I wish I knew how to attach a music file to this blog because to get the full effect of the cultural setting, we should have polka music playing in the background!

Last week I was at home in Felt OK and  talking to my daughter Erin on the phone.  She happened to mention that in five days my grandson Lane would be showing his calf in showmanship at the county fair, and since I was negotiating for a new dog in AR and had former puppy buyers on the phone from Chicago who wanted me to take a pup back- she had been raised in a cage ten hours a day,, they had white carpet, and she was just not the baby they wanted to fill their empty nest... So Erin mentioning the fair and my grandbabies was about all the extra prompting I needed to get in the van and drive! 

I had arranged to get old Jack from a puppymill in AR where the lady was having a hard time controlling him (she is used to toy breeds) and he was getting long in the tooth and they were not looking forward to supporting him in his old age.  Now Jack has full siblings all over the country and the behavior and temperament of this cross as well as the working ability (he is linebred to Anderson's Max, who was one of the best sires, if not THE best sires  of Natural Low Heelers in the country) is highly regarded!  Being pretty much a kennel dog Jack had never had time to polish his instincts into the herding dog expertise that other relatives had, but I have to admit, I have never seen a better natural low tirer in my life!  (Kinda reminds me of a story one of my boyfriends once told me about driving his truck to the next town on the railroad tracks, but I digress...)

In addition to their excellent working instinct,  this kind of English Shepherd is just plain smart and very biddable when working in partnership with their owner.  A full sister of Jack is the dam of the best search and rescue English Shepherd in the country.

Friday, August 18, 2006

My first dog stop was Gurdon AR where my brother Hollis Thaxton and sister-in-law, Marica live.

They had pulled Jack from the puppymill and worked him over to get rid of the parasites.  I arrived in time for supper (which is a terrific idea, by the way if you are ever in that part of the country, there is no better supper than my sister in law's home cookin'. 

She is quite a hypochondriac, however, works hard but complains about every little problem and this time she had gotten a couple of tick bites and had gone to the Dr. for diagnosis.  This incident was reported to us in great detail, along with the description of the tick bites and subsequent symptoms.  She said " That doctor told me I am the stubbornest woman he ever saw!"  I looked over at Hollis and he asked her,  "Did he charge you anything for that diagnosis?" 

"Probably..." she answered.

"Well did he give you anything for it?"  Hollis asked with smirk and a wink in my direction.

Marica's snippy indignant reply "You are pretty hard headed yourself!" was delivered in a tone that made it quite clear that she was beginning to get tired of the direction this conversation was taking, so I said, " Marica, don't you feel sorry for my poor mama, she never realized when she married my daddy that she would end up with four of us hard-headed Thaxton brats!"  This seemed to assuage her hurt feelings and she continued to relate the rest of her medical history without further incident.

After supper (dinner is the noon meal in AR) I explained to Jack that I had planned his retirement to a large dog run in a place with a comfortable climate, said run to be partially populated by young beautiful English Shepherd virgins, and he did not have to convert to the Moslem religion or die in battle or anything to qualify.  Marica was surprised when he jumped in the back of my van and loaded right up in the dog crate!  We drove on up to Mom's house in Little Rock where we headed for Chicago from Little Rock at the break of dawn.

Saturday August 19, 2006

 At 5:00 pm we arrived in Chicago and loaded the half grown puppy while the tearful "parents" looked on and cried unashamedly.  Amber had really turned out to be a beauty, and Jack was beginning to believe that the pormises I had made him might actually be going to come true!

After adding the pup in Chicago to our company, I headed north through Milwaukee and Osh Kosh, arriving at Red Bank Farm at Suring, WI  at 11:45 PM.

Sunday morning, 10 AM, August 20, 2006

 I remember when I was a kid how we would travel the whole way across Oklahoma to Felt and get up the next morning and ride horses and work cattle all day and then go to the rodeo and dance half the night!  I have since reflected on my Uncle, D. B. Thrash and why he arranged to work us young people so hard on the day before those events.  It sure was a privilege to know him, and one of the best things about my house burning down in 1990 was that my kids had the opportunity of his acquaintance as well!

Anyway, Sunday morning at 10:00 my grandson Lane was scheduled to show his calf in showmanship, and I did not feel like a kid going to a rodeo, but more like a tired old grandma for some annoying reason- something is wrong here, I am going to have to think about this some more

Lane did a first rate job of showing that calf,  and plans to do a better job next year.  That is what Four H is all about-to make the best better, and it wont be long before he is old enough to participate in that!

Lane learned a lot, especially how to keep his eyes on the judge and position his calf so the judge could see him.  His calf was one of the best trained in the class.

The next event after the showmanship class was the sale of champions, and we enjoyed seeing the trio of rabbits sell for $500 and the turkey for $450, they sold summer sausage (you have not had summer sausage until you have had the real Wisconsin kind) for $650 for the Dairy Goat champions, and fancy cheese packs for the Dairy Cows.

Dads Farms bought one of the finished dairy steers from one of the girls whose family buys bull calves from the dairy.  This family has a real nice quarter horse stallion with old fashioned bloodlines.

Sunday afternoon 2:00 PM  August 20, 2006

After the sale the rodeo was up next and we went and sat down where they has set up the arena.  The arena had bucking chutes at one end and was constructed entirely of corral panels.  There was loose sand about a foot deep covering the ground.  Now in Arkansas where I grew up they had some pretty little arenas, lots smaller than those out west, but this arena was about 2/3 the size of the smallest one I had ever seen. 

The music began to play (Country music) and the 4H drill team began to enter the arena.  They used western saddles and clothing but all wore English riding helmets or bicycle helmets.

About this time the announcer came up and asked the crowd to go purchase their tickets and a lot of people went to do that we had already bought ours so we sat still.  Another curious cultural phenomenon that you see here in Wisconsin are the campfire wood stands.  People drive through here almost every weekend to escape from Chicago or Milwaukee or Green Bay for the weekend, and scattered along the road are campfire wood stands, these consist of a small shed full of stove wood, and a wooden box with a padlock on it.  So even though here in Packer land the cowboy hats may be kinda cheesy,

They still have the kind of honor in their culture that was mighty important in the cowboy culture out west.

This drill team did a real nice job for all of the handicaps- the arena size and flounder in the sand they were not as neat as the Wonder Girls, the drill team I was in as a kid, but some maneuvers were more difficult and particularly well executed, and I led the applause.

Back when she was in college, Erin was working on the newspaper - the Oklahoma Panhandle State University Collegian, and another lady was working there too, Suzy Poppowell, a former Miss Rodeo Oklahoma.  Erin and Suzy became friends and Suzy told her of how Lane Frost used to camp on her motel room floor when he bucked off, (they provided rooms to the rodeo queen).  And after Suzy introduced Erin to Dan Hischke, they fell in love and got married and they had a son, they named him Lane, partly for Lane Frost, but partly for me too. 

Recently Lane, age seven, has discovered the movie, 8 seconds. And is pretty into the Lane Frost story.  he has that Lane Frost/ Luke Perry wave down pat!:

The Lane Frost wave

Ethan and his medal for Mutton Bustin'

The remainder of the rodeo was a bull ridin contest.  Most of th ecowboys were local amateurs,  they had som pretty fair stock, but they were pretty tired; they had escaped and three of them were not yet recovered!  I think they must have used them so much during slack teaching the local amateurs what to do, that they were pretty well broke by rodeo time, but the announcer  and the bull fighters did a fine job and a good time was had by all!