Update on equines part three...My girl Summer.

*************************Cow horse in the making****************

Glad I only have three horses. Don't know if my typing could hold up to anymore! LOL

Here is what Summer and I have been doing. Cows. Well, not exactly cows. More like calves. Weanlings I guess you could call them. Anyhoot...Tracey and I had decided to try our hand at this thing called Ranch Sorting. Also called Team Sorting. You and a partner enter a round pen that is attached to another round pen. Forming a figure 8. At the center of the 8 is an opening the size of 1 panel. About 12 foot or so wide. This area is called the "hole", it is the area that you herd your calf through and try not to let all the calves or the wrong calf through. One person protects the hole and one sorts the calves. You can either rotate or keep your job the entire 60 seconds.

The calves have numbers chained around their necks from 0 to 9 and there can be 1 or 2 calves with no numbers. These are called "trash cows". They make the game harder. Trash cows cannot go through the hole at all. If they do, game over.

The first couple of times we went, we wore our helmets. I know, I know...people were looking at us like we just got out of an asylum. Especially since neither of us were on stock type horses either! LOL My biggest issue with the whole thing of why wear a helmet I guess is, if Summer trips, or moves to fast for me to keep up because she is frightened, etc...I come off, then I am in a round pen with 1000lbs of freaked out horse and 11 crazy eyed calves running all over the place. Including running over my head. I did let vanity take over last Friday night (our third time out there) and didn't wear my helmet. I got chastized by David and Patti. So I will be wearing it if I go this Friday.

So far, Summer has gotten a calf everytime. Now, is she doing it willingly? No. LOL But she is doing it. I can still feel the tension in her body, but she is trying desperately to please me. And for that I am grateful. I hope that with more time, she will become more relaxed. I am really enjoying this. I need to find an instructor with cattle/calves and take lessons. I have one in mind that lives in Crowley and is absolutely wonderful. He mostly does cutting, but I have worked with him at the AHA show for the past two years and I think he might give me some instruction.

As of yet though, I do not have pictures. If I go this Friday night, I will try to con Amanda into coming out and taking pictures.

Mostly I am doing this for fun and just to say I did it. But it really is fun. I don't know why I like it so much but I do!