Have I mentioned…darn wind !

That very large limb is not supposed to be on the deck. 

The back limb of the tree was rotten and broke off.  sad day : (

What do calves do at 2am….

It’s a good thing that Duane is a light sleeper and/or was dreaming that the calves got out of the pasture through a certain gate.  Earlier last night, at about 11:00pm,  it was really windy and a branch had fallen on a gate and knocked it loose so apparently the calves had to check it out.  When Duane walked out the front door there was a black calf looking at him. 

They look so innocent this morning.  But they were having a great time kicking up their heels and running in the garden.  They are so used to Duane that they were pretty cooperative.  My job was to stand and block their way if they decided to go the wrong way.  (not so scary to have calves running at you when its dark and you have a stick)

New way to aerate your lawn !

Funny thing is for the last couple of weeks the horses have been checking out the lawn to make sure it didn’t taste better than their pasture also.  Duane seems to forget to fasten one small latch…..

If this is not latched, Mac will figure how to open it and take himself for a walk.

Look who we got to see

This weekend we left on Friday and headed to Boise.  We went to the Temple and had a nice day then Saturday we met up with Ty, Andrea, Kayli, Jenna and Noah at a Cross Country Meet that the girls were running in.

Ty was obviously busy but he stopped for a moment to say hi and pose. 

The meet was at Eagle Island State Park and basically they ran around a very pretty lake a couple of times.  There were so many kids there from all over.  From Enterprise to Gresham to Star Valley WY.  Kayli and Jenna are wearing numbers 2131/2132 so you can guess how many were here.  This is a picture of the 2nd heat of the JV girls run.  They ran in the very last race of the day and it started at 3:20pm.  The girls did so good.

                           Kayli                                                               Jenna

Andrea is the official photographer for the team.  She had Noah helping with getting a video at the same time.  They put together a video at the end of the season for the cross country team.

Duane was the official timer : )  When we headed home we ran into a crazy wind/rain storm so we were glad that the meet was so nice.  

Darn Wind

We had a storm go through Sunday night that had some crazy winds plus lightning and rain.  This was the end result.

One of our apple trees, it had the best apples…..

…and we had to take this tree out since there wasn’t much left of it.  Never did know what kind it was. (notice all the broken limbs at the top)

and tons of dead limbs everywhere.  We took one trailer full to the dump today and haven’t cut up the apple tree yet. 

That was a fun week

I have to admit that Round-up week was fun. But I don’t think I will do it again for a couple of years.  We continued our week with more slack, the cowboy breakfast at 6 am one morning, Mike and I went to the rodeo on Thursday which is ‘tough enough to wear pink’ day..that was cool.  Friday was the Westward Ho parade.  No motorized vehicles can be in it so no stupid trucks.

This is the horse that they use in Happy Canyon (if anyone remembers that)

I love all the traditional wear of the Indians that have been passed down.

I love to see all the bead work that they wear.  I had to laugh at the beaded Elmo the little girl is wearing.  (probably not passed down)

I don’t ever remember 4 horses across before….and that is a real bull that was HUGE and tame.

Then we went to Saturday of Round-up. 

So this is Duane, his sister Carol, her husband Mike, Duanes brother Darrell, and Carols daughter Nicki.  They live in Welches (on Mt Hood) and had never been to the R-up.  Darrell lives in Union.

They had a really cool flag ceremony and then the court jumps the fence and rides in.

I took this picture mainly because of all the cowboys with camera.  I happened to get a good bareback rider. 

Then all the Native Americans come on the arena for awhile.  It is really fun to watch the little kids dance.  There were 2 little boys that danced and danced the whole time.  Talk about energy.  Kaiya Spencer, a YW in our ward won 1st place in the Junior Indian Beauty pageant.  She is so sweet and always smiling and definitely very pretty.

The Rodeo clown is always the fun part of the day.  This guys was pretty funny.  He kept the ‘wave’ going around the arena, danced a lot, and was scared to death of the bulls.  That’s it for our week at the World famous Pendleton Round-up !!

What a Day

Duane and I were invited to go target shooting at Indian Rock in La Grande with Mike and Jaimi.  It was a beautiful drive.  The view is so amazing up there.

….but apparently Mike had other plans…..

She didn’t see it coming…..

CONGRATULATIONS MIKE AND JAIMI.

Pendleton Round-up

Duane is being such a good sport and we are going to Round-up this year.  He believes that you should do it about every 15 years (if you have to)  A true Pendletonian gets out of town during this event. 

So … I had to get into the spirit of the week by buying a pair of boots.  The moment I say these I knew I had to get them.  These are for Carol and to support breast cancer awareness.  cool huh!

They don’t look like it but they are pink.

Then we went to the dress up parade.  Typical parade (I love parades !) I have always loved to see the courts from the different rodeos.  Notice the flowers on the roundup court this year and the bead work on the Happy Canyon princesses were amazing. 

This was a new thing….you go out in the street and lay down and draw a circle around you.  You win if a horse poops in your circle. 

The best part of the parade was a mounted band. They are playing instruments (including a big bass drum) while riding a horse.  The horses walk along without the rider holding the reins and they don’t even flinch at the loud music.  Pretty cool.

R-up Mounted Band

We have gone to a couple of days of slack.  This is when all the preliminary timing and disqualifing happens.  There can be 75-108 participants in each events.  It is fun to watch the no name eastern oregon kid run the events right before a world champion like Trevor Brazille or Tuff Cooper.

We could only image the amount of money tied to the fences.  Some horses can cost 300,000 and all the saddles etc.  But our favorite picture was the texting cowboys.

We have also gone to the PBR bull riding that is monday and tues nights before the round-up really starts.  I love bull riding so it was good.  Flint Rasmussen is a rodeo clown that really makes it fun.  He’s always dancing or doing something funny.  Not many pictures turned out from the nose bleed section.  This is the light show before and the glowing ‘Let’er Buck’ on the ground. (Always a cowboy hat right in your way )

We still have the Main street show tonight and the cowboys breakfast and then we have tickets for Saturday of Round-up.  Duane’s brother, sister and families are joining us for Saturday.  Fun Times !!  The thing I’m really looking forward to is “Fry Bread’ (elephant ear, scone or whatever you want to call it)  A guy in our ward, his mother makes it and it is soooo good.  (A, J, Lin, K..you didn’t read this.  I will stop eating after r-up)