Its Fair time!

Since I can remember I've always been fascinated by the State Fair and the annual rodeos. Many of the events were based on real life tasks required on the ranch. Rodeos have changed as well as state fairs with more entertainment for folks not involved in farm or ranch life. And seeing that the number of folks involved in farm and ranch life has dwindled in the last 40 years it makes sense that gut churning rides on machines would take the place of a sort and branding team.

In Seattle as you can imagine the State fair is made up of 20% animals and the likes and the rest to vendors of the latest gadgets, tons of rides, and food, the worst stuff you could think to put into your precious body, and big name concerts. So the original Ag. stuff has just slowly evolved out.

Last Sunday Linda and I went to the Oklahoma City state fair. We were hoping to see some different breeds of sheep, but not much was there probably because it was a Sunday, but we did get to see a really great competition of field sorting. This was done in teams of two. This is where the team on horse back sort the calves. The calves are in one corral and the object is to get them all in the second corral in numerical order before the bell goes off. Okay, this was the most amazing thing I have ever seen. The horses were amazing and the handling was so incredible to watch. The great thing was the diversity of sex and age. Young, old, male, female. Amazing! I watched this young kid of maybe 12 work with a dude about 70 and they got eight out of 10 calves in!

I want to do this!

One thing this has inspired me to do is take horse back riding lessons. I really want a horse one day. When I was young I rode a little but cant remember anything important so I've decided to do something good for myself that will take me off of the farm and take some lessons, at least then, if and when I do get a horse I'll know what to do with em. Like sorting and roping and cool stuff like that! Yea right!