Wilsall Ranch Rodeo & Dance

This weekend was the long awaited Wilsall Ranch Rodeo & Dance! The Ranch Rodeo is the last hurrah of the summer here in town and we were as excited as a pig in mud to hoe down.

The fun started on Saturday night with the town dance and calcutta. The calcutta is an auction of the teams competing in Sunday's rodeo for who will win the competitions. Locals bid hundreds, even thousands, of dollars on the teams made up largely of the Shields River Valley ranch families and ranch hands. Top winners get a cash prize and the rest goes to the Wilsall Foundation to maintown the town.

Ten Foot Tall and 80 Proof played country rock all night at the dance. Laurie, Billy, Sara, Dave and I hung out most of the night on the hay bales sidelines of the dance, save for a couple of dances, with our nieghbors Rich and Lisa and Laurie's friend Heather.

On Sunday, the rodeo kicked off in the afternoon with nearly every seat in the grandstands taken. I'd never seen so many cowboy hats and spurs before. A ranch rodeo is different from a rodeo you usually see advertised with bull and bronc riding - it's a competition of real skills ranchers use. They compete in roping and branding cows, herd counting and penning, among others.

Team Branding

We’ve seen some of those skills in action here on the farm when Karen and David from Muddy Creek drive their cattle on horseback.

The highlight of the ranch rodeo and the final competition is wild cow milking. One of the team of four is on horseback in the ring and they release a heffer, the rider ropes the cow and the rest of the team wrangles the cow on foot. One grabs the cow's head, two others hold on with all their might to it's tail and the fourth milks it as quickly as possible. The fastest team to milk the cow wins.

The competition was fun to watch though our bums were so sore from sitting on the hard bleachers for hours. Now I know how my mom felt for so many years watching our soccer, basketball, baseball, football games that go on forever! For me watching the women on each team (each team had to have at least one woman or a person under 15). It’s incredible to see them roping cattle and riding the horses so effortlessly like they were born cowgirls.