Howdy Tess: August 2008

I have a few friends who also have blogs. Most of them are much more sophisticated bloggers than me, but at least I am good at being a copy cat. Recently, my cousin Dahlene started a blog so I was able to steal these new music and books elements from her and her bloggin' friends.

On my bookshelf this week is Brief and Wonderous Life, which I believe won the Pulitzer this year. I finished this up and it gets a thumbs up. Funny, but makes you think. Told from an interesting perspective and has a compelling way with language, which in my mind is what pulitzer is all about, rewarding new treatment of words. Here it is a combination of English and Spanish. But even though Tess has a larger Spanish vocabularly than me, and all I know comes from Sesame Street and Dora, it all makes sense, trust me. Starting Brief History of the Dead tonight, which was my book club book for LAST month.

So if you are here for pictures of Tess and not book reviews, please be patient. I only get to read a few pages a night!

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Breaking News

We have learned that Eric is a media star again. This time he is featured in the Casper Star Tribune on-line video story about the Mustang Challenge.
http://www.casperstartribune.net/
The video's are on the right hand side.

The Mustang Challenge

This weekend was the culmination of the mustang challenge. Chico and Eric loaded up on Thursday night and traveled to Douglas to get settled in. Then Friday afternoon and evening they participated in the preliminary event. Here they are in the "in-hand" groundwork portion. There is a huge new indoor horse center at the fairgrounds, but it was also hard to take pictures there.

There was also a riding-trail portion and a two minute free-style where Eric and Chico worked a cow. Eric ended up placing 13th. There were 35 people who picked up Mustangs in May. 26 showed up at the competition and 21 completed the competition. May of those guys were professional trainers, so we were very proud of Eric being so competitive considering he wears so many other hats too!

It was also fun to get to see all our friends who supported Eric show up to cheer him on. He had a large cheering section. Our neighbor Tim also had a mustang so there was a whole section of Glendo folks. Above are our friends Tori, Dan and Amanda and Cole who surprised us by coming from Laramie!

The best part of the competition was the reward of knowing Chico has a new home in Cody with an owner who will give him a job. He brought a good price at the sale. Tess was going to ride him in the sale portion, but she had drug grandma and I on so many carnival rides Friday and in the morning that she decided to take a nap instead.

Of course, today Eric was already busy with other projects. Here's yearling Clay with his first saddle and he is back down at the corral. After all, there is a ranch rodeo in two weeks.