103rd Little International

I was asked and accepted the challenge to judge the equine portion of this year’s Block and Bridle Little International at Virginia Tech.  I had shown in it every year for my four years in collage and was overall Reserve Champion my senior year. 

Back in the olden days, we had to halter break and show yearlings. I think we had two weeks.  Now they use the school’s riding horses.  The yearlings may have been better behaved. 

There was an acceptable audience. 

I had 13 horses divided into 3 categories, advanced, intermediate and novice.  By the way, this is all judged on Showmanship. Each division had a different pattern.   They knew the pattern in advance. There were still lots of issues.  Instead of placing the ones I liked the best I had to work the opposite direction and place the ones that made the least mistakes. The first horse in the advanced division ended up winning the horse championship and was the overall champion as well.  So I feel like I made the right choice. 

There were 50 in the sheep division.

And 50 in the cattle division. 

This took the longest and put us an hour and a half behind schedule. 

There were only 13 pigs also. I still don’t understand pig showing. 

It just looks like a lot of chaos out there.  I saw a few people that I knew and everyone was very appreciative of my support for the event.  It seemed like all of the contestants had a good time. 

And I came home with a new yeti with a metal straw. 

 

End Of An Era

E graduated Magna Cum Laude from Virginia Tech last night.

 She now has a BS in Wildlife Conservation, with minors in Equine Studies and Biology. 

 She had a big cheering section, grandparents, parents, sister, aunts, uncles and a cousin.  I think there are now12 in our immediate family with degrees from Tech.

 J said we have had a child in school for 20 years.  It is both a celebration and a little sad to see the time go by as fast as it has. 

I'm pretty sure that J's and my hair wasn't as white 20 years ago.

 It seems like only yesterday  E was off to Kindergarten orientation.

 Then her first day of school.

 Maybe we helped foster her interest in wildlife.

Now on to her next chapter,  Oregon!  Yes, she is headed off to the other side of the county.  She has a 6 month position working in range land management.  I am driving out with her then flying back.  Looking forward to an interesting trip but not toward leaving her out there.  Maybe after some travels she'll be interested in coming closer.   Congratulations E!

2018 Hokie 1/2 Marathon

Our youngest daughter E has now completed the Hokie 1/2 Marathon.  Her goal was to beat her sister's time from 2014.  

I almost missed her going across the finish line, you really have to be quick with the camera. 

 The weather was nice, a little mist and upper 60's.  She finished in very good spirits.

 She was able to get her own refreshments, unlike V in 2014.  You can read about her race HERE.

 And she wanted a picture with her medal and shirt.

V, M and J were all on hand to celebrate her accomplishment.  But I'm not sure she was able to beat V's time.  E said she ran it in 2:20 and going back to check V's time, it looks like...2:20.  Guess we will just call it a draw.
Uh Oh, E has corrected me.  She looked up the official times.  E 2:21, V 2:24.

Moving In

Or is it moving out?  Which ever way, E is going to be living in an apartment at college this year.  She liked living with grandma but said she wanted to be closer to her friends and kids her age.  But technically, she may be further from campus.  She is excited to be near a bus stop however. 

 With a truck load from home and a few more items from grandma's house, E was ready to move in.

 First things first,

 have to vacuum the carpet.

The bed was a piece of cake.  j even said that e was strong for her size. 

 Then came the biggest struggle of the day, the sofa.  This is the first sofa J and I bought to go in our first house that we bought.  I have never seen a design where you couldn't get a regular sized sofa through the front door.  We tried every combination of positions before we finally took off the closet door and the legs off the sofa.

 We then had to go in vertically and spin and maneuver it into the apartment.  Surprisingly, it was no worse for the wear.

 That blue thing next to our sofa is something one of her room mates found on the side of the road.  I think it is a sofa made entirely of foam rubber.  E is refusing to even touch it other than to move it.  I'm sure it was much easier to get in than our sofa though.   She is still needing some odds and ends and is hoping her room mates bring some useful items.  But she by far is providing the bulk of the furnishings.

Next Adventure

E has only been home from college for a week before heading out on her next big adventure.

 She has been a big help for the little time she was home, feeding the goats,

 and doing some yard work.

 But then she packed up the Rav and headed west.

She is doing a 9 week summer internship though the National Great Rivers Research and Education Center. The title of her research project is - Alien Invaders: Investigating a novel and recent invasion of an Asian Corbiculid clam in Illinois’ Great Rivers  hosted by the Illinois Natural History Survey.  After a week of orientation in Alton Illinois she will then travel to Champaign, Illinois for the remainder of internship.  For anyone interested here is the description of the project,

Project Description: The genus Corbicula consists of moderately-sized freshwater clams native to the temperate/tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and Australia and contains some of the most common and successful aquatic invasive species to North America. Previously, only one species (C. fluminea) was common in Illinois and found statewide, but a second Corbicula invader was discovered in 2008 (C. cf. largillierti). The Illinois Natural History Survey (INHS) recently discovered a putatively new Corbicula in the Illinois River near Marseilles, Illinois in 2015. Preliminary morphological and molecular assessment have supported the presence of three alien Corbicula invaders, and additional research is critical to stanch their spread (Tiemann et al., In Review). We propose a two-part (field and lab) study: 1) to conduct presence or absence surveys for the novel and recent Corbicula invaders at several locations (determined by habitat characteristics) across the state to determine geographic distribution of the three forms. Locations will include up to four sites near the confluences of major rivers (e.g., near the Missouri/Mississippi confluence, the Kankakee/Illinois confluence, Ohio River), as well as other promising locations known to harbor Corbicula. 2) Specimens collected will be subjected to a robust geometric morphometric assessment and leveraged to develop species-specific environmental DNA (eDNA) assays.

Miss you already E, have a great time.

Stuff Other Than Sweetwater

We do have a life beyond the mustang.  Here are a few of our recent adventures. 

 J tried to get a second swarm of bees.  This swarm was from our own hive.

 They were pretty high up and J couldn't hold the box on the ladder so he used a 5 gallon bucket.

 Then dumped them into the hive.  They stayed for a few days but then left.

 We've planted most of the garden but then had two nights in the 30's last week where we had to cover it all up.

 We had a surprise kidding.  I guess I have miscounted the goats and this one snuck by.  She had triples but one was dead, one was up and nursing and one was very weak.  J had to put the goat hook on the catch pole to snag her.

 The weak one nursed well but that night was one of the cold ones and the next morning she was down and out with hypothermia.  I warmed her up and tube fed her.  It has taken a few days for her to get straightened out but she is doing fine now and looking for a new home.

 Then we got a call about another swarm of bees.  These were on a stick on the ground so easy to get to.  It looks like these might stay.

 Wrangler has been on the back burner.  I did get a new painting from him this week.

 But he was never meant to stay here so I have contacted a trainer to take him and get him sold for me.  He'll make someone a good horse, just not here.  I've got a few more sheets of paper in the current pack I hope to get him to paint on before he goes.

 J has declared this the summer of Brother.  He plans to "ride him into the ground." Whatever that means.

 He started with some liberty work,

Then went on to do some riding in the barn.  We are hoping to get back out on the trails soon. 

And we have let E go off to Ecuador for 3 week on a college conservation course.  I think she will have a wonderful time.

Hokie 1/2 Marathon

Last year V heard about the first annual Hokie 1/2 Marathon a week before the event.  She decided to start training for the next year's run because it was too close to try for that one.  She started a training program in June running up to 30 miles a week until her knees started hurting and she cut back.  Well, the run was yesterday and you could not have asked for worse weather, pouring rain and 50 degrees. 

 But lucky for us the run went right in front of my mother's house.  J and mama watched from the porch but I stood under an umbrella at the end of the sidewalk so I wouldn't miss her.  There were at least 1400 signed up for the race.  You would think that it would be pretty easy to pick out your daughter but in the rain with everyone soaked and not knowing what she was wearing, she was right on top of me before I saw her.

 I yelled some encouragement and snapped a picture....

 and she was gone.  J and mama didn't even see her.  I thought it might be nice to get to the finish line but we hadn't made plans on how to get there.  We drove to the drop off parking but the shuttle had quit running so we walked up a hill to where the runners were crossing the road.  None of the ones I saw looked familiar and I found out we could drive to the finish area so J went back and got the car.  We parked about 50 yards from the finish line, I got out and ran up there just to see V finish.

 She was soaking wet, frozen and couldn't even talk.

 She was clutching her medal and water bottle they handed her at the finish line.  (I'm not sure she needed any more water at this point)

 I managed to get her steered toward the car, got her wet shirt off and gave her my sweatshirt, put her in the front seat and J blasted the heater on her.  I went back and found her backpack at the drop off tent, picked up her Finisher tee shirt and got her some hot chili from the food tent.  She finally revived enough to be driven home.

Her rendition of the event can be read HERE.
Great job V for having a goal, making a plan and sticking to it no matter what.  We are very proud of you. I think her time was around 2:20 but she didn't manage to stop her watch at the finish to know for sure.  Eleven minutes faster than the only 1/2 marathon I ever did.