Mondays–V5E27–All the Kings Horses

I’ve already posted my weekly blog of the amazingly fun things we do at the Great Hunter Ranch, but we’ve had more amazing experiences that I just needed to tell you about.

I wrote earlier in the year about the Busch Family (from the Anheuser-Busch fame) and how they’d built a family brewery near where my youngest son lives. This year they are hosting their first rodeo series and like all good daughter-in-laws who do the family social planning, mine invited us to go with them to see the first in the series.

It was perfect weather evening, not too hot and clear blue skies. It wasn’t too crowded (maybe because the word hadn’t gotten out yet, or maybe it’s a little far for some of the city dwellers–but that’s okay.) I imagine as the word gets out, the next two events will be more crowded. The rodeo featured bucking broncos:

bull riding:

and some trick riding:

along with some fun activities for the young ones in the audience.

The Great Hunter has been working diligently on getting the cables fixed on his pop-up camper. The cables connect through each corner post that then connects to the hydraulics to raise the top. I often don’t agree with the way the Great Hunter does things. Our driveway slants toward the street so to level the camper, he propped it up with some boards. I cringed when he was crawling underneath it. ‘

I’ve been accused of being a worry-wart, but I like to think of it more as preparing for the worst-case scenario. If you prepare for the worst and it doesn’t happen, it’s all a piece of cake. (I guess it’s all the years of my cop training). I’ve been very concerned with the way the Great Hunter has been propping the top up, little by little with cobbled-together boards. I was always afraid of the boards popping out and the top falling with outcomes even too disastrous to contemplate. But none of my objections worked. When he’s doing something that I find dangerous and it raises my anxiety level, I just go away and let him do his thing and hope (and pray) for the best.

He went out bright and early yesterday morning and began working on one of the last two remaining posts he needed to fix. I went shopping, came home and did some things around the house, ate a delicious lunch of caramel-cheese popcorn, and read the book “Mrs. Lincoln’s Dressmaker” (which is possibly our book club selection for September, but not sure…) As I’m sitting in the living room reading, I hear the crash, the crash I’ve been worried about since the Great Hunter began this project. I could see from the front window the disaster of the camper and ran out the front door calling for him. He didn’t answer. OMG! As I went running to the side of the camper, I realized he was in the garage. Thank the Lord!

Long story short, after maneuvering the top with winches, he was able to get the top back to the point where he could raise it enough to remove the new canvas. He had just paid $1200 for it and had just put it on before the hydraulic cables snapped.

He has an emotional connection to this camper; he’s had it for probably close to twenty years and for a lot of years, we had some really good times with it.

Unfortunately, it’s just like Humpty Dumpty. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, can’t put the camper together again. Now he knows that it’s done for and it’s heading to a junkyard somewhere. He’s bumming.