Party of Five: Buddy and The Rodeo

This morning the kids somehow saw a frog behind the trailer’s wheel . . . so the hunt was on, which resulted in Buddy being captured. Buddy kept the kids busy for most of the morning as they looked for flies and crickets to feed him. I am saying him, but it could have been a her . . . there were no distinguishable body parts to make it clear to me, so I am going with a him based on the name the kids gave him. As the kids roamed around the campground looking for things to put in Buddy’s habitat (which was a bucket with a badminton racket taped to the top of it) they met up with another boy who also had a frog.

The search was on for more frogs, which resulted in a total of four frogs. The kids really enjoyed playing with and taking care of the frogs, which resulted in talks about taking them home. Michelle talked them out of it, but of course Josh wanted to make a deal. He is all about the “deal” right now, even though we usually don’t give into his deals. Josh’s deal was that if they released the frogs, they could get a pet when they got home. Emma was an easy sell as we had already promised her that we would get her knew fish. Jamie wanted a frog since that is what his most recent experience was and because his uncle had a frog once. Josh on the other hand wanted something that he could train to do tricks. He thought about getting a parrot to teach it to speak, then he thought about getting a guinea pig/hamster to teach it how to jump through hoops, but then he settled on getting a chipmunk so that he could teach it to sing and dance. Letting the frogs go to return to their natural environment was a little tough on Emma as she cried a little and told us that she did not want to leave the next day. I wish them all luck in getting their pet when we get home!

The plan for today was to head to a small rodeo in the township of Consul, which was about an hour away from Maple Creek. There seemed to be only one main road in the town that brought you to a place that seemed like a slower pace to the everyday rush that we are accustomed to. The rodeo consisted of bronco riding, bull riding, roping and a couple of other events. The kids enjoyed all of the events, but particularly liked the trick riding.

Yee Haw!!!

It was really cool to see a different lifestyle being celebrated than what we are used to seeing in our hometown. Most of the kids were wearing cowboy hats and cowboy boots and dressed in typical western outfits. You could tell that it was a way of life for these families. The coolest thing that I saw was when we arrived, there were about five or six kids chasing each other around with ropes trying to lasso each other. Watching these kids run around playing this game was no different than watching my kids play road hockey with their friends. Different experiences, different lifestyles, different games, but similar in fun and enjoyment . . . kids being kids. Emma loved feeding the cows and horses hay while they were in their corrals. At first she would walk nervously towards the animals and throw the hay into the pens . . . it was interesting because the cows and horses were just as nervous about Emma as she was of them. Seeing these huge animals back away from this pint-sized girl was quite entertaining. As Emma became more confident with them, so did they . . . they realized that this little girl was not there to hurt them, but to feed them. Within about 15 minutes she was feeding the animals from her hand . . . she thought the cows’ tongues were hysterical, as she would imitate them after they took the hay from her hands.

Emma loved feeding the cows and horses hay.

I am glad that we got to see a different side of Canada . . . small town, rural Saskatchewan, taking in a local rodeo, parachuting in and exposing the kids to a different type of entertainment and lifestyle than their own.