This past weekend we paid a visit to my sister and her husband at their place not far from where we live. The kids always like to go along when we can be outdoors and see all of their fun animals. My sister has always had the gift of being comfortable and well received with any animal really. I don’t have that. I’m jealous. Fast forward one generation… my daughter definitely has the ‘smooth with animals thing’. Animals seem to trust her (ones that won’t trust my husband or myself) and she is gentle and quiet with them. Her brother = bull in a china shop. That whole story is for another day.
We enjoyed getting to know a new mare at their house (she’s a retired race horse) and of course, my daughter gave plenty of attention to their (she thinks it is ‘her’) pony, Dusty. He is the sweetest little thing. She’s excited to ride him soon. He’s furry, fluffy and chubby from the winter.
He gets along great with this mare, it is so sweet. He did not get along with their big handy roping/cow horse, Rico. Rico and Dusty were not the best of friends to say the least. Too big for his little mini-horse britches. We love Dusty. (We also love Rico.)
Dusty likes to take care of the mare there… my daughter calls her “Race” since we don’t know her name. (She has a long racehorse name… no one can remember it!) She really got along well with my husband who is not really a horse guy, at all. (He’s great with animals too, though.)
She is so nice.
Aunt $ and Uncle D have bucking bulls of various ages at their house. So among the horses and other cattle, one of my favorite things to do is to go out and observe the bucking bulls. They are very interesting creatures. Their looks are entirely different and I love the ones that look nasty/mean. Triple Sevens or is it 777s? Well this is a grown bull that is on the place, teaching the bull-ways to the younger yearlings. He’s attractive, curious and downright scary! What do you think? He was flirting with my husband a bit and we got close enough for my mini-lens to get one good picture of him.
I love the facial markings of this white bull… his eyes are scary!
He just kept looking at me… STOP IT!
There was another bull who looked like he was convulsing with his neck flexed clear up high. He did this maneuver a few times and I will admit, it was bothering me because it looked so weird! Come to find out, he was itching the top of his neck with one of his horns… couldn’t believe it!
Normal little bulls…
Psycho Neck is what this one’s registered name should be! (See him?)
Now, I have a question… can you identify the hand raised (bottle calf) beef calf in the mix? Yep, he’s the closest to the front… most friendly (but learning the ways of the bulls). My sister raised him up over the past year. Look who finally got him to come to the fence…
Little guy likes the bulls too, almost as much as he likes trying to climb up on the fences.
Here’s another bull that has a lot of cred in the house. Oley is the bull of a friend (Jason from Imagine Rodeo Productions). He trained this big guy with pink wafer cookies. They are a rodeo act and travel around the Midwest. Last summer we got to ride the big boy. Thanks Jason!
Quite the character!
For more information on Oley and Jason visit www.imaginerodeo.com.
1 Comment
I loved all the bull information!