A mooooving chorus…

My wife and I attended the Southern New Mexico State Fair last month to watch the Ranch Rodeo competition, which is always a fun event if you’re never seen one. As opposed to professional cowboys riding bulls, busting broncs and roping calves, the Ranch Rodeo events are closer to what real cowboys do during their work. Teams of up to six cowboys from real ranches compete in a variety of entertaining events and are timed for a combined score.

The event I like the most is when a team has to rope a steer, load it into a trailer (which is no easy task with an agitated bovine), then load a horse in the same trailer, then dash to jump into the bed or cab of the pickup pulling the trailer. The horses are particularly entertaining to watch because of their speed, agility and uncanny ability to work with humans to keep ropes tight while the cowboys do their jobs.

My next favorite is the wild cow milking contest, where roping is a bit more difficult because cows don’t have the horns that steers sprout and the animals are much larger than the roping livestock. Cowboys usually resort to pulling on the animal’s tail while two others try to hold it by the head while a fourth tries to get a small amount of milk from the unruly bovine.

But the best part of the evening was when a young woman was singing the Star Spangled Banner and a group of calves being held in pens for an upcoming event decided to join the chorus. I hope you can see and hear the video attached above. It was quite comical, and I’m amazed that the young woman was able to keep her cool while being joined by the calf cacophony.

Otherwise we spent $36 for two corn dogs, one small freshly made lemonade and a pile of curly French fries that probably could have fed the entire population of a third world country (think of El Guacador) for six months. Admission to the fair was reasonable — $15 for each of us with access to everything except for carnival rides. We chose not to go on any of the rides, mostly because I feared I would toss most of my $15 French fries at the top of the “Loop of Death” or whatever the most treacherous ride was called.