Blue Creek Quarter Horses & ...... Ponies?

While Cliff's away Jody will.... buy ponies? Well I just couldn't help myself! So yes, we are now in the pony business. I picked up this little 3 year old Quarter/Pony cross last weekend, she stands at a whopping 14 hands tall and is now my new project. She has a lot of bone, a nice kind eye, and comes in the neatest shade of brown almost grulla and almost a dark dun color. We will see if I can make a nice little using horse out of her. If this venture goes well we hope to be able to offer more of this type of smaller using horse in the future that is more suited for kids and ladies.

We will keep you updated on her progress, as of yet it has been raining non-stop since she's gotten home so there has not been a real good chance to work with her. She still needs a name though so if you have any great suggestions we'd love to hear them!

Livingston & Malta Ranch Rodeos

Driving home from Malta and our boys were a little more than tired!

Guess they shouldn't have celebrated so hard after the rodeo!




We had two ranch rodeos this past week, one in Livingston on the 5th and one in Malta on the 7th. We've had to do some shuffling around on our actual team members due to haying and harvesting but we have made due and had the opportunity to ride with some amazing people.


Thursday night in Livingston we found that even though you try your hardest everyone comes across hard luck, this is where we ran in to ours! Billy Buchannan substituted for Charlie on our team, then it was still Cliff, Jim Bob and I. We had three bronc rides on our team aside from the ranch bronc Cliff had to get on, luckily everyone got 'em covered. We placed in a couple events, the Wild Cow Milking and the Bronc Riding, both of our stronger events but not enough to put us in the money :( We made some stupid mistakes in others but all in all we had a good time and came home unscathed.


Saturday we loaded up & headed to Malta with two new members, Pat Heminger and Jake Heyneman replaced Charlie & Jim Bob, so with half a new crew, 7 dogs and 5 horses we headed out. We got there, (barely) and were the clear underdogs, as we had the only girl (me) competing and the only one still in high school competing and since none of us had all ridden together before we were a little green as far as the team was concerned.


We sold in the calcutta for $25 while the hometown teams all were around the $200 range - clearly we were being under-estimated... so what did we do? We went out & rocked the place winning the first three events - Team Branding, Team Trailer Loading, and the Ranch Bronc Riding and placed no lower than 4th in the other 2 events, Wild Cow Milking & Team Doctoring. Being the only team to place in every event we schooled the competition and wound up winning the whole deal which guaranteed us a spot in the NILE Ranch Rodeo Finals this fall, we also secured the Top Hand Award and just missed the honors of Top Horse. Thanks in large part to Pat's roping skills and Cliff's bronc riding! The hometown teams were not so impressed but luck just happened to fall in our laps that day... well, luck thrown on top of skill of course!


Cliff and Pat both entered the Ranch Bronc Riding after the rodeo, both made nice rides but the payout was for first place only. Videos to follow as soon as I can fugure out how to upload them from my ipod!


This weekend will be the first annual Vern Bakker Memorial Ranch Rodeo, hopefully we can do the name well but we will see!
Come out if you're in town and enjoy the show! It's for a good cause and should be a great time!

"Billy" - APHA SHUTOUT SHAMROCK - has a new home!

Well, Billy is heading off to his new home soon and I am getting two more in place of him from his new owner and Cliff is taking on one more to ride from the same people, the cavvy is supposed to be diminishing, not growing! No doubt this big colorful guy will be missed around here by everyone… including Zip! But he is going on to a great home where I know he will be well taken care of and will live out the rest of years grass fat and happy, which he so deserves! I've had Billy for almost 10 years and he’s stayed as solid of a horse you’d find anywhere. His new job will consist of mostly just being a horse and occasionally being ridden by a lady who as a result of a ranch accident needs something she can completely trust, Billy fits the bill beautifully! He’s going in to good hands now but is welcome back home any time if he needs retired.

A Day of Rest!

Hope everyone had as wonderful a weekend as we did! Despite the break downs finally got all the hay cut & baled (still have yet to stack it though!) Cliff's dad flew in from NY to stay for a few days and we had bbq for our friends, family and neighbors who've been so great and such a huge help to us over the past few months, especially during the haying season, special thanks to the Cooper & Lee families! We ate great food, shot a case of shotgun shells at some clay pigeons went through a few boxes of targets and ended the night with some guitar & mandolin pickin' - despite the short lived rain storm, which was a nice break from the heat, everyone had a great time. Hope we can do it again soon! Maybe after harvesting is over. Now it's back to a work week, putting a new roof on my folks' house, riding horses and trying not to pass out from the heat!

We have two ranch rodeos this week so check back for updates and pics!