Burwell Rodeo/ Valentine Jr. Rodeo

Kyle & Jenae at the Valentine Jr. Rodeo

Jenae on Speedster & Aubree on Hippie at the Valentine Jr. Rodeo

We had another busy weekend. Kyle came home on Thursday evening. He was in slack in Burwell Friday morning. I had to work, but Marilyn took the girls down to watch. Kyle had a nice cheering crowd. Hope & Trey went and several of the Zutavern's were there as well.

He made a nice run in steer wrestling and was 5.5. It sounds like he had a bad call in the calf roping. His roped his calf and made a nice run, but got a slow flag. The calf has to stay tied for 6 second to be a qualified run. From the sounds of it Kyle's calf stayed tied well over 6 seconds but eventually kicked free and the judge gave him a no time. :-( If he would have got a time on his first calf he would have won the average. It is times like that make rodeo very frustrating!

Saturday I was able to spend most of the morning in the house and my garden. It was so nice to have Kyle home to handle the chores for the horses, calves & chickens. He had been gone for 3 weeks. With him and his traveling partner around I spend a lot more time in the kitchen, but I do not mind trading in my chore boots for oven mitts!

Saturday evening we went back to Burwell for Kyle's 2nd calf & 2nd steer. It was a hot day but got pretty nice when the sun went under. We always have a lot of fun at Burwell. It is nice to see friends that we have not seen in awhile.

Sunday morning we headed out at 6:00 am for a Jr. Rodeo in Valentine for Jenae. I knew it was going to be hard to get the girls up and going so early after a big night out at Burwell so I let the girls put on their pj's when we left Burwell and we climbed in the trailer and went to sleep.The girls & I slept all night in the trailer. Kyle took off early in the morning and we were able to let the girls keep sleeping. Aubree slept all the way to Valentine:-) Jenae had another good rodeo. She was 2nd in the poles and 3rd in the Barrels. I think less than .5 sec separated 1st from 3rd in the barrels. Marilyn is a good time recorder and I know she has the exact times written down. Jenae also competed in the goat tail untie and flag race. She used a young horse, Hippie, that she is hoping to make into her next rodeo horse. He is a 6 yr old gelding that Chip bought as either a yearling or 2 year old, I can't remember off hand. He is the horse that I have used the last couple of years when I help out on the ranch. He is a super quiet nice horse to ride. Jenae has pretty much taken him over and really enjoys riding him when we move cattle. She started working on the flag race with him. To give Speedster a little bit of a break she wanted to take Hippie to Valentine to do the goats and flag race. He did good in the goats, when she went to get off to pull the ribbon off the goat tail he stood right where she got off. Most of the other horse took off back to the gate when the kids jumped off. The flag race went good until Hippie realized there was grain in bucket holding the flag. I guess he thought he would stop an have a snack! All in all for a 6 year old girl to be riding a 6 year old horse in his first rodeo is neat in itself. When Jenae got on Speedster to run the barrels & poles she said "Okay Speedster it is time to show the world what you can do!" She is pretty proud of him and thinks no other horse can hold a candle to him! Aubree was a good trooper through the day. It was hot and I am sure got a little boring for her watching her big sister get to compete. When we got to the rodeo Aubree said to me "is this my rodeo" I had to break her heart and say "no it is Jenae's rodeo" It was really nice to have Kyle there to watch Jenae compete. I know it really meant a lot to Jenae to have him there.

I am going though a little depression today. Now that we are in to August school is just around the corner. I have so much enjoyed summer with Jenae at home. She has had such a fun summer it makes me sad to see it winding down. She has not said much about school starting. I know she will be excited to see all her friends again but she is really going to miss riding her horses and helping Grandpa on the ranch.