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Bowring Ranch Sod House Sunday

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Soapweed

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northern Nebraska Sandhills
My two sons and I had a bit of luck today. We were signed up at the Sod House Sunday team penning where there were seventeen teams entered. We had the good fortune to come away with first place and each of us got a nifty belt buckle. This has been a goal of mine for the last eleven years that the event has been held, and the stars must have lined up right today. Mrs. Soapweed was entered with another couple back in 1999, and they won the coveted buckles that year. She has always been more than polite, but I've felt a bit inferior knowing that she outdid me. Now we can once again "talk shop" because the playing field has been leveled. :wink:

Each person could be entered twice. My oldest son was entered on another team, and they got second place. Somehow I held the winning hand of having bought them in the calcutta, so profited a bit on that account also. Nice weather and a little luck made for a fun day. Frosting on the cake was visiting with good friends and listening to an afternoon jam session of top-of-the-line country music.
 
My oldest son rode one of the new horses. A couple weeks ago, he wondered if I had a horse he could borrow to keep in his little 18-acre pasture near town and do some roping at his friend's arena a few miles away. I loaned him this horse for the summer, but stipulated he had to participate in the Sod House team penning if he got the horse. He grumbled a bit, and didn't really want to do that, but I good-naturedly but firmly said, "take it or leave it." He took it, and now has no regrets.

He kind of qualified for the top hand of the day, being on both the first and second place teams. As he rode out of the arena, one wag hollered to him, "Not bad for a d--n blacksmith." Will just grinned.
 
Congrats; and good luck and good fortune to the youngster's. Different subject I know but do you have much needle-grass?
 
Thanks, haytrucker. As for the needlegrass, we seem to have our share but maybe no more than usual. A few days ago, I was visiting with a gentleman from about forty miles away, and the subject of needlegrass came up. He said that "conventional wisdom" is that they should be hayed "after the needles fall off". His thought is that it doesn't matter when they are put up for hay. He uses a Haybuster processor, and maintains that the grinding action of the processor pulverizes the needles. He says that even if you wait until the needles fall off, they get raked up anyway, so what difference does it make. He has studied out the issue more than I have.

We hope to do our first baling today, on heavy hay that was mowed Saturday. We get to share Haymaker's title for the next two months, so in his words, "Good Luck!" :)
 
Congratulations Soapweed and sons on your growing buckle collection!
Nothing like a father/son challenge to stir the pot.
This was thefirst time I'd heard of Team Penning so did a Google on it and learned it is the fastest growing equine sport so they say. For anybody else not up to speed on such things the rules are:


http://www.team-penning.com/basics.htm
 
Faster horses said:
Now I am curious. By 'needlegrass' don't you really mean 'cheatgrass'?

The problems mentioned above are what we converse about in regard to cheatgrass. No one here bales needlegrass...

As I said, I am just curious.
Click to expand...

Needlegrass and cheatgrass are two different types of grass. Cheatgrass has short barbs with a sort of a fluffy tail (for lack of a better term), needlegrass has barbs that resemble needles, and has a long single stem tail. Cheatgrass also tends to dry up and turn from green to brown fairly early (here in Wyoming, the cheatgrass has already dried and turned) during the summer, and needlegrass doesn't.
 
Here needle and thread grass differs from Needle Grass. Needle Grass is more desirable than Needle-and-Thread. Needle and Thread shows up here when we get a wet spring.

We also have cheatgrass (and ya~I know what it is) and Japanese Broam. Japanese Broam is a first cousin to cheatgrass, but doesn't have as big a head as cheatgrass. But cattle still won't eat it much after it heads out.

When we lived in W. Mt. the grass specialist for the Forest Service rented a house from us. We had a different kind of grass growing on a rocky flat. It had cured out and was brown, like cheat grass. Upon further inspection, it did not look anything like cheatgrass, other than the brown tint from a distance. Anyhow, I asked him what kind of grass that was and he said "Cheatgrass." I was pretty dismayed that being a "Grass Specialist" he didn't know what Cheatgrass was. I did inform him that I knew what one kind of grass was, and that was cheatgrass and what was growing out there was NOT cheatgrass.

Found out later it was JUNE GRASS.

I have tried to learn some of the grass species. Wish I was younger, because it does hold some fascination for me.
 
FH, I did not mean to insult your intelligence. My sincere apology if I offended.

I know what you mean about being able to identify grass types. I can now identify crested wheatgrass, and brome grass. Getting fairly good at orchard grass, but I am still having a little trouble discerning between native wheatgrass and intermediate wheatgrass.
 
And I know Blue Gamma Grass and Blue Stem, and Buffalo Grass and Club Moss (hate that stuff). I don't think I know Western Wheatgrass, though it is supposedly what we have the most of. Kinda threw me for a loop when I found out people up in Oldtimers country can cut it for hay~it gets that tall. So I'm not totally sure what it is.

There are different kinds of crested, too. We plant Hycrest in the hay fields and Fairway in the lawn. I have noticed that when we turn the horses (or cows occasionally) out in front of the house, they don't stay long on the Fairway crested. So I have come to the conclusion that they don't much like it. Or they are pretty spoiled...
 
It is with regret that I confess I don't know a lot of the Sandhills grasses and plants. Being too scientific about anything has never been my long-suit. I do take pride in taking care of our land and cattle, and though I don't know all the names of grasses, I know when there IS grass and when there AIN'T. That is more than some of the specialists seem to fathom.

Here is another confession. Back in my 4-H days, that I didn't take too seriously, I took "range management". This project dealt with learning the proper names of the different grasses. Our leader was a nice lady, but she had trouble saying her "L's". Being ornery in a subtle sort of way, I made a point of asking questions of her that "Little Bluestem" would be the answer. It kind of tickled me to hear her say "Widdo Bwoostem." Kick my hiney. :) I deserve it.

Speaking of lisps, my cousin confessed to being ornery one time, also. He and a friend were visiting about guns and the talk turned to pistols. A neighbor arrived late on the scene, and when he heard "pistols" asked politely, "What do you use to kill thistles?" My ornery cousin chided him and said, "We know you speak with a lisp, but we didn't know you listened with one, too." :shock: :)
 
Faster horses said:
And I know Blue Gamma Grass and Blue Stem, and Buffalo Grass and Club Moss (hate that stuff). I don't think I know Western Wheatgrass, though it is supposedly what we have the most of. Kinda threw me for a loop when I found out people up in Oldtimers country can cut it for hay~it gets that tall. So I'm not totally sure what it is.

There are different kinds of crested, too. We plant Hycrest in the hay fields and Fairway in the lawn. I have noticed that when we turn the horses (or cows occasionally) out in front of the house, they don't stay long on the Fairway crested. So I have come to the conclusion that they don't much like it. Or they are pretty spoiled...
Click to expand...

Don't have a clue abut Blue Gamma, Blue Stem, Buffalo Grass or Club Moss. As I understand it, there are about 20+ different kinds of wheatgrass. A lot of them developed from the native wheatgrass strain. We have intermediate wheatgrass that is chest high in several places on our place.

You just had to burst my bubble about the crested wheatgrass, didn't you? :lol2: That's ok, though. Just means back to the drawing board! :wink: The crested wheatgrass here seems to be pretty popular with the cows, although, if they can get to it, they do appear to prefer the brome grass. The horses prefer the brome grass, hands down.
 
Soapweed said:
It is with regret that I confess I don't know a lot of the Sandhills grasses and plants. Being too scientific about anything has never been my long-suit. I do take pride in taking care of our land and cattle, and though I don't know all the names of grasses, I know when there IS grass and when there AIN'T. That is more than some of the specialists seem to fathom.


I would agree with you on that one! :wink:

Our leader was a nice lady, but she had trouble saying her "L's". Being ornery in a subtle sort of way, I made a point of asking questions of her that "Little Bluestem" would be the answer. It kind of tickled me to hear her say "Widdo Bwoostem." Kick my hiney. :) I deserve it.


:lol2: :lol2: Can't condemn you for doing something I would have done!


Speaking of lisps, my cousin confessed to being ornery one time, also. He and a friend were visiting about guns and the talk turned to pistols. A neighbor arrived late on the scene, and when he heard "pistols" asked politely, "What do you use to kill thistles?" My ornery cousin chided him and said, "We know you speak with a lisp, but we didn't know you listened with one, too." :shock: :)
Click to expand...


That's too funny! Not nice, but funny! :lol2:
 
This penning topic that somehow got to be a thread about grass got my attention. :D

We have several warm and cool season grasses here, so have several "chances" over a years time to grow grass.

First in the spring, although not a native grass, crested wheat usually makes an early appearance. We have several types of wheatgrass. There are many varieties of crested such as Standard, Nordan, Fairway, among others. There is Pubescent, and Intermediate wheatgrass, with several types of each. Our main cool season grass, which would be in Faster Horses area also is Thread Leaf Sedge. It also has a politically incorrect name that I will not use here.

Some other grasses we can or normally do have are, prairie sand reed, little and big bluestem, side oats gramma, blue gramma, western or native wheatgrass (it is native), green needle, cheatgrass(yuck), brome, june grass, alfalfa, and others I can't think of at the moment.

We just had a very vigorous T-storm that came through leaving us some rain to maybe grow some of those grasses. :D

Winds were over 80 miles per hour in the neighborhood.
 

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