Blog Archives

roping (to boost bids)

The same young man from yesterday, putting a horse through the things horses are supposed to do in order to boost bids at the auction.

See how much I’ve already learned about how these things work? I’m practically an expert.

Random (to me) comment from the auctioneer: This one ain’t slobbering his face all over.

Mallet Event Center
Levelland, Texas
photographed 2.10.2024

young horse trainer

This kid right here showed several horses during the horse sale. He’s also – according to the auctioneer – “fixin’ to move to Muleshoe.” That’s not a weird cowboy euphemism, but an actual town name. In case you thought there was something weird going on.

Mallet Event Center
Levelland, Texas
photographed 2.10.2024

at the horse sale

Every day that I go in to my office, I pass by an events center. And every day I read the marquee announcements of coming events. A lot of them are mysterious to me – generally because they relate to agriculture or rodeo things that are outside of my normal set of things I do.

As part of a commitment to “do more stuff” this year, I decided to head over to the center the other Saturday to check out the Clovis Horse Sales. There was no entry fee, so there wasn’t an apparent down side, other than the extremely remote possibility that I might accidentally bid on a pony.

It turned out to be quite an entertaining few hours.

And I came home pony-less.

Mallet Event Center
Levelland, Texas
photographed 2.10.2024

the spot: marked

A couple of dead trees marked the location with the traditional spot-marking X, which was fun to photograph but not all that much help in terms of wayfinding.

Crosby County, Texas
photographed 2.3.2024

not much longer

One of these days – probably it won’t take many of them – this old farm building is going to finish falling all the way down. That’s the way of farm buildings around here as farming practices and populations and the climate all shift.

Crosby County, Texas
photographed 2.3.2024