To What Do I Owe This Pleasure?

As per usual we were at it again today. Our victim this time was a yearling bull that Jessie has named Mango Tango. He just happens to have foot rot in a pasture with no pens. Our only option being to rope him, we embark on our journey. Kelly leaves first at a high lope on a young horse. It is seven miles to the pasture and he figures by the time he gets there, the buck will be out of him. Jessie and I load up our horses, the beef bull, a late calver and a salt block and head out a little bit later. Halfway we run into Kelly and a tired Hooch, so we stop and pick up the dog and leave Kelly on his merry way. After taking care of the beef cows, we head up to the next pasture full of yearling bucking bulls. Once again, I choose to ride a broke horse, so I am the resident roper. I head out through the bush going full bore, and Kelly and Jessie stay back. The chase gets quite heated and Jessie's horse is getting to be a bit much, so Kelly decides it would be best if she went back to the trailer. She, by the way, has the medicine bags tied on her saddle. Meantime, I dislodge myself from the bush and find the bull out in the open again. He heads for some scrub brush and I am in hot pursuit. I get a rope on him when he turns around to hook me. Now, I am not close to the trailer. I can't get to the cell phone in my pocket, so I'm screaming at the top of my lungs for Kelly to hurry up. He grabs the vaccine gun and LA and kicks old yeller into a lope. Within three strides Kelly is bucked off. I can see this all happening, so I hang on to the bull assuming Kelly will get up and get back on. Well, when I see Jessie climb out of the truck and standing over him, I toss the rope and head back to the truck as fast as I can. I was really genuinely worried. Really I was. I get over there and he is trying to get up and swears he just got the wind knocked out of him. After a little discussion about what to do next, I took his rope and headed out again while he put his saddle on Jessie's horse. We searched high and low through the bush for this bull. After Kelly says forget it, he walks out of the bush in front of us. Kelly hands me the medicine and takes his rope and gets him roped around the horns. I jump off and grab my rope and dally up to choke him down. We finally get him treated and on his way grasping for air himself. A job completed.

As we are riding back, I asked Kelly if Jessie was scared when she saw him on the ground. He said, "No, she just walked over and said, "Daddy, should I call 9-1-1."" Now that's our baby.

Kelly said if he had only known he was going to get bucked off this much lately, he would have kept riding bulls. At least he would be getting paid for it.

So that wraps up another day in the life of an Armstrong. I promise I do not make this stuff up. As Kelly likes to say, "We are chasing the dream and living the nightmare."


Based on daily activities around here, I wrote this:


Dear God,

I hope this letter makes it through your Pearly Gates
Cause I don't know how much more I can really take

You see that prayer you answered
'Bout how I want to live

Well, God I've changed my mind
This cowgirl life I'd give

To the lowest bidder who first walks through this door
This cowgirl life is killin' me
I hurt right to the core.

Stretch marks, calluses and wrinkles aren't all they're cracked up to be
I dare not even mention that bruise from my ankle to my knee
From where that bay mare bucked me off for the branding crew to see.

Today, I roped a yearling bull and as I got my dally
I saw my husband get piled up off a bronc you'd swear was Cool Alley.

I dropped my rope and hit a lope back to where he lay.
Our little girl was standing over him asking, "Daddy, are you okay?"

Lord, the reason I'm sending you my letter of resignation
I do believe it is this ex-cowgirl's obligation

You see God, when I rode up and saw my husband's neck not broke
All that I could worry 'bout was that yearling.
He was wearing my brand new rope.

First Day of Summer Vacation!

It's finally here. Jessie made it through another successful school year. Now on to 2nd Grade. She is growing so fast. Today she helped weed the garden for 30 seconds and then helped gather the roping steers. One cut back and she headed out on her own to go get it. She stuck with that longer than the weeding. I can't imagine why. We were going to practice poles and barrels for her first playday today, so hopefully the storm will pass. She is quite worried about the goat tail tying. She wants to practice by tying Hooch at one end of the arena since she doesn't have a goat.

It is raining again as I type. We got back to the barn and unsaddled just in time. A thunderstorm blew in. We are under a severe thunderstorm warning right now. We desperately need another hail storm. Uggghh! I guess it would put my garden out of its misery. I could quit weeding it, and I wouldn't have to worry about the rototiller that I ran the tiller off of yesterday. Biff is going to be mad at me when he has to fix that, my weedeater that I somehow wrecked and Kelly's chainsaw that the chain fell off of. He must know how well things are going here because I haven't seen him in a week or so. Kelly and I had to mow the yard ourselves. Heaven Forbid. For those of you who don't know Biff, I am attaching a picture.



Friday was the field trip to Drumheller and the Royal Tyrell Museum. If you like dinosaurs, you need to visit this place. It is amazing. I, however, couldn't care less about a dinosaur. It is neat to see how they recover all the bones and fossils though.



That is about all I know for now. I suppose since it is still storming, I should get supper on it's way. Hopefully, after supper we can get back to riding. I left the horses in the barn, so they would be dry. Wishful thinking.

Let Me Bring You Up To Speed.

Well, it's been a while since I have been on here. I have to apologize, but it is summer and life is hectic. We come home from one rodeo long enough to do laundry and head out again. It has rained off and on all week. If it isn't raining, I am mowing.

Last Friday was Jessie's track meet at school. Now there is some excitement. All four of the first grade girls competed against each other, and I was their fearful leader. When I finally snapped on one at the high jump for telling the other one she was always the loser, the teacher came over to see what was going on. I assured her all was well with the world it was just a little bickering amongst the girls. She looked at me understandingly and said "I like to call it the hyena gene." Regardless, we survived. Jessie brought home lots of ribbons. She tied for first in the high jump and I think she won the ball throwing contest. Her high jump technique is one that olympians should adopt. It was priceless. There were people lined up around to watch. Of course the pole was right at the top of the mat, so that made it even more funny.


We were in Marwayne on the weekend for the rodeo. Jessie took her horse and we camped out like real stock contractors would. Poor Legend was sick and tired of trotting up and down the arena with a wannabe trick rider on his back. He handled it quite well though. If I had only known that my barrel horse was the perfect kid horse, I wouldn't have spent real money on Jessie a new horse that happens to be crippled right now. What is it they say? "If it weren't for bad luck....."

I secretaried the bucking bull derby on Thursday night. I don't know why anyone in their right mind would want to do that, especially if their husband is a contractor. Most people have terms of endearment for each other like Honey, Dear, Babe. Not here. I'm sitting in the announcer stand, and hear "Wife! What the hell just happened there?" I stepped kindly out of the back of the announcer stand and we proceeded to have a bit of a domestic due to the lack of communication between the ground crew and myself. You see, they drew the second round without letting me in on it. That is usually something the secretary needs to know. He was just lucky I didn't feel like limping down the stairs and beating him with his yellow hotshot he was waving all over the place.

The rest of the week has been kind of a blur. I remember mowing a lot and framing lots of pictures. I even did some of them twice after it rained in the shop one night. I'm considering medication for the twitch I have due to the lack of anything going right.

We bucked a few bulls on Tuesday night between rain storms. Kelly has found a new, young victim who can be talked into getting on young bulls. I'm sure the novelty will wear off for him like it has the others.

Kelly went to reading log on Wednesday because I was busy trying to get some pictures done for this weekend. He said Jessie's teacher makes him look at the floor when she speaks to him. Now this is funny. He did get in trouble for wearing his cap in the classroom the first time he went. I'm surprised he even went back.

Jessie and I helped gather bulls this afternoon. Jessie headed out and was right in after them. I had to head off to get one that was trying to sneak away, and she held in there and pushed the others like she was supposed to. I had to tell her a few times to back away. If one even sneezed within ten feet of Legend, he would spin and head out. I'm pretty sure this would not go over well with his new jockey. However, he's not to blame. He has had a few close calls in his life.

Speaking of close calls. You will all be glad to know that the blood is slowly moving down my leg and settling into my ankle. The swelling isn't as bad this week. Kelly made the comment that maybe in a couple of weeks I wouldn't look like I have gangrene. Nothing but compliments around here.

Tomorrow, Jessie and I get to go to the Royal Tyrell Museum for a field trip. This is a world renowned museum. It contains a huge collection of dinosaurs. Jessie is very excited. I actually am interested to see it as well. We also get to visit Reptile World. I will get pictures posted sometime in the next six months I'm sure.

So, now that I have everyone up to speed on the trials and tribulations of being an Armstrong this week, I need to get some sleep. Oh and I am posting some pictures in a slide show because I was having trouble getting them on here. They are of Jessie's High Jump, her and Legend, and some of my latest creations.

It Is Still Raining!

So, it is still raining here. Apparently summer really is only the last week and a half of July. We did get some cows moved around today before it started again. I only got chased once. When Kelly took the cows back out, I came to the house to get a hammer and staples to fix fence. While there, I got to bury the first of the kittens. I don't know what happened to it. Just another day in the glamorous life of the Armstrongs. Oh well, no time to dwell over a dead cat. I loped back to the pasture with hammer in hand and we got the fence fixed and cows settled in before it started storming. On the ride back, Kelly made the comment that today was the most pleasant experience we have had with our cows in a long time. He was right. It could be that the ones we were moving today are all bought cows, not raised.

My garden looks like death. I guess it hailed while we were gone this weekend. It kind of took its toll on my tomato plants. No matter, I'm no Mrs. Green Thumb because everything else I planted either isn't coming up or is coming up very little. Good thing we don't need it to survive. We would starve to death.

We did make it through the weekend at Marwayne with no rain. It was gorgeous. Sounds like it was the only place in Alberta that wasn't getting a torrential down pour. Jessie took her horses and rode all weekend. She went from absolutely no interest to riding three or four times a day overnight. It's amazing what a little competition can do. Poor Legend was beat. I'm not sure but I think Mighty Mouse was faking a limp when he saw what Legend was having to do. She was trying the Hippodrone Stand on him at one time. I got there just in time to hold him. Then she was miffed at me because I wouldn't let her help the pickup men chase bucking horses out of the arena before the rodeo.

We went for a ride when she got home from school yesterday. She left Kelly and me at the barn and took off. She was yelling at us to hurry up. We rode through some bulls and she said, "This is a great way to check cows." It was like she invented the telephone or something. I said "Eureka" and Kelly said "Whose kid are you?" She quickly replied, "Yours!"

I suppose I should head out. The chiropractor is coming to work on some bulls. I may get some horses snuck in there while Kelly has his back turned. Have a good one!

My Turn!

So, it was finally my turn. It was inevitable. We all knew it was going to happen. Well, it finally did. I should have never made the comment that "She is finally growing up and making a nice horse." Kelly is usually the one getting bucked off around here because I choose not to get on the ones that are going to buck. However, Chula piled me up in the middle of a branding pen on Saturday. Apparently she is a way better bronc than I am a bronc rider. I did manage to get undallied and the rope away from any appendages before I hit the ground. As I was trying my best to get up with all my dignity, I looked over and she was still at it. All four feet were pointed east. I just prayed she was doing that belly roll when I fell off. Because, really, I should be able to ride her. In my defense, I was trying to bronc ride in a slick fork with stirrups I can barely reach. However, the so called "bucking rolls" were not doing a whole lot to help me stay in the saddle. I crawled back on as she was giving me a look that I promise was a smirk. After that I could not catch a thing. I went to the trailer and got Mighty Mouse. I still couldn't catch, but thank goodness we were nearly done that set. After a couple of Advil, two Buds and a some lunch I got back in there. I was not giving up, because I know I can rope and I was not settling for being the idiot taking up space in the pen. Hell, I had already got bucked off in front of all the neighbors, who by the way lined up with their cameras the second time. Finally I got one caught, and it only got better from there. I drug calves until MM could drag no more just to prove I could actually do it. I redeemed myself and took a whole lot of heckling. I do have great friends though. After it was all over, they kept telling me that Chula was getting it on pretty good. One guy even said "Robyn she was actually kicking." I think they were just trying to make me feel better. At that point, I didn't care. My knee was swelling and the aches and pains were creeping in. Today is Monday, and I still hurt. My knee is still swollen and the hot baths with Epsom Salts have not helped.

Jessie spent the weekend with her grandparents watching her cousin trick ride at a rodeo. She now wants to be a trick rider. I'm afraid with her parents ability to stay on a horse that this isn't such a good idea. Why would you want to hang upside down from a moving horse. I spent three jumps trying to avoid that.