Over the weekend we took our two youngest bulls on the farm to buck them with a dummy. A dummy is a small metal box with a cinch on it to keep it on the bull. It has a pin that holds the flank strap (the rope tied around the back end of the bull - not his testicles!!) on and you push a button on what looks like a garage door opener and the whole contraption falls off. We use a dummy on our young bulls who aren't big enough to handle the weight of a rider to help us determine if the bulls are gonna buck. If they buck we keep them and raise them up. We might buck them a few more times to make sure they are getting better, not worse. If they don't buck we usually bring them to the local sale barn. Unfortunately, that's part of the business. Anyways, we drove a couple hours south of us to an indoor bucking arena. Some friends also loaded up their two young bulls on our trailer and off we went! More back story - the two young bulls that our friends took actually used to be ours. They bought them from a third party - small world - before we really knew them very well.
Back to the story...one of the two bulls that we took had already been bucked earlier this year. He did pretty good so we kept him. The other bull we took along was a weanling and had never been bucked before. We had no idea what to expect from him. Both of the bulls were pretty gentle as far as bucking bulls go. Neither of them will try to charge you and will even eat out of your hand (if you're on the other side of the fence/gate)! The weanling is small compared to the rest of the bulls that were bucked that day, and him being white and fluffy (his winter fur) didn't help his cause either. Everyone, us included, didn't have very high expectations for him but boy did he surprise us all! While trying to strap the dummy on the bull, there was a guy IN the chute WITH him and another guy practically doing a HEADSTAND on top of him in order to secure the dummy and flank because the dummy was too big for him and then he put on quite the performance! He EXPLODED out of the chute, bucking, twisting, leaping, kicking and jumping really high in the air! I think he was one of the top five bulls that we bucked that day! His name went from Powder Puff to Power Puff!
The other bull we brought, Stubby, also did very well. He did better than his first time out so we are happy with that! He 'turned back' one jump out of the gate and got to spinning! Our friends' bulls did pretty good too! One of them had a lot of kick! The other one I didn't care for but that's my opinion. I'm not sure what they will do with him but I know they are keeping the one with kick for sure.
There were horses at this barn too - about 15 of them. One was a beautiful grulla paint mare with a white face. She was big and oh so sweet. She had a filly on her side still who was a tri-color paint with a white face and one blue eye! She was neat looking! If we had room, I would've loaded both of them up and took them home! Beautiful!!! Those two really stood out but all of the horses were very friendly and good looking - even in their winter fuzzies! The barn had about 30 stalls on one side of the arena that were getting old and needed a little TLC but definitely still nice. I bet that place was gorgeous in its hayday! I enjoy looking at barns/stables! Gives me so many ideas for my own barn, ya know? I guess the story is that the old guy built the place for his barrel racing daughter. He passed away recently and now it barely gets used anymore so that's probably why it's getting run down now. So much potential there!
It was another COLD day and I had a hard time getting warm after we were done. The entire 2 hour ride home I was still cold. After we got home, we had to feed all of the animals which made me even more cold. I don't think I got warm until 5am...and then we were out in the barn again working. I guess that's the way it goes when you live on a farm in the winter!
Until next time!
Quote for the day:
"The finest steel has to go through the hottest fire."
-Richard M. Nixon
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