Daily Archives: December 20, 2009
Christmas Time……
Drifter playing in the snow
Well here we are, four days before Christmas……..is everybody ready?? I am very excited about the Holidays this year. Guinness and I have been baking and making candy for our family, friends and neighbors, I have battled Wal-Mart twice and I am afraid I am gonna have to go back one more time before Christmas Eve and there is even snow on the ground here. It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas……………
We have some Christmas traditions here on the farm that I look forward to every year. Years ago, when we celebrated our first Christmas here on the farm several of our neighbors came over on Christmas Eve bringing cookies and candies. They explained to us that this was a tradition that the ladies on our road started years ago and they wanted to invite us to join. I thought that it was so cool that they invited us. Guinness and I bought the farm when we were 27 and to be honest I thought “wow, what a grown up thing to do! haha!” I was really excited about getting to know our neighbors and being involved in their traditions. Over the years we have continued with this tradition and it has been a great way to get to know our lovely neighbors and their families.
Another tradition is that our mother, Southern Lady, comes to spend the night on Christmas Eve. It is something that I look forward to every year. Growing up in a divorced family, Guinness and I always ran up and down the road every holiday. When we grew up we said “NO MORE!” and now our Mom comes and stays with us. We look so forward to it! On Christmas Eve night, Guinness makes her famous sausage balls and we sit around and have “girl talk” until late in to the evening.
On Christmas Morning we get up early, start the coffee and we all three, plus the doggies head to the barn to give all the horses their Christmas presents. The horses normally either get hot peppermint mash or carrots and a candy cane. Then we head back to the house and get to cooking before the rest of our family and friends arrives.
Those are just a few of the Christmas traditions that we have here at our house. Some are old some are new but either way they are traditions and I love them. In a world that seems to be changing every minute of the day I find it very comforting to fall back on our traditions of the past and hope we will always continue to do them.
Merry Christmas Rodeo Fans!!!
What are your Christmas traditions?? Tell us what you do special for your animals and family over the holidays?
Blue Moon
Team Roper Kollin Von Ahn represents 2nd world champ for Sac City this year
SAC CITY, Iowa — The home of the World’s Largest Popcorn Ball (5,060 pounds) is now home to another world figure.
It’s Kollin Von Ahn, a Sac City native who just won the world team roping title at the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, Nev. He earned $106,000 for the title. (Sorry, I don’t know Von Ahn’s weight.)
Von Ahn, a heeler in his chosen sport, joined header Nick Sartain of Yukon, Okla., in snaring the world championship last Saturday. Both men received a prize saddle and gold belt buckle.
“I’m wearing the belt buckle,” said Von Ahn, the son of Gene and Jan Von Ahn of Sac City.
Team roping involves two cowboys roping the head and then the heels (or legs) of a steer. Times vary from under five seconds to 15 seconds. Von Ahn and Sartain claimed the aggregate score crown with 59.2 seconds over 10 rounds. Their best time, 3.7 seconds, came in the fourth round.
What is the hardest part of this sport?
“I think for a lot of people it’s the travel,” said Von Ahn, who has a small ranch at Durant, Okla., where he attended Southeastern Oklahoma State University on a rodeo scholarship. “There are a lot of miles and being away from home. Every once in a while you sleep in your truck. But that’s OK. The sun always comes up.”
The sun has always been up for Von Ahn went it comes to rodeo. He and partner J.W. Nelson of Alta, Iowa, teamed up to win the Iowa High School Rodeo team roping title three of the four years they were in high school. Von Ahn also won the boys’ all-around state title three of four years.
His first title came at Lake City, Iowa, when he was 10. He competed after that point in places like Homer, South Sioux City, Moville and Cherokee, to name a few. Wherever there was a rodeo, he was in the mix.
“He’s lived and breathed this since he was five,” Gene Von Ahn said. (read more)
Posted in National Finals Rodeo, Rodeo News
1 Comment
