It's fair time!

Fair time ... brings back lots of memories from childhood, though I haven't gone much recently, and Four Corners fairs are not like the ones of my youth in northern Wisconsin. I guess tonight's demolition derby is kind of a parallel to Joey Chitwood's Daredevils, but the ranch rodeo was sure different.

The one event we watched involved teams of 3-4 cowboys in line approaching a pack of numbered bovines and donkeys. The timing starts when the announcer says which number cow and which number donkey they are to load, and it ends when they have the critters in a horse trailer with the gate closed.

It was a beautiful day for the action (mid-90s) and they sure kicked up the dust! I think the fastest time was 2 minutes and 6 seconds ... pretty fast roping. As you can see, they rope and grab anything and everything to get the job done!

I've been to some rodeo events before as a spectator, but this was the first time I've ever tried to photograph one before, and I really enjoyed the challenge. It's fast moving and, in this case, required keeping track of several moving players at the same time, while trying to guess what's coming next and be pointed in the right direction and be in focus. I'll definitely try it again!

The bottom pic is from the evening "Country Gold" show, with show leader Leroy Van Dyke (whose first hit was "Auctioneer") and local 4H/FFA leader Dalton Hindmarsh auctioning off a new guitar, signed by all the show members. It brought $3,000, which will be used by the Cortez FFA program to buy new exhibit materials. More on the show in the next post (ran out of image space on this one). tv