Thursday I was reading Jessica’s (Heart on Homestead) post and she got tagged into doing a “Handwriting” post. Yeah I’m a nerd like that… I thought it was cool! At the bottom hers said to tag 3-5 people, but she tagged anyone and everyone… so Of Course, I thought I’d play along. I sure hope you can read my handwriting. The pen I used was a very light pen (even though it’s blue ink) and I write light anyway… so good luck. (If you click on the photo it will make it larger :))
Here are the Questions we were to answer:
1. What’s your name / blogger name? 2. What’s your blog’s URL? 3. Write “The quick fox jumps over the lazy dog.” 4. Favorite quote? 5. Your favorite song? 6. Your favorite band / singers? 7. Anything else you want to say? 8. Tag 3 – 5 other people.
If you chose to participate too, please let me know, I’d love to come take a look!!!
btw, in case I haven’t told you, she talks, A LOT! :)… My dad claims it is paybacks to me for what he and my mom had to deal with when I was her age.
Anyway… So what do you think my daughter might see when she goes to my parents house?
Horses? Yup
Cows? Uh huh
Buffalo? You Betcha
Sheep? Of course
Dogs? That’s a given!
But here is the newest addition that she hasn’t seen yet…..
Moses, the Bottle Lamb…. she lives in a box in my parents house right now…
Yes this is a ewe (female)… yes her name is Moses. The first day she was alive, she went to work with my mom. Mom carried her around in a laundry basket (that’s inside this box). She remembered the Bible story of how Moses’ mother carried him around in a laundry basket, so therefore, we have Moses.
And these little guys. Their momma’s were good momma’s and kept them
And this little dude is getting some breakfast!! (Sorry is this obscene?)
And what about these bad boys?
This momma is being protective.
This one got carried away with the eyeliner. Her momma didn’t explain not to go overboard.
Oh, you do? Good. Today I’m going to show you what I plan on using this Cake Flour for! 🙂
Remember that 101 list that has been hanging over my head?
Well, number 99. Make all the recipes in the Pioneer Woman’s Cookbook… Well, I think it’s been a long while since I’ve made something from there… Over the weekend I made 2, yes that’s right… not one but two recipes. Her Red Velvet cake was for Valentine’s Day goody day at work. The sad part was I forgot about it until you know… 8:30 pm and had to make the cake flour while I was at it… but oh was it good!!! (more…)
If you are like me, sometimes you don’t always have the needed ingredients on hand… Such is life! And sometimes I just don’t want to buy a whole bunch of ingredients I hardly ever use just for one use. Then they take up room. Case in point… Cake Flour.
Please ask me how many times I’ve used Cake Flour in the last 10 years. I think this will be my second time…
I found a recipe (I’ll share later) that called for Cake Flour. I remembered the first time I needed it my grandma told me how to make it, you know, so I didn’t have to buy more than I need. Plus it’s a little pricey if I remember right.
But I thought I’d share with you how to make your own Cake Flour.
Ingredients: Cornstarch, All Purpose Flour, 1 cup measuring cup, 1 tbsp, sifter, and something to catch it all in. (I started out with 2 bowls but then moved to a bowl and a batter bowl)
For every 1 cup of all purpose flour you need in your recipe, you measure out 2 tbsp and throw them back in the bag. Replace those 2 tbsp with 2 tbsp of cornstarch. (My recipe called for 2 1/2 cups Cake Flour so I replaced 5 tbsp of flour with 5 tbsp of cornstarch.)
Here is taking out the tbsp of flour. Remember remove 2 tbsp of flour for every cup needed.
And replace those 2 tbsp with 2 tbsp of corn starch.
Then you get to put your sifter into motion. Sift it, sift it, sift it some more… and when you think you are done, sift 2 more times. You should sift about 5 or so times. You can do more, but don’t do less.
And in the end, you are left with cake flour. Yeah it was messy and on a Sunday night at 8:30 when you realize you have a cake to make, it sometimes is time consuming… but hey… I don’t have to worry about the rest of the cake flour taking up room in my fridge.
My husband and I were cooking dinner tonight (a recipe I’ll have to share) and I had my iPod playing… ok well the iPod on my iPhone ;)… anyway Trace Adkins started singing “Chrome”, I like that song. Then I heard this song. This song really made me smile… “One Hot Momma”. As women, I think we all feel this way at one point or another (the first part of the song) but the men in our lives feel the way he describes in the rest of the song. If you’ve never heard it, have a listen. And the Music video is great too.
One year ago, February 12, the man of my dreams proposed to me. Here’s the story. Happy One Year Bling-a-versary baby!!!
This had started out as a pretty crappy day, I surely didn’t know that it would eventually get better! I started doing the mail and got a phone call from Nancy at the front office that I had flowers at the front desk so I headed to the front of the building to go retrieve my flowers. (I work all the way at the back.) I passed Becky grumbling that “Prince Charming’s so in trouble.” although seriously what girl doesn’t like flowers, especially when they look like this!!
Meanwhile back at my desk my mom brought Prince Charming into the building. Tracy got her camera out and Nicole got another camera that had a recorder out. Becky was standing guard in the hallway to announce to them when I got back. Then they all dove into different hiding places.
So when I came back Becky announces really loud that I had beautiful flowers. My desk has frosted glass around it and when I walked around the corner and I could see someone on the far side of my desk but I figured it was a coworker had dropped something or since I was having such a bad day, they were going to jump out and scare me (things like that happen to me from time to time) so I didn’t really think to much of it. So I came up on my mystery guest and Prince Charming is down on one knee. (more…)
***Update: in this post I said Moody when I meant Muddy… hahaha I’ve fixed it thanks to my wonderful husband pointing this out to me. If you didn’t see the moody, no biggy 🙂 That’s what I get for multi-tasking while I’m writing a post :)***
They Suggest that anyone traveling in the current icy and snowy conditions should make sure they have the following: (more…)
So for some of you, I have a feeling you don’t know the type of horses I show. They are a very specialized type… not breed (Paint, Quarter Horse, Appaloosa, etc), showing type (as in reining, cutting, western pleasure, Hunter Under Saddle, etc). My parents have been involved with cutting horses since I was 5 years old. Before that my mom showed Arabian horses in Western Pleasure, English Pleasure, Halter, etc. Where we lived when I was 5, there was an arena right around the corner. One afternoon my mom was killing time and went by to see if anything was going on. They were having a cutting horse practice and some guy asked my mom to ride a horse for him, not knowing if she even knew how to ride a horse. She was sold. She loved it so much she came home that night, told my dad her horse was for sale and they got into the cutting horse business.
So far all of our Cutting horses we own are registered American Quarter Horses, which generally is the case, but not always.
So anyway I thought I’d try to give you a cutting lesson and explain what happens through the use of pictures… Sit back and enjoy 🙂
First things first, you have to hook up your truck to your trailer
And load the horses up so they are ready to go. Now ours enjoy a little munchy for the road, it keeps them from being so crabby and stomping around in the trailer while going down the road.
So once you get to the show you are headed to (this one was about 2 hrs from our house) you unload your horse, saddle them up, and go to “warm them up”. This is like with any sports you play, you want to warm your muscles up so you don’t cause injury. Also, in this case, if it is chilly out, you take the “freshness” out of them. (Freshness = the extreme excitement, or the feather up their tail… LOL)
This particular day I wore a sweatshirt just to take the chill off but it wasn’t cold so it didn’t take much to get the horses to calm down.
So once you’ve done all the prep work then you sign up for your class (although sometimes you do that before warming them up… just whichever as long as you get signed up)
For every horse that signs up for the particular class that is getting ready to start, they place 2 1/2 cows in. Now I’ll bet you are asking how you place a half a cow in… well for every 2 people there are 5 head of cattle added to the herd. It also takes at least 3 people to make a class. If you wind up with an odd number of entrants therefore an odd number of cattle (that half a cow) they round up.
Next before the class starts, the first person asks for a “turnback” to settle the cattle. These cattle (unless announced otherwise) are fresh, meaning they’ve never been worked by a horse. The turnback goes in and walks through them, runs back and forth through them, etc trying to get them to settle into the herd and not be skiddish for when the riders are running back and forth in front of them.
While the turnback is settling the cattle, usually the people who are going to show in that particular class are doing 1 of 2 things. Continuing getting their horse ready or else they are sitting there watching the turnback and how the cattle react to the horse. The cows who are skiddish, you usually try to avoid because they aren’t always the best to work…
You also have a judge. He has a judges card. Our particular judge was sitting on horse back but usually they sit up on a truck bed, or in a judges box or something up a little higher so they don’t get an obstructed view. He has a judging card which is where he makes his notes so he can decide what you score. The scores range from a 60- the highest I’ve seen is a 78. You have to be AWESOME x10 to get a 78… The average score is a 70. You can also get a 0 if you walk out before the timer is done. You have 2 1/2 minutes to work 2 cattle. That doesn’t seem like much when you just read it, but trust me, it’s intense! When you walk into the herd, most judges have you set at a 70, then you work up or down from there.
So the rider walks down very slowly and smooth into the herd of cattle and pushes them out. You want to be left with one cow out in front of you and the rest of the herd to group up behind you.
This gray horse you see in this picture, is a “Turnback.” You have 2 turnback helpers who are between you and the judge. These guys help turn your cattle around. Then you have 2 herd holders. Those guys stand down by the herd and try to keep them from “squeezing” (coming) out on you.
Then you put your hand down and only cue the horse with your feet. Every time while you are actually working the cow that you pick your hand up is 1 point off your total score, unless you are legally tagging off.
There are a couple of Legal tag offs. One is if the cow turns away from you (turns his tail to you). You can pick up your rein hand and place your horn hand down on the horses neck. That is a legal tag off and you go back in to get another cow (unless the timer has buzzed signaling time is over)
The other “Legal” tagoff is if the cow is standing dead still (as are you). You can pick your rein hand up and place your horn hand down on the horses neck.
If you don’t tag off legally, then you are known for a “hot quit” which results in a 3 point penalty. An illegal tag off is if you pick up your hand to tag off while the cow is moving or turns head toward you.
If you “lose a cow” which means that the cow goes under your horses neck without you legally tagging off, you deduct 5 points from your total score.
The joke is you rush rush rush to get to a show and get ready and then you sit around and wait for your turn…
Another penalty is if you have a back-fence. There usually is a “marker”, in our case purple hankies, down on the fence very close to where the cattle stand. There is one on either side. If you and your horse go to the inside of those markers, that is a Backfence which results in a 3 point penalty.
Other typical penalties: If you have 2 hands on the reins at any time, that results in a 2 point penalty every time you do it.
If you go to training on your horse (way to many penalties) a judge can “Whistle” you out which will result in a 0 score. And they actually have a whistle for that purpose if they feel the need.
Whether you score a 0 or you score the winning score of the class you pay the same entry fee (whatever it is for that class). In American Quarter Horse Shows you are competing for Points. So many points qualifies you for the World show. The Adult World show is held in Oklahoma City, OK and the Youth World show has been moved to Tulsa, OK.
If you are competing in National Cutting Horse Association shows you are competing for money. Different placings get you different monetary winnings.
Once you have finished showing for the day, you unsaddle your horses, load them back up in the trailer and head for the Ranch-o-Grandy.
I hope I have taught you anything and everything you’d ever like to know about showing cutting horses. Yes this was just an over view and some of the major point penalties. If I didn’t answer a question, lemme know and I’ll try 🙂
