie got a FREE kitty at the rodeo, earlier that day...can you BELIEVE the luck?! (Yes, dripping with sarcasm...)

While they were waiting for the incredibly slow adults to finish eating so we could ALL roast marshmallows, the kids played "chameleon" on the propane tank.  Seriously.  I don't know how they come up with these things, but they're completely into being fat lizards on a rock.

Buttercup, hoping I brought something besides ketchup bottles...

Cap'n Jack Sparrow and Liza (you can't really see her, but she's the little black notion under the table), willing hotdogs to leap off the table...oh please, oh please....

Discussing world affairs and the subtle nuances of different lagers...

or something.

This is after a long, hot morning at the rodeo, countless card games with the barnacles, slaving over the three bags of potato chips, and other stressful, demanding tasks; we look surprisingly good!

It was a beautiful Mother's Day! And such a gift to have Grandma Celestia and Grampa Jasper here to share it with us.

Poppy

And then there were three...

bum calves!

My Dad called last week to see if I wanted a bum calf that he'd found that was pretty hungry.  I was thrilled! Of course!  Celestia and I jumped in the pickup with a dog kennel strapped down in the box and went to get my baby.

When we got there and saw the little thing, I had a feeling that it was going to end badly.  Her little eyes were sunken back into her head and she didn't have a lot of try, but I loaded her up and brought her home anyway.  Where there's life, there's hope, right?  That's always sort of been my family's way of thinking and I guess I subscribe to that school of thought pretty strongly. Besides, she was a nice big boned calf and if she DID make it, she'd be a good one, I thought!  And I named her Poppy, because that's such a fragile looking flower, but tough despite its tissue paper-like blossom.

We got her home and unloaded, then tried to feed her, but she really didn't take much...maybe 1 cup of milk replacer and Dad had given her a shot of Nursemate (colostrum paste) before we left his house.  I let her come into the yard and she settled under the apple trees, exhausted from her big trip.  We checked on her all evening and tried to feed her again a couple times, but she was getting weaker and weaker.  At dark, I knew she was going to die and I just held the poor thing and sobbed, while Celestia held ME and tried to make me feel better.  Things are always harder in the dark, aren't they?

The next morning, I went out to check and she was still alive, amazingly, but she was cold, cold...her body, her tongue, her legs....and I rubbed her hard to try to stimulate the blood flow and she bleated a little.  I was able to get another cup or so of replacer into her, after a lot of tussle, then went inside to cook breakfast.  I looked out to check and she was in her final minutes, such a hard thing to watch.  I'd mourned her the night before, so it was an odd relief that she wasn't suffering anymore.

A couple days later, Dad called again; he'd found another little bum, a twin he thought, a little heifer with a lot of try.  Did I want her?  Yes, I did!  So once again, I loaded up the kennel and went to fetch my calf.  This time, I met Dad at a turnoff where he was going branding that morning and he pulled the tiniest bright eyed baby out of the horse trailer for me.  I mean to tell you, she was no bigger than a minute!  But bright eyed and strong. And I named her Poppy, because I needed that name to go on a calf with hope.

I got her home and Wayland helped me unload her.  I went back into the house to make breakfast and get Maggie lined out for school and Wayland gave her her first bottle.  He said she kept trying to wedge herself between the house and doghouse, but we weren't really all that concerned because there was plenty of room.  When I went to check on her a little later, she was sleeping under the deck, warm and happy.

We've had her for a week now and she STILL crawls the fence from the calf pen, no matter how many times I put her back, and sleeps under the deck.  And she's pushy, bossy, bullheaded, smart and funny.  When I come out on the deck, she starts yelling at me, demanding her bottle.  When I'm done feeding her, she trots along behind me to the other calves, just in case I have ANOTHER bottle for her.  She's not impressed with them, they don't care a snizzle for her, but they're all healthy and good, so that's what matters.  Poppy is getting strong!  I can hardly haul her back to the pen, now.  I think she'll be just fine.  And with her little fighter personality, if she grows at all, I may keep her.

Here she is!
Just another little black bum calf to everyone else, but a delight to me...

She's yelling at me, because I'm taking pictures instead of feeding her.  She yells at me a lot.

See how she's ignoring Buttercup?  They have their own little gang going and she's not going to be invited to join. As my friend Traci says, "Three is the loneliest number." and apparently it applies to cows, too.

"Come out, Poppy!  It's dinnertime!"

*Ahem*

Yes, I'm aware that the poor girl in my blogger banner has lost a crucial button on her blouse, but I still loved the whole thing.  It even has rhinestones around the edge, just like my tiara.  So for those of you who are shocked and dismayed by the very suggestive vintage image, I apologize for causing you to blush.  But I'm thinking the guys who read this blog will probably be supportive of the change!

Cohagen High School Rodeo, 2012

Mostly photos, but they're worth a million of my words!

Hot, sticky, blowing his $2 as fast as he can on liquid sugar...

This is about all the rodeo Maggie saw.  She gave a token ten minute glance, then it was off to...

...the DIRT PILE!!!

There was a goat tying clinic put on by a very competent, handsome young cowboy who was concerned that my kids didn't know the first thing about the event. 

He had a pretty good time on that run, but then the goat didn't offer a whole heck of a lot of resistance...

She had sort of a crush on my boy....

I could hardly STAND how adorable this child was!

You'll see more of her later.

It was all I could do not to smooch those grubby little cheeks every time I saw her.

Here's the older sister of the goat-tier and little girl with the crush,  running the poles.

I was too close, so you don't really SEE the run very well, but then it wasn't her best so maybe that's alright. The horse was fun to photograph!

Here's the pole bender with her granddad and friends...

Can't believe she turned around just when I was taking the picture!

(Incidentally, my introduction to this girl was when she was about a week old and her mom said to me, "Want to see the world's cutest baby?"

She's just gotten even prettier as she's grown...)

Love all the hats!  Black is the new trend and I think it's pretty classy.

Remember this little hat?  I was in the cookshack, visiting with my friends who immediately put me to work pouring pop and fetching chips, when I turned around to see this little miss standing on a cinder block to be tall enough to get her nose up to the counter.  She got some candy in a hurry and headed off to make sure there was a nice layer of dirt to cover the tell-tale sticky spots on her face...

The Gang, swapping candy and making elaborate plans...
Rodeos are a rockin' good time for the whole family, but those under the age of 10 seem to REALLY get the most fun out of the whole experience.

More cuties...
I really didn't see a lot of the rodeo, because I was very busy photographing dirty faced kids.

This is probably my favorite photo of the day.

The bull watching the kids at the chute getting ready for their bull rides.

Announcer and timers...man, what a long day for those folks!

And we have the first bull ride of the day!

According to THESE judges, it wasn't a qualified ride.  But it was deliciously dangerous and exciting!

More spectators...

I like the dog!

Little boots captivate me...

Downtown Cohagen, MT:

Everyday population, 4-6; 

High school rodeo weekend population, 250.

So We Run

Remember the Montana Women's Run that my sister talked me into doing?

It was this Saturday before Mother's Day!  

There was an option to run either the 5 mile or the 2 mile and of course, we went for the 5.  Two miles is such a piddly little distance and if we're going to run, we're going to REALLY run.  

Cari Mae, our sister (step, but we forget that most of the time) also signed up to run the 5 miles and Karen Leah (step mom, but we forget that most of the time) signed up to walk the 2 miles with her friend Kay.  It was a family affair!  Also, 8,700 other women signed up for the event.  Yes, you read that right.  I'm sure most of the Chronicles readers didn't think there were even that many women in the state, but it's true!  And they were all shapes, sizes, colors, ages, hair styles....amazing.

Now, before I talk about the race experience, I need to tell you that in our family each one of us kids is Dad and Karen's favorite.  We'll call and say, "It's your favorite daughter!" and they say, "You sure are!".  (We all know B.J. and Barry THINK they're the TRUE favorites and we let them because it would bruise their fragile egos to think that they aren't.)  So it was three of the Favorites running!  Our own little team in a way, and next year we're going to get our own tee shirts proclaiming that.  

I won't get into a mile-by-mile report, but I will tell you the highlights.

In BULLET POINTS, TOASTBA!

(That should make you happy.)

• When we five-milers lined up for the race, (all 3,000 of us) the announcer said, "Anyone who runs slower than a 5 minute mile needs to move back from the front."  And the entire crowd laughed heartily. Except for the 6 women in front who actually DID run a 5 minute mile; they were quite serious about the run.  
• I looked down during the line up and was just FASCINATED by all the different shoes! Brand new, old scruffs, big ones, small ones, what-in-the-world-is-THAT ones, every color imaginable...crazy.  
• I learned I'm a really, really slow runner.  Especially when I don't know the course in order to pace myself...who knew when mile 3 was going to end?!  I ran a 10 minute mile through the whole thing except for the last block.  I really wish I'd pushed myself harder.
• Speaking of the finish line...my sisters are faster than me by 3-5 minutes and they'd run together most of the way.  When I got there, they immediately met me and we hugged...we lived!  Then Cari asked me if I'd had fun.  "No! I did NOT HAVE FUN.  This was NOT fun, Cari.  Nothing about this was FUN, do you hear me?!"  Later, I realized it really HAD been fun but we all learned the important lesson: never ask a runner who has just crossed the finish line if they had fun.  It won't be a pretty response.  
• My only goal was to run the whole thing without walking at all; goal accomplished.
• When we were trying to get Karen's attention at HER starting line up, we hollered, "MOM!" and all these heads turned around to see if it was THEIR kids.  That was funny!  She told us to look for a pink hat and a purple race tee shirt; I'm not exaggerating when I say there were probably 60 women with pink hats and purple race tee shirts.  We called quite a few of them Mom, but they didn't seem to mind.   
• I was ridiculously hungry after running, but not really tired or sore, which was wonderful!  My sisters were exhausted, almost too much to eat.  After the race, I had half a sweet roll...bless Perkins' heart for donating them....then at the pizza joint took on a largish salad, half a Thai Pie, a beer and bunches of water.  Followed by a bunch of Milk Duds on the ride home.  Appalling amounts of food.  
• I don't think I'm a great racer.  And I'm certainly not a great racer with that many people involved.  If it was a race with 5 friends, I'd run until bloody to beat them but I don't really care when there's 8,000 or so.  But I'm glad I did it.  
• My sister is NOW training for a half-marathon.  I told her I'd send her flowers.  My next thing will be a series of 5 and 10Ks for fun...especially if they have groovy tee shirts. 

Pictures to follow!

A Cautionary Note from Maggie: