What a nice reprieve

It is Monday morning; we have survived a full two weeks with temperatures over 100º almost every day. This morning it is a wonderful cool, 75º and a nice northwest breeze blowing. It makes me know why horses like to kick up their heels on a cool breezy day. I almost want to do the same. I don’t dare though; if I did, I would probably break something. 

It is nice though, to have a period of cooler weather, even if it is short. The biggest problem with it this year is that the cooler weather comes with smoke, lots of it, even though there are very few fires in Wyoming this year. We are getting some crazy smoke from the northwest. The news from there is not good. Just looking at the WatchDuty app, I made a rough estimate that almost 1 million acres have burned or are burning in Washington, Oregon and Montana. We can only hope that some cooler weather will help them too. 

With fair just being over and this cool weather showing up it reminded me of an incident one year at fair. It had to be in the late 1980s I would guess. 

Fair week was horrendous that year. Like this year every day was hitting over 100º. It was brutal. They still had horse stalls at the time and horses were kept at the fair. The horseshow that year was held on Friday. So, there were a lot of horses that got cooped up in stalls all week, with minimal exercise because the kids were showing other livestock. The heat and the confinement made the horses a little cranky anyway. Then Friday morning dawned cool and cloudy with a nice northwest breeze with just a hint of rain. Couple that with several young people showing their first year in FFA, with young horses… it was a recipe for disaster. 

There were about four or five of these kids. They were experienced horsemen; they had all been in 4-H for like five or six years. They had their 4-H horses but had acquired young horses to start their FFA career with. The kids were experienced. The horses, not so much. After being cooped up in stalls all week in the heat, that cool breezy morning was almost more than those young horses could handle. 

They brought them into the arena to warm them up before the equitation classes and all of a sudden one of them started hopping. Before long all of them were crow hopping around the arena. A couple of them actually managed to get their heads down and really bucked a jump or two. The kids handled them wonderfully, but the judges were discussing, “Which one of us gets to judge the “Rodeo Class?”

I am still enjoying the cooler weather, smoke and all. 

Stupid Pie

20 ounce can of crushed pineapple

14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk

8-ounce tub of whipped topping

9-inch graham cracker crust

Dump pineapple into a large bowl, juice and all. Stir in condensed milk until completely combined. Fold in whipped topping gently to keep it fluffy. Pour into crust and top with a few graham cracker crumbs. Refrigerate for 2 hours, overnight is even better.