Rodeos, Holidays, and Hot Summer Days

Hi, hi!

We are full well into Summer now, with temperatures going into the triple digits (Fahrenheit), brilliant sunsets, and most notably, rodeos. Especially this past weekend, across the U.S. rodeo world there are so many performances that it is difficult keeping up. Close to home, our grandson Ty and his main squeeze Shannon have been traveling to Rocky Mountain Rodeo Association (RMRA) rodeos and sometimes coming away with a few dollars but always coming away with the satisfaction of participating in this uniquely-American sport.

We were able to take in the 2017 Utah High School Rodeo Association (UHSRA) State Finals on June 3; even though none of our grandsons were performing, there were the kids of rodeo friends in the finals and for the most part, they made a good showing. At least two of the boys who bull-dogged with our grandsons will be going to the National High School Rodeo finals in Gillette, Wyoming (one trip there last year was enough for us!). The State Finals takes place in beautiful Heber City - always a pleasure to go there.

Grand Entry (6:00 p.m.MDT)

Sunset (8:54 p.m. MDT)

On the 20th of May Shannon's parents drove out here from Sparks, Nevada hauling Shannon's three rodeo horses. She had enrolled in a summer class at Utah State University (where she will be starting her junior year) and also has employment in Logan so she decided to have her horses housed here at the Diamond A ranch and do some rodeoing with Ty for the summer. Once she completed her class at the end of June, she began coming down each weekend and has been, as I mentioned above, traveling to rodeos around the state. She participates in breakaway roping and barrel racing while Ty is entering the steer wrestling in as many RMRA rodeos as he can. We don't go to any of the out-of-town rodeos (kind of had our fill over the last 30 years!) but we did take in the 72nd Tooele Bit & Spur Rodeo at Deseret Peak Complex on July 3rd. Both Ty and Shannon were entered in that night's performance and Ty managed to split 3rd and 4th place in the steer wrestling - with his buddy who happens to haze for him!

Shannon's breakaway run; caught but with a figure 8 loop which is an illegal catch. 

Ty throwing his steer in 6.4 seconds.

Shannon returning from the third barrel; unfortunately, the ground was bad (there hadn't been any raking before) and she didn't want to push her horse especially since three racers who preceded her had taken falls during their runs.

The crowd at the performance was unusually large - in fact, the grandstands were full. It was great to see so many folks out for the hometown rodeo. Here are a couple more photos from the evening:

Two of the Bit N' Spur Rodeo Grand Entry Girls posting the colors. These thirteen cowgirls have been riding with the Bit N' Spur Rodeo for 18 years (some of them) and have been in high demand for state-wide rodeos. The team was nominated and selected to perform at all five performances of the 2017 Days of '47 PRCA Rodeo, which is truly an honor for them and for Tooele County.

Sun going down in the west. Brilliant!

Once Shannon had finished her barrel run, she and Ty (and Ty's hazing partner) headed back to the ranch for a few hours sleep before leaving at 3:30 a.m. July 4th for the slack at the rodeo in Salina. That evening they headed to Mt. Pleasant for the rodeo there; they are certainly getting a taste of the rodeo life! But, they are young and energetic, and at least for now, are having a blast.

July 4th, Independence Day, Clare and I puttered at home as it was VERY hot. At 10:30 we drove over to a place where we could watch the fireworks display at Deseret Peak (after the rodeo) from a little distance. I haven't figured out how to capture good photos of the fireworks but suffice it to say, there were plenty of celebratory displays going on around the valley, "ooh and ahh" worthy!

Rango's summertime style.

We are taking these dog days of summer slowly and surely - hope your days are as happy as ours!

Bye for now!

Pride in Progeny

By the time I had posted here last week, grandson Ty had already distinguished himself in a video published by the Cowboy Lifestyle Network for the National Western Stock Show in Denver, Colorado January 14th and 15th. He had qualified for this (in steer wrestling) in December when he and his dad made a run over to Denver. His run of 6.4 seconds was good enough to get him in the top 15 and we were over-the-moon proud! Here is the video. Watch closely at about :27 seconds in for Ty Allred right before Trevor Brazile, a 13-time PRCA All-Around Cowboy World Champion! Our grandson - right up there with the big guys!

So darn cool!

Although his two runs in the show Saturday and Sunday didn't get him in the money, it was super awesome that he was competing at this level at age 18. He has hooked up with a couple Texas steer wrestlers who rodeo in the PRCA and this gives him a wonderful opportunity to not only hang out with the pro's but at the same time gain valuable experience in what hard rodeoing is all about.

Two of our grandsons, Ty and Tee, are at Odessa College in Odessa, Texas on rodeo scholarships and Ty's desire is to be a professional cowboy. He seems to be well on his way.

Photo taken by Ty's mother from the stands at Sunday's performance of the National Western Stock Show and Rodeo.

That weekend, granddaughter McKenna (Ty's sister) was home from college (Utah State in Logan) to dogsit while her mom and dad were in Denver. Grandpa invited her to saddle up the two horses left here at the ranch (the grandsons have six horses in Texas) and go for a ride at the Deseret Peak Complex arena. Here she is with Tigger.

Pretty cowgirl.

Grandpa truly enjoyed being back in the saddle and, when he has the chance, he will take the ponies out for afternoon rides.

A couple weeks ago, about the fourth of January, I started an online class called Digital Project Life: 2017 Edition, offered by jessicasprague.com. Although I have a room full of physical scrapbooking stuff, I just couldn't get myself motivated to scrapbook, especially since I take far too many photos and would need to get them printed, etc. I had done some digital scrapbooking from 2006 to 2011, I stopped, did a few paper pages, stopped and began pursuing other paper crafts, particularly stamped cards. Project Life, a concept developed by Becky Higgins, is "a simple system to document your story while still living your life." Jessica Sprague has taken it a step further by creating an easy digital method (although there are other classes/kits/apps available from other folks as well as Becky Higgins). Since I take so many photos that essentially record daily life, I figured I'd give this a try for 2017, and so far, I'm having a ball!

Here's how Week One looks.

I have almost finished Weeks Two and Three and by February 1st I will have January pages ready to send for printing. Then, I'll put them in a photo album for daily perusing. Stay tuned for my progress!

In other news, daughter-in-law Jennifer is putting on a baby shower for granddaughter Brittany in a couple weeks. Clare and I are giving the new parents a pretty nifty (and rather pricey!) stroller; it has a detachable carrier/car seat and so I am making a couple neat blankets for it. Here is a picture of the pattern found and "pinned" onto my Pinterest board, For Grands and Greats.

From here.

I have leftover fabric from this quilted blanket I made last October for them and so will use that, plus I bought some adorable baby dinosaur fabric at Joann's to make another. Sadly, I haven't started them yet as once I cleaned up and organized my craft/sewing space, I am reluctant to mess it up!

More later. Hope you're having a great start to 2017!

Wyoming Adventure, Part II

Here is one of many coal mines outside Gillette. This country is rich in coal, oil and cattle; and, wind!
When we returned from our trip to Devil's Tower, we grabbed dinner and headed back to the arena for Performance 5 of the First Round. I took a photo of this precious little baby girl for Alternate 2 of Rinda's 2016 Summer Photo Scavenger Hunt since I am uncertain that I will ever find #17, twins, before the September 22 deadline.

I did post this on Instagram too.

Plans had been formulated with our son and daughter-in-law and another Utah rodeo couple to leave early Wednesday morning for Mount Rushmore; since we were within 150 miles of this renowned monument, we figured that we'd take the opportunity to see it. Not far from Rushmore is the Crazy Horse Memorial so we took in that too. We entered South Dakota and the Black Hills 10 miles out of Newcastle, Wyoming on Highway 16. This country is truly beautiful forest and it was a curvy but very pleasant drive to Custer and then on to the two monuments.

Crazy woman at Crazy Horse.

The sculptor's, Korczak Ziolkowski, vision. More information can be found here.

We watched the video presentation in the Visitor Center and came away from that quite impressed with the determined effort not only of the original visionaries of this memorial, but with the continued dream of the family and the organization they have built.

Ziolkowski's original generator used to power the drills he used to make the first holes. According to his narration in the video presentation, it was not terribly reliable and would "kaput" just as he had climbed the stairs to get to the top of his drilling site; hence, the sign out of the exhaust stack.

It is difficult to describe the size of this monument although the crane boom seen at the top of the hand (which is currently being carved) looks very tiny and is, in comparison to the face.

We journeyed on through the Black Hills National Forest to Mount Rushmore - I spotted so many gorgeous wildflowers along the way but stopped myself from asking Clare to stop so I could photograph them . . . it would've held up the caravan behind us! There were White Yarrow, Purple Prairie Clover, Blanket Flower, Black-eyed Susan, Sunflower, Wild Meadow Rose, Lupine, Aster, and Green-headed Coneflower among many others. What a feast for the eyes! 

Arrived at Mount Rushmore along with hundreds of other summer tourists and made our way to the viewing point:

The flags depict all 50 states of the United States of America and the dates each entered the Union are inscribed underneath.

Wyoming Adventure (and a bit of South Dakota) Part I

 We are back home here on Vine after a nine-day trip to Wyoming. What an adventure it was too! Our grandson had qualified in steer wrestling for the National High School Rodeo Finals being held in Gillette, Wyoming this year (last year it was in Rock Springs) so, because it was our last chance to go, we loaded up the motor home and set out Friday morning, July 15.

Set to travel. 

Sunrise over the Oquirrh Mountains.

East on Interstate 80.

Twelve hours later, we pulled into CAM-PLEX Multi-Event Facility in Gillette; Ty got checked in and stalled the horses while we settled into our reserved camp spot in BoxElder RV Park #2. After that long drive - stopped to re-set the awning on the motorhome which ballooned out at the mouth of Weber Canyon (caught by the tornado-force winds); stopped three times to fuel up the truck and let the horses stretch; and, stopped for breakfast and then lunch - we were all very tired. All of us slept like the proverbial logs, despite the wind buffeting the motorhome and people pulling in in the wee hours.

Saturday morning.

Saturday, most of the nearly 1,500 participants, their horses, families and friends, pulled in to set up camp for the events beginning Sunday evening with the first performance of the first round. The six RV parks on the CAM-PLEX grounds and area hotels/motels were quickly filled with high school rodeo folks from 42 states, five Canadian provinces, and Australia.  Our son and daughter-in-law arrived Saturday evening and set up their trailer next to our motorhome. Not long after they settled in, the wind came up and the clouds rolled in; then, the heavens let loose with a true downpour for about 20 minutes. Cooled things down nicely.

Sunday was a good time to familiarize ourselves with the surroundings both at the CAM-PLEX and the town of Gillette. Of course, there was the inevitable Cowboy Trade Show at the Wyoming Center hall and we (me and most definitely my daughter-in-law) had to check that out. But first we checked out where the ponies were spending their days in the horse stalls. Here we are - with the two dogs - on the golf cart (which was the approved mode of transportation besides trucks, for getting around the CAM-PLEX grounds).

A view of BoxElder RV Park - well filled.

By late afternoon, another storm came in delaying the first rodeo performance by about 30 minutes. However, the show went on and we were on our way to 11 more performances Monday through Saturday morning. 

Monday morning dawned with high hopes for Team Utah steer wrestler Dawson Stewart, so we packed ourselves into the golf cart and buzzed to the Morningside Park grandstand to watch. 

Timed events arena and grandstand.

The wind was whipping grandstand flags and the clear sky was making us think all was well after Sunday night's storm. However, there was another downpour in the afternoon but that ended before the evening's rodeo and our grandson, Ty, made a tough run of 15.05 seconds - a lot of cowboy grit demonstrated on that one. (That can be seen here at the 1:20:15 mark.)

I just had to capture this view of the moon rise and sunset looking southeast of the arena.

Tuesday morning saw us at the arena again for Performance 4 of the First Round. After the steer wrestling was done, Clare and I decided to take a sightseeing venture to Devil's Tower National Monument, 62 miles northeast of Gillette. Not only is Devil's Tower the first declared U.S. National Monument in 1906, but it served as a backdrop for the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" in 1977. It is also held sacred by various Native Americans, most notably the Lakota tribe. More information can be found here and here. Although it was very hot and bright, coming up on the Tower from highway 24 was a breathtaking sight. Following are various views:

Approach from the highway.

       

At the Tower trailhead.

Climbers spotted. 

                                                                 

View from the Visitor Center.

 

Ah yes! An ice cream salute.

The National Monument also boasts a 40-acre prairie dog town; residents were not shy!

A tunnel opening in the center, dog running away to the left, and one standing guard to the right.

Prairie Dog Town.

We took a short detour towards Hulett at the Devil's Tower Junction and saw this aptly-named ranch:

Makes me wonder if this could have been the original white man's name for the tower.

Stay tuned for Part II of our Wyoming Adventure!

My July Month in Numbers

Hello again!
Here today to join in with Julie and recording July 2015 by the numbers . . .
It was a long, 31-day, month and inordinately full of happenings; not all of them "numbery" but a few quite memorable ones.

July 4 - Independence Day (369 years since signing of the Declaration of Independence). I only mention this because Julie's post about the 800th (!) anniversary of the Magna Carta really brought home how young the United States is in the whole scheme of things! By the way, Julie, this information was very enlightening and totally interesting - I am a bit of an history nerd. I'm including the above photo of 2 of my 4 great grandchildren because firstly, my granddaughter sent it to me on the 4th and it made my day, and secondly, it typifies what happens in small town America on the 4th of July - watching a parade! You'll note the bags they are holding; seems that parade participants throw a lot of candy and the kids actually become more interested in filling their bags than in the parade! Whatever! :)

Just for fun, here is one of the activities Clare and I participated in on the 4th:

Toasting America's independence with Uintah Brewing's Sum'r Ale in close to 100 degree Fahrenheit weather

It was kind of funny that about an hour after we took this photo, the clouds rolled in and not only let loose a torrential rainstorm but made the temps drop by 20 degrees! The beer, though, was tasty at any temperature!

Like last month, we recorded the water levels in the Settlement Canyon Reservoir - but only twice, because it was too hot and we got caught up in other things. Anyway, here are results for the 5th and 11th of July:

5 July - 41 feet at 7:00 p.m. MDT. A bit of a breeze put ripples on the water.

11 July - 39 feet at 7:50 p.m. MDT. A family of fishermen were set up at the water's edge where the scale is; the reservoir is planted with trout each year and people do have some success at catching their dinner!

Our two cowboy grandsons were written up in the local newspaper on the 9th of the month. . . 

and then left on the 11th for the National High School Rodeo Finals in Rock Springs, Wyoming. I recorded some of the details of this rodeo in my June Month in Numbers post here. In addition to participants from the United States (including Alaska and Hawaii) and Canada, there were cowboys and cowgirls from Australia too! At any rate, our grandsons ran as follows: 

First Go for Ty was Tuesday morning, the 14th; First Go for Tee, Wednesday morning, the 15th; Second Go for Tee, Wednesday evening, the 15th; and, Second Go for Ty, Thursday evening, the 16th.

Here's how we saw the Finals:

Live streaming on Cinch TV - we had the large computer monitor on, my IPad, and granddaughter McKenna watched on her IPhone making sure that we missed nothing!

The names and times on the upper part of the screen indicate the fastest time in that round at the time of each run (kind of hard to explain!). Anyhow, Ty's first run (upper left picture) was 6.54 seconds; Tee's first run (upper right) was 10.48 seconds; Tee's second run (lower left) was 27.40 seconds; and Ty's second run (lower right) was no time. The pen of steers for the steer wrestling was big, fast, and nasty and all 142 steer wrestlers had a tough time of it. After all was said and done, our grandsons ended up in the top 30 which was out of the 20 for the Short Go (final performance) but pretty darn good considering the number of cowboys there. Team Utah had four National Champions, and the team overall had the highest accumulated points. 

On the 19th, Clare and I took a Sunday drive to Mona, Utah to see the lavender at Young Living Farms. I posted about that trip here, including lots of relevant numbers! Thank you Julie, for the plug. Like you said, lavender fields were the order of the day/month! 

On Tuesday, the 21st, I went to the monthly Tooele Quilters Meeting and for the "Roun-Tu-It" challenge (i.e., getting round to finishing unfinished quilting projects, which the majority of we quilters seem to have an abundance of), we were reminded that Christmas is close. The theme for July's meeting, incidentally, was Christmas in July.

Wah! Got the message!

At that meeting, we got the next clue for the Mystery Quilt project I blogged here, and it turns out we will be making 17 blocks out of the 72 half square triangles. Our Mystery master, however, was not about to give away any more information . . .

There were 7 birthdays I acknowledged in July:

My friend Heather's 44th birthday on the 4th; Granddaughter-in-law DaviJo's birthday on the 13th; Heather's sister Brenda's 46th birthday on the 15th; daughter-in-law Crystal's 44th birthday on the 18th; great granddaughter Aubrey Lynne's 9th birthday on the 21st; granddaughter Jessica's 22nd birthday on the 22nd; and, my sister Delta Louise's 62nd birthday on the 24th.

Another birthday was celebrated in July also; that is, Utah celebrated 168 years since the Mormon pioneers arrived in the territory on Pioneer Day, the 24th. Big deal here in Utah.

Lastly, I managed to find 6 more of the 21 photos for the 2015 Photography Scavenger Hunt plus 2 of the alternates. I posted about those two and 5 of the 21 here, here, and here. The sixth one, #2 - an ornate door knocker, is here:

Not terribly ornate but as good as we could find. We made a special trip into Salt Lake City and cruised the Avenue's where there are older homes sporting door knockers (I had looked all over Tooele and found nary a one!). Even the Governor's Mansion didn't have a door knocker and this is all we spotted, a vacant (note the paper sign taped beside the letter slot) house that, we found out from information provided by a fellow taking a smoke and beer break on the front porch, is being restored. Oh look! There's another number - 66 (which means 66 North on 13th East).
So, with that enlightening information, I leave you until next time.

30 July moonrise/sunset

Bye, bye!

Month of July in Numbers

I'm joining in with Julie Kirk again this month (last official MinN was April's! Argh!) for Month in Numbers. This month was looong (31 days!) and HOT and full of plenty of activities and happenings.

# of IPhone photos taken and added to Collect calendar = 59. Some of the days there were as many as five to record and only two days with zero.

We celebrated Independence Day, the 4th, quietly with a picnicky sort of meal and watching the fireworks at the high school football field (four blocks east of us here on Vine) from our backyard. Didn't go to the parade in the morning - this would've been a great opportunity to fulfill #14 on the 2014 Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt - because it was already 95 degrees at 9:00 a.m. when it started and we were just plain too lazy!

This is not a terribly good picture of the fireworks but you kind of get the idea . . .

# of books read in July = 3 plus reading Marmee and Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother. This is on my IPad Kindle and so I pick it up only occasionally. An aside here - I really don't like reading from the screen but when I can't find a book I really want to read at the city library, I resort to Kindle books. About this book: I don't like Louisa's father, Bronson Alcott, very much but that dislike surely comes from a 21st century prejudice.

# of photos found for the 2014 Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt = 14 of 21. (Today, the 1st of August, I added another!) See posts here, here, and here. 

# of postcards sent for Sian's Pile of Postcards Swap = 6 - 4 to the UK, one to Canada, and one to New York State. 

# of postcards received for said Swap = 8; 5 from the UK (Helena sent a return card - thank you so much!), one from France, and 2 from Tennessee (an extra one from Barbara!). Absolutely loved doing this and now have new (and very talented!) friends from all over.

This is the postcard I received from Alexa just yesterday, the 31st.

Doing this swap reminds me of when I was young and had "penpals" that I found through comic books, particularly Katy Keene. . . and that's a story for another day :).

# of family birthdays celebrated = 5. Granddaughter-in-law DaviJo's 27th on the 13th; Daughter-in-law Crystal's 42nd on the 18th; Great-granddaughter Aubrey's 8th on the 21st; Granddaughter Jessica's 21st on the 22nd; and, my sister Delta's 61st on the 24th! Girls ruled this month! I called my sister in Silverado, California on her birthday and we had a lovely 45+ minute chat. Just don't get to gab like that often enough!

# of days triple digit temperatures = 5 according to the weather service but it sure seems like more! 

# of miles driven to Panguitch (Utah) for the Panguitch Invitational Rodeo at the Triple C Arena = 228 in 4 hours.

This is a picture of our truck and three-horse trailer driven by our two grandsons (one driving, one entertaining no doubt!) on the road south to Panguitch. My husband and I and our dog are behind them in the motor home. . . well, until we got to the turnoff after losing sight of them on Interstate 15! Grampa got a tad irritated and had me text them that "even though the speed limit was 80 mph on the freeway, doesn't mean you go that fast . . . you are hauling horses, not hauling ass!" Oh dear! 

We arrived safely Tuesday, the 15th, and spent the next three full days rodeoing. Actually, me and Grampa [is that right? or should it be "Grampa and I?"] provided food and bed and the grandboys did the rodeoing!

# of performances/slack attended at said rodeo = 5. Grandson Ty did 3 events (tie-down, steer wrestling, and team roping) and Grandson Tee did 2 events (steer wrestling and team roping). They are team roping partners - Ty heads and Tee heels. In order to qualify for Friday's "short go" or top 10 in each event, each had to catch/get a time in two of the previous two days rodeos. I won't bore you with the details but will cut to the chase and tell you that Tee placed 2nd in the short go steer wrestling and earned a nice, shiny buckle and Ty ended up 3rd in the short go tie down and All-Around Cowboy for the whole rodeo! Woohoo! Here he is with his 3rd place buckle and very large All-Around buckle:

And here are my favorite three cowboys after all was said and done:

On that note, I just wanted to add # of times I've weeded the flower beds = INFINITE! With recent summer rainstorms I've got more of a Garden of Weed'n than flower garden! Wish I could let the 11 steers loose and instruct them in what to eat and what not to eat. But of course, there's the problem of . . . well, you know! And, they might wander down the street and get into traffic . . . 

'Nuf said.