Monday, May 19, 2014

Something Borrowed

You know that part in the Disney movies where nothing else can possibly go wrong then it starts to rain... Soon after the dramatic lightening starts and a storm begins? That's kind of how I felt lately. As of today I am paying on a truck that I don't get to drive because it has one problem after another, my horse needs adjusted.. again and his teeth need floated, my trailer has had 2 flats in 2 weeks and I need to get new tires, most of my paycheck goes to my horses and I'm not getting the work hours I expected to get over the summer.

That being said; with all of the situations I still can't believe how fortunate I am. Olivia and I haul together to Rounders practice. She is borrowing a horse that's not much further to drive, plus we get to do some catching up on the way to practice. As we were chatting I notice smoke billowing from the right side of my trailer and immediately knew it's the tires. I thought I would be cheap and use the old tires off of my F150 for my trailer to avoid getting all new tires after my blow out last week. Two words: Bad. Idea. The tire shop didn't warn me that the tires pretty much didn't fit and were rubbing on the trailer. We pulled into a church parking lot and hopped out of the truck. As soon as I checked the tire, I was on the phone with Nathan; at the same time, Olivia was on the phone with Kent, one of our Rounders coordinators, to let them know we would be late. We unloaded the horses and shortly after; a sweet man from the church arrived to help us out since we didn't have a jack. After removing the tire, it was obvious that if we had gone any further; it would have been a blow out. The tire wall was rubbing the trailer! Nathan and John showed up with a patch kit but the tire was past help... We called Sach and without hesitation he pulled his truck and trailer to the church so we could get to practice. Nate and John were sweet enough to load our tack and clothes into Sach's rig while we got the horses loaded.  Sach unloaded our horses so we could change into our Rounders outfits and make a run to the arena to get our pictures done. Of course it was picture day... My hair was flat and I lost a back to my earring. We ended up making it, only 15 minutes late! Good thing we left super early with intentions of getting warmed up and having plenty of time to do makeup without rushing. After our group and individual pictures I threw an Impact Gel pad borrowed from David Edwards with Lone Creek Performance Horses and a saddle borrowed from Rikki Taylor because mine isn't fitting Maximus correctly then got warmed up.

Practice was productive and I cannot wait to see the finished routine! Our first rodeo is in less than 3 weeks. On the way home we had to run all over place and first dropped off my horse then Olivia's and she brought me to my trailer then back home... The next morning I woke up early to get things ready for a busy day ahead. Got a tire put on my wheel for a spare then changed my flat but not without an offer from my sweet friend Dan to run to the rescue if I had an ounce of trouble. I took my trailer to the shop where the tire man wanted to put different sized tires.. which didn't seem like the best idea so.... home it was and off to work. That afternoon and throughout the day I had numerous board members and friends checking to make sure everything was okay. My rodeo family is simply the best.

A borrowed truck, a borrowed saddle pad, a borrowed saddle and borrowed hauling rig... if it wasn't for those that have helped me along the way, I literally would not be able to follow my dreams. At times it is so challenging to keep my eyes on the prize. It would be so easy to throw in the towel and call it quits. It would be less stressful, less expensive and less of a hassle. But I don't want less. I want more. I want to be the best I can be and to be an example for every child that has a dream that seems too far out of reach. I may not have the best of anything but I do have a support team that is absolutely amazing! I will say one thing: I don't admit defeat. I will not give up on my dreams and I will not quit when the going gets tough. Everything happens to us for a reason.

Live life with no regrets! P.S. I got my pictures done for my Miss Rodeo Arkansas Application!

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Rooster Days Rodeo... NOT carnival

A huge thank you to Steve Smith for the hauling truck!!
In preparation for this trip I printed out and got everything together the night before so there would, hopefully be nothing to worry about. I finished my final at noon and with excitement of the semester being completed, rushed home to finish loading and headed to pick up Miss Rodeo Old Fort Days, Jessica Stamps. I am so thankful that we live only a short 15 minutes away so it's super easy haul together. Right on track, we head toward Broken Arrow, OK around 2:45. It's meant to be an hour and 45 minute drive... it didn't quite turn out to be like that.

We discovered that Jessica's and my own inability to give directions or quite frankly follow signs is a terrible combination. We somehow make it to Broken Arrow Oklahoma around 4:30, just in time for rush hour traffic. At that point, we became a bit skeptical of our printed directions, so we pull off of the interstate to a gas station to ask for directions. Jessica asks how to get to the rodeo and the clerk confidently answers by giving directions, complete with road names and approximations of the distance to go before each turn. Glad to know that we were only 20 minutes away, we follow our directions and soon arrive at a steeet lined with cars and people mingling. We ask a traffic directing police officer where contestant parking is and he quickly replies he doesn't know and motions for us to continue on. We stop to ask an official looking guy the same thing. He has no idea. So we make turn and see a couple of police officers blocking a road to ask where the rodeo parking was. Their response... "Rodeo? What Rodeo?" After spending some time on their radio's we discover that the rodeo grounds were 18 miles in the direction we just came from!! The lady who gave us directions sent us to Rooster Days Carnival!






We defeatedly gave in and decide to give in and plug the address into our phones. Which takes us in the general direction of the rodeo grounds... then spins us in a circle... 3 TIMES!! Because the address we were given was incorrect! Looking for any sign of rodeo, we notice a man in a PT cruiser wearing a cowboy hat that got off on the same exit as us so Jessica says "Follow that man in the cowboy hat!!" It sounded like the best idea and ended up getting us to the rodeo grounds, still with time to spare!

Jessica and I had not been to the Rooster Days Rodeo before but found that it was a much smaller scale than expected. We warmed up our horses then found the dangerous part of rodeos... THE BLING. We were very good though and didn't spend any money (since we just wasted and arm and a leg on diesel to tour Broken Arrow, OK with a horse trailer). We had the pleasure of meeting up with the ACRA queen, Karli Jones. Unfortunately, we did not get do a queens run but pushing cows was a great experience to get our horses out for the first rodeo of many to come. The sound system kept getting static and both of our horses were beside themselves about the noise! But we were glad to have them in the arena to get their nerves settled down, it is so important for a horse to be able to succeed in the arena in any situation. This was Max's third time to EVER push cows and I could not be more proud of him! He was really watching and knew where we were pushing them to after the first time but kept getting a little excited every time the chute would open because he didn't get why he had to wait to chase them. After the rodeo we were treated to sandwiches at the hospitality tent and they seemed to be the best sandwiches ever since neither of us had a chance to grab lunch.

Thankfully we made it out of Broken Arrow with a lot less trouble than we made it in. On our way home we went to drop of Jessica's horse since she is going out of town next week and I had the pleasure of meeting a good friend of hers, Jerry, who was sweet as pie and had so many stories to tell! Unfortunately, we had to wrap up the stories because it was already 1am and I had to up at 6am the next morning. We are on our way, headed through Siloam  when we here loud dragging sound so we turn down the radio and listen closer to see sparks flying off the tire on the trailer. Before we could even get pulled over I was on the phone with my boyfriend, Nathan. I tell him that we had a flat tire and thankfully he heads straight our way. When we get out of the truck in the Walgreens parking lot.. we realize it's not just a flat. It is a straight up blow out! So we unload Max (poor thing didn't know what to think) and pull out our lawn chairs because Nate has a better part of 45 minute drive... or with the way he drives it's more like a 30 minute drive. As we were sitting there, a police officer pulls over and were sure he's going to check on us. NOPE, the man in his uniform and cop car does not even look our way! He gets out, gets a Redbox movie and leaves..We thought it to be  bit strange because wouldn't anyone who sees two young girls with tire blow out, a horse and a dog in the parking lot in town at 1:30am inquire to see if we at least had some help coming? Maybe he didn't see the blow out and thought we were just tired of driving and decided to get comfy at the Walgreens...

Thankfully Nate was to the rescue and put on the spare tire to find the spare, only to find that it was a different size than the others! We didn't have any other option though we went drop off Jessica and finally made it home and unloaded around 3:00am. I can say one thing; rodeo has definitely taught me a lot of "live and learn" experiences!

Let rodeo season begin!
"Ride with passion & Rope your dreams"
2013 Miss Rodeo of the Ozarks
Kelsey Parmenter

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Loving Life

I am a week behind on my posts! With finals this week, it has been tough to find time to keep all of my ducks in a row. The week before last was a whirl wind! Monday I visited Lowell Elementary for a Horse Tales event (wrote about in previous article, Wednesday was the stick horse rodeo at Parsons Stadium, Thursday was Farm Friends followed by another stick horse race on Friday! I think Rodeo of the Ozarks was represented at most of the children's Ag promotions programs going on in the area.

I was fortunate to perform our Rounders routine with talented girls who have quickly become my great friends! For only having had 2 full practices at a lope, the performance went rather well. After performing we rushed to our station to do face tattoos for some 1700 1st graders. At the stick horse rodeo Springdale students get to spend the day learning about different rodeo events and aspects of western life by going to different stations that have activities such as line dancing, cow milking and calf dummy roping. When mingling with the kids I'd ask them their favorite part of the days events so far and almost every one of them replied that it was "watching the girls ride the horses." That basically made my day!

At Farm Friends is quite similar to the Stick Horse Rodeo but for children of all ages are brought to see different aspects and portions of farm life by looking at interactive stations such as poultry production, learning about horses, rabbits and other animals. I was stationed with Jim House, the farrier. I had just visited with him at Horse Tales as he was teaching the kids about shoeing horses there as well! I had the privilege to tell kids about how and why we shoe horses. They had several sample shoes to look at hold. One boy picked up the biggest one and said "this one weighs 50 feet heavy!" Not long after, a young man walked up to me, put his hands on his hips and said "how many packs is this horse?" Pointing to the horse that Jim was shoeing.  I told him I wasn't quite sure what he was referring too. So he grabbed my hand and pulled me around the front of the horse and points to his chest and asked "You know, how strong is he?" That's when I realized he was assuming that a horse has chest muscles like a person... a 4-pack or 6-pack! It was all I could do not to start laughing but I held it together and explained to him we don't tell a horses strength quite the same way we do a persons. Then there was boy (pictured middle photo on the right) who after I gave him an autograph sheet he started shaking, jumping up down and showing it off! I don't think I've seen anyone get so excited! His reaction was so precious!











Friday was a re run of  Wednesday, getting to be with the Rodeo of the Ozarks Rounders team. Shiloh became the official Rounders Mascot... we decided we're going to get him a shirt made and the whole nine yards! It was another day of face painting. Just when we thought we were finished and picked everything up... another 50  students show up, so without chairs and only a few girls... it was crunch time but no child left without a face tattoo.