Yesterday was such a fun day! It was another Sorting Sunday so Kimfer & I loaded up the ponies and went to Lazy Ass Ranch (where the team sortings are held).
When we got there we had a moment of shock. There were no other rigs there, Doug and the boys horses were in the corrals.
We looked at each other for a moment and then I said
"It is this weekend right?"Thankfully the "office" window was open and as we got out of the truck Doug came walking around the corner. We had the right weekend, we were just the very first to show up! lol
We paid our dues then went and parked and unloaded. I had brought Applejack as well as Voodoo in case that cut made Voodoo sore. (its healing nicely I just hadn't ridden him since he cut it)
While we were saddling some more people showed up. Thankfully Kathy parked on the side we had our horses tied to... Voodoo was a cranky butthead and I said some "un-bloggable" words to him. Oops. lol
Voodoo warmed up nicely but Kimfer's young mare (Isis) was a butthead in the warm-up arena. I'm pretty sure she got some "un-bloggable" words too.
When the sorting started I looked at the sheet of teams posted and was pretty happy, I got drawn with Susan, Al (aka Ace) and Holly. All three are good horsepeople, competitive spirited and good at sorting.
The cows were unusually co-operative. You still had to work but things just seemed to go smoother. Kinda refreshing after the not so nice cows last time.
(they were so bad last time I was giving them names like "Dog Food" and "Ribeye" lol)Each team goes twice, with a break in between for lunch. The goal is to get 10 cows in under 90 seconds. Holly & I got 8 cows and then 10. Ace and I DQ'd and then got 10. Susan and I got 10 both goes.
I was super excited, I've only gotten 10 once before and yesterday I got 4 runs with 10! :)
When Ace & I DQ'd we had 8 cows and were getting our last 2. I was bringing in 5 and 6 together, Ace was holding the "gate" (the open spot between the two pens) 5 ducked to the right and 6 ran for the gate. Ace didn't cut her off in time and she ran through. Cow out of order = trash = DQ.
Oh, and I got a prize! Well actually everyone got a "prize" Bev (the announcer) called up a bunch of people (I was one of them) and we all got a prize for having blowouts (DQs) Then all the people who didn't blowout were called up and given a prize. The prize? A bag of baby carrots!
Holly had gone to her small town gas-station the day before to get some gas for her lawn mower. There was a guy there selling bags of baby carrots in the parking lot and when he asked if she wanted some she said sure. He opened the back door of his car and gave her a CASE of carrots! lol
None of my horses have ever eaten carrots or apples. They'll eat cookies just fine they just don't seem to into the carrots or apples. Big pieces, little pieces. Nope not interested. I haven't tried giving them to Voodoo before though so I offered him a baby carrot. He took it! I gave him a few more and then noticed that Applejack was watching with quite a lot of interest. Oh well what the heck, offer him one so his feelings wouldn't be hurt right? lol He took it! I was a bit surprised but kinda happy. I fed both horses a few more carrots and then saved the rest for later.
Voodoo did really well all day. He didn't have a lot of get up and go in the pen though. There were times I was expecting him to jump forward and he felt sluggish. His leg never bothered him so I'll chalk it up to a bit of attitude and being off work for a bit. His behaviour that morning was definitely a display of attitude.
I'll tell you what happened and what we did. Maybe some of my more experienced blog friends have suggestions on how to deal with this:
After I saddled I cleaned his feet. Both front feet were done, the right hind was done and I went to do the left hind. When I picked it up he leaned on me. Hard. Hard enough that I set it down and gave him a real good fist in the rump. When I picked it up again he leaned on me harder. Hard enough to crumple me under him. I called to Kimfer and she came over and smacked his rump hard. Then she took over picking up his foot, she's stronger than me. She told me to get after him if he started to lean. After a few more attempts to pick up his foot nicely, with me getting after him every time, he finally picked it up like a gentleman.
He has never leaned like this. IMO it was totally out of disrespect for me (or Kimfer). I picked out his feet a few more times over the day and he was fine for all the rest of them.