Just Call Him A Bull Rider…

You heard me speak of my good fortune at finding a strong young man to help us move and do heavy lifting for me. This is Jonathan getting his game face on…

Both his daddy and his granddaddy were bull riders.  Jon started riding when he was 5 years old and after 9 years the boy is practically a veteran.  They only let him ride steers, which really ‘chaps his ass’, pun intended, but he will be 15 in April and then can start riding the big bulls.

   One of the neat things about going to small local forums is that I can walk around and watch what the cowboys do to prepare for their ride.  Here Jon is working on the baling wire on his spurs that go under the heel of his boots to help keep them from slipping when he gets hooked into the hide of the bull.

Some riders like to tie their boots on with strips of latigo. They DO NOT want their feet to slip out of their boots causing them to lose their leg grip.

And another example… or two.  Each cowboy has their own routine that they go through, kind of like every other sport, they have their own superstitions.

I thought these chaps were good looking… not much else is on this photo…

This shot looks a little better…

And check out these blue chaps.

Jonathan strapping his chaps up, getting ready for his ride.

Waiting his turn.  There were 21 entries in the bull riding division so they ran out 10 of the bull riders, then ran Jon’s group, the steer riders, then the mutton busters which was won by a GIRL!!!  Wooo Hoooo!!!  Then came time for Jon’s group.

He asked me if I could video his ride for him and I told him I’d try.  I’d only done it once so here is my try at video with my point and shoot camera…

Except for the fact that I can’t figure out how to get it to download. I’m unloading my boxes as fast as I can to try and figure it out.  I know where the video is, it is the verbiage that is killing me.  I give them (those gremlins that reside in my computer) the answers to the questions as best as I can figure out but then I get something like the path is incorrect or the name isn’t right for the transition to be made and my ever favorite,         ” You’re an idiot that can’t figure out shit about computers!”

When I do figure it out I’ll have a bunch of videos to share. Right now I think I’ll go back to bed and cry myself to sleep.

Outside There…

I’ve shown you a bit of inside There so now let’s take a stroll on some of the outside. 

This picture was taken from the street corner looking back towards the house.  My s.i.l. Diane and I were talking about the small pond that Carol and I had built in the front yard.  It was coming on to fall and the mums planted by the gatehouse were coming on strong.

This one was taken from our drive looking back at the pond.  Again you see the little gatehouse.  There was one on the other side of the street as well since our street was the main street into the neighborhood off one of the main streets into the downtown area of our town.

From the street looking back at the pond and the stream you can see how we stacked the individual rocks.  Carol and I would take off and drive down to Tulsa and go north on Memorial Road until we were in Bixby to a place called Hardscape Materials.  They had stacks and stacks of different rock that were priced for folks to pick from theirselves.   When we would drive into their drive we would go on a big scale that weighed us and whatever vehicle we were in and then we’d go get whatever rock we wanted, load it into our vehicle and then go back to the scale, weigh and go in and pay for whatever we got. 

Ninety percent of the rocks in this rock garden were picked because we could lift them. We did purchase a large rock and several that were almost as big as the “waterfall” rock, as we called it, and had those delivered and put into place by a bubba, but all the rest were picked and placed by Carol and me.

We decided to do a pond and rock garden in the front yard because the grass was crap.  We had planted both of the willows when they were smaller but they had grown enough that it was a fight to try to get the grass looking decent.  We had seen ponds around and decided we wanted to build a pond.  Neither of us had ever done it and so it was kind of a comedy of errors, but we toted rock, had a ball doing it and ended up with a decent little stream and a waterfall rock where the water would fall then into the pond.

This was back before I started taking pictures very much but I wanted to start with the pond.  We bought a half dump truck load of dirt, had it dumped on our driveway and Carol’s son (Jeff), our young man that helped me in the yard (Jon) and me would take a wheelbarrow load at a time and we built up from the ground because there were so many roots from the trees it was a bitch to try to dig a hole for the pond. Then we placed and mortared the rocks that we brought in from Hardscape.  Jeff would just shake his head at his mom and me when we’d take off and head to town to buy rock.

This was the beginning of what we built THERE, in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, and some more of my story.  The place where I left most of my heart and a lot of sweat and a great deal of fun.

Since we are in the middle of yet another move from the country into town, Norman, the next few posts are going to be sporadic but I will try not to leave you hanging for more that a couple of days.