Saturday, May 15, 2010

As we left to drive to Big Timber I saw the baby alpaca laying in the field behind the mother alpaca. Big Timber is about 75 minutes away on very uncrowded roads. No traffic jams!
The Big Timber Bull-a-Rama is at the Sweet Grass County Fairgrounds. As soon as Daddy stepped out of the car he walked into the largest mud puddle in the whole lot! The bulls came from 3 farms: Red-Eyed Rodeo, Priest Creek or Hofer Bucking Bulls. One bull was really mean and had huge horns. As soon as he bucked the cowboy off, he turned and charged the 4 cowboys that stay in the arena. All 4 jumped up onto the fence simultaneously! Several other bulls didn't want to leave the arena so they had to be roped. The Bull Chaser, Clay from Montana, had to pull the bull. The bull weighs 1500 # and the horse had a hard time pulling him. All of a sudden, the bull started running and almost rear-ended the horse. The announcer said "Hurry up! He wants to be your tailgate!" Most horses are afraid of these huge bulls; so this horse was doing really well. "The next time you tell your horse he's going to the rodeo, he won't go into the trailer!"
Surprisingly, some of these cowboys won the previous years, but didn't even stay on the bulls for 8 seconds. After the first 20 riders are finished and rated, the judges pick the 10 best for the semi-finals. The first 3 of these last 10 barely stayed on the bulls for even 2 seconds. The announcer said,"It's raining cowboys!" If you buy a 6 pack of beer, your name goes into a draw for a cap or T shirt. A 6 pack looks like a lot of beer for 1 person to drink. But out here when you ask somebody how far away a place is, they'll answer, about 6 beers worth. Just before the semi-finals, the 4 young boys that are elementary age compete on the mini-bulls. The first boy Josh fell off before the bull got out of the chute! Many of the children attending the rodeo had on wrangler jeans, cowboy hats and shirts and carried a lariat; even the girls.
These are the future bull riders and they are from this small town of Big Timber. Big Timber was named because it was the first place that Lewis and Clark could find big enough timber around the Missouri River to build a canoe.
After the rodeo there was a dinner and dance at the American Legion Hall in town. We had pork BBQ, cole slaw and a cookie. The band was called The Dirty Shame from Bozeman. They were really good. It was called "Outlaw Country music. They did a lot of Willie and did it well. This is a small town and there were couples of all ages at this dance. The teenagers danced, young couples , middle-aged couples and older folks too. They all did the same dance, some country dance with a lot of turns and swings. Even the young guys asked the older ladies to dance too. Age doesn't seem to matter here. And the people are so friendly!