so, recently freed from any social obligations in my evenings due to lack of male company at the moment, i had an entire, gorgeous wyoming evening to myself last night. first order of business after work - eat. i'd been so busy finishing things up for the paper yesterday that all i had between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. was a small handful of almonds and a pepper cheese stick.
(bonus - i have managed to lose a couple of those stubborn 10 pounds i gained during the stint i spent hanging out with Pouty Boy A way back in jan/feb. we went out to eat a lot, which was fun, because we tried a lot of new places and he always paid. pipeliner's income, anyway. i mean, do single guys in their late 20s, early 30s really need to make $90k a year? esp when they have next to no living expenses?)
anyway. i ate dinner, a spinach salad and half a pork chop i'd grilled the night before, then headed out to my horse pasture. because jazz is still slightly off on her off hind i walked her a little, then got the bright idea i was going to catch robert's horse scooter and ride her a bit. problem number one - she's impossible to catch on foot. as evidenced by robert's occasional fury. :-) so i tried the on-foot strategy, keeping her running in circles around all the other horses. yeah, that meant i had to run, too. so that got old pretty quick and i caught april, hopped up on her and continued to keep scooter on the move.
now, scooter likes to play hard-to-catch, but she's really quite lazy, so the thrill of running away soon wore off and it became work for her to evade us. presently i let her stop, slid off april and walked right up to her. victory was won! the poor old sorrel gelding that's in love with her and thought he had to follow her the whole time was sure beat and breathing like he hadn't moved that much in at least three years.
by that time both april and scooter were pretty sweaty, so i gave april a 'thanks' and transferred her bridle over to scooter and hopped on. scooter and i worked a little bit on 'no, i'm not going to yank on your mouth and you can trust me, just calm down and try to figure out what i want when i pick up the reins.' she's a really pretty blue roan mare, well-muscled, but she's hancock bred, which means she's hard-headed. she lives up to her blood lines, but i think with patience and gentleness i can get through to her, where she'll actually let me communicate with her.
by the time i walked out of the pasture i was wishing i had brought a change of pants - sweaty horses in 80-degree weather.
changed my pants, then left my apt about 8 to go back to the roundup office to clean for a little over an hour. got home and went to bed at 10, only to be awakened by crazy friend D at 12:30. (note - i hadn't heard a peep from him all day. nor have i this morning) but yes, he felt the need to send me several texts, then call me after 2 a.m. on his way home from the bar. he got pretty lit last night, which is unusual for him. thus the phone calls. :-P he avoids those when he's sober now, apparently. but, i admit, i've been guilty of calling and texting him half-soused so i guess it's a give-and-take.
event to start getting excited about: brad paisley's new album, 'american saturday night,' releases next tuesday!!
event to cross fingers about: in march i won concert tickets to blackhawk at the beacon here in casper, but now i'm aiming for bigger fish: kenny chesney and jake owen at cheyenne frontier days in late-july.
event that i should maybe be dreading, but i'm not: powder river sheepherder's fair. i went out there two summers ago to take photos for the roundup and was there for two hours, tops. my, how things change, because this weekend i'm going out as a volunteer to serve *adult beverages* for the evening festivities/bbq/dance. i'm headed out saturday morning, going to spend the night in my truck and come back whenever i feel up to it on sunday.
whenever i tell people (normal people, that is) what my plan is, they look at me a little sideways and laugh. not a good sign, but i'm confident it'll be fun. (yes, the place where it's held is nothing more than an arena in the middle of nowhere with a steel machine shed for shade, and it's usually in the mid-90s when this event takes place, complete with all the wyoming dust you could ask for. and all the events are centered around sheep. sheep herding, sheep tying, sheep hooking from the ground, sheep hooking from a horse, you get the idea...)
i'm sure i'll have photos to share. i already have two bottles of whiskey - crown and pendleton - in my truck to contribute. how i got roped into this is friend jake is on the committee, and asked if i could come volunteer for the community event. my how that sounds like an upstanding community service, no? :-) and friends casey, stuart, justin, john, molly, kelly...and many others will also be out there. and maybe crazy RK?
let me tell you a little about crazy RK. i help his family with cattle work a few times a year - he's 30 - and he has the most out-of-control four-year-old boy named billy that you will ever see. it's been cute up to this point, but i think impending problems will come with his bigger size. so anyway, i ran into crazy RK in the beacon several weeks ago, and he was telling me about his garden. yes, he likes to grow vegetables, it's what he does in his spare time and to relax. unexpected, no? but, then he starts telling me about how he planted some weed in his garden last year, and the deer came in and that's the only thing they ate - didn't touch anything else. (at first i thought he was saying 'wheat,' then realized my mistake) he was very upset. so apparently this year he went overboard when planting and has several acres of vegetables. he's asked for help in tending to it, which is fine with me, because they always share with the roundup office. i'm not sure if there's weed included in this year's crop. and if there is, i'm not sure if that's included in the sharing agreement.
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