Saturday, August 7
Cowboys, fairs, hiking, birds, storms, computers

Amazing: a day that lasted for 36 hours! How fun to have so many of those. No way all that happens could have fit into the 10 hours the clock says we were away.

The day began with a cloud that looked for all the world like smoke and ended with a crazed storm that appeared poised to drop a tornado, raced us home and is now pouring rain and rumbling ominously. As we hit the highway and headed home, I looked back and was startled to see a massive low dark cloud behind us. We ran on home, offloaded our equipment and in those few minutes, it was upon us. I stayed out watching it catch up and encircle us and whip up a fearsome wind that convinced me to bring in our awning lest we lose a second one. By then, the rain had begun.

Home at 8 p.m. and finding the wifi down again. Our two Texas neighbor couples said the internet worked fine here until the lightning strike and now is intermittent. Last evening, I was sitting outside working on my blog when the two women wanted to bring me their computers to see if I could get them logged on. I confessed that since they were using . . . ahem . . . Windows when I am a Mac person, I wasn’t sure I could be successful but allowed as how I would try.

I went next door to help out as I could and as I walked up to the woman’s computer sitting on the picnic table, it immediately went online. Pretty impressive if I do say so myself. She wanted me to stand just so in case the signal might disappear if I moved. Nothing like being needed.

It being Saturday morning and all, we opted to head over to the farmer’s market for fresh produce. Erk! Chris tried to turn in where it had been two years ago; after he finished swerving all over the road like a damn tourist, I reminded him that it had moved down by the Dogwood Cafe last year clear at the other end of town. Oops, it is no longer there either. Do they want only the most persistent customers?

Stereotypically, Chris decided that he might “know” where they have hidden it so he’s going to wander around. Again stereotypically, I suggest we might stop to ask someone. To his credit, he did so without a great deal of delay; however, that girl was not a lot of help when she didn’t really know but offered up incorrect information.

Pagosa Springs is laid out mostly along the main highway so finally we located the thing where it was hiding in plain sight right where we had driven past it once. Beats me why they keep moving it, but we did get some nice produce for our efforts and some fun photos.

Country life and cowboying are alive and well . . .

After stowing the goodies back at home, we took off for the Archuleta County Fair and the accompanying ranch rodeo. I thought that was the name they gave to the event; it never occurred to me that it was an entirely different thing than any rodeo I had ever attended or even heard of.

I am soooo glad we went - what a treat it was. Turns out a ranch rodeo consists of cowhands from various ranches competing as teams in events that reflect chores they would be called on to do on the range. These include: horse catching, calf branding, team penning, team doctoring and wild cow milking. Eight ranches competed.

If a person requires glitzy, fast-paced entertainment, this is not the place to be; however, if you enjoy watching men, women and horses working hard together in a truly authentic way, ranch rodeo can’t be beat. As always, when humans attempt to subdue livestock, there are surprises and sometimes injuries.

One of those occurred when a team was riding for the finish line after their completion of the horse catching. One cowboy’s hat blew off his head right into the face of the following horse that immediately reared back on its haunches, going from a full gallop to a screeching standstill in a moment. His rider did an incredible full somersault in midair right over the horse’s head and landed in a heap in the ensuing tangle of cowboys, horses and dust. He lay ominously still for a significant amount of time while the emergency service people worked over him. What a relief when at last he rejected the backboard brought out for him, stood, smiled and walked out of the arena.

It wasn’t hard to imagine the sore muscles the next day when watching the cowhands wrestling and being run over and dragged by steers, calves and wild cows. Seeing this action of teams who daily interact planning their strategies and working together was interesting and fun. Another difference from pro rodeo was the opportunity to get a sense of the various cowboys and teams rather than seeing them in the arena once and then they’re gone.

And then it helped that we were sitting amongst many audience members who knew them personally. Even better, we got to know some of those local folks. One elderly (well, anyway they were older than us) couple was especially friendly, allowing me to butt in on their conversations with friends. They were John and Jean Taylor (an ancestral name twice for me). In 1896, John’s granddad homesteaded the family ranch where they still live. According to John, his great grandfather went to California in the gold rush, returned to Missouri later finding it unchanged from when he left (evidently not a good thing) and hightailed it back to the Sacramento Valley, all before grandpa departed for the Colorado mountains.

After the rodeo, we wandered the county fairgrounds and saw John’s photo on the Western Heritage wall and later saw him and Jean again. That was when he mentioned that he had some hay grasses entered in the fair. After we checked that out and saw that he had won four blue ribbons out of five entries, I wanted to find him to offer congratulations. As we talked, we learned that he taught high school math and science. He is also a photographer and serves on many boards of directors, and Jean, from another pioneer family, is also very active in 4-H, the fair and the schools. In fact, her father founded the Archuleta County fair. What a charming and friendly couple they are.

The fair exhibits were widely varied and interesting; the relatively small number reflected the sparse population here. The quilts were incredible; I wanted to photograph them all to remember the amazing variety but confined my clicking to one that gave the impression of brilliant stained glass.

I watched the fast draw shooting competition for a spell and we were amazed at the accuracy of those competing in the horseshoe tournament - more ringers than not. I found the small number of livestock competitors surprising: no beef or poultry, only a few sheep, goats and pigs. That doesn’t seem to reflect the rural ranching atmosphere here. Horses seem to be a major enterprise; we see beautiful horses pastured all around.

On the mountain . . .

All that town activity drove us to the mountains afterward. A winding gravel road took us up and up to an estimated (by Chris, all I know is that we were way the heck up there) 10,000 feet where we set off for a goodly long hike through thickly vegetated beautiful boreal forest with stunning long-distance views between trees and still we were far below the summit that loomed treeless and rocky above us.

We encountered many seep springs and one creek that was noisily cascading down its steep canyon. The few birds we heard or spotted flitting through the underbrush were secretive enough that we never identified any of them until back in the Toter, we got a life bird - the blue grouse - two of them in fact that obliged us by being on the road plenty long enough for us to get a good gander through the binocs - very exciting!

Oh yes, we did get a red-shafted northern flicker and back at the ranch, we added American goldfinch to the hordes at the feeders. Evidently, the evening grosbeak telegraph has done its job; we have a mob of dads out there feeding their ravenous offspring while the moms leisurely graze around on the ground (note to self: check out possibility of coming back as a female evening grosbeak.)

Best business names: Holy Smokes, selling stoves and fireplaces. The car wash posts a question on their sign: “Got mud?” With almost daily rain, there’s sure to be plenty of that.