Thursday, September 18, 2008

My Awesome Job

Sometimes my job is incredible. Incredible because I'm seeing and doing things I never imagined I'd even want to do.

The Western Folklife Center and the Elko Convention and Visitor's Authority has brought in a group of journalists to learn about the Elko area and, especially, the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering. I didn't have to do any of the planning or organizing (thankfully), but I did get to meet the folks and share in some of the exciting things they are learning about.

Yesterday I headed to the 71 after work for dinner (which was ribs, so I only had dessert) and a concert by the campfire. Jay Dalton picked his way through quite a few songs as people took pictures and sang along.

Today, I headed back out to the 71 for lunch (Mexican, so I had a version of the served dish). After lunch we listened to a talk about changes in grazing cattle, and then we headed down to a barn to watch a horse be castrated. Fascinating. The vet threw the, um, removed part over the horse's head because "otherwise he looks back and won't be a good horse." In other words, they want the horse to see what's been removed so he doesn't think he can still, well, enjoy the ladies. Don't worry, the horse was knocked out before knife hit skin. His tongue was sticking out, which was awfully undignified and cute. After that we watched some cattle get roped and "doctored," which meant getting treated for an infection in their hooves.

Tomorrow I get to have dinner (which I also can't eat--this is the problem with being a vegetarian in cattle country) with Baxter Black, then go watch him perform. What a job.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It seems like needlessly taunting the poor horse. Undignified and cute? First time a castration was described in that way! Poor horsie.

aimee said...

OMG! yikes. I would never want to watch something like that. aaaagh. But it's true that your job is great!! It's sad that eating out is so hard, though.

Anonymous said...

Wow, you sure have become quite a country gal. It seems like you're really enjoying and getting to some fun stuff. I'm super happy for you and can hardly wait to come visit some day soon. We miss you here in the city.

TK said...

I hope you'll come visit soon. Now that we're getting into Gathering time, all my fantasies of another quick visit to Chicago will have to wait until the spring.

TK said...

Aimee, it's only catered events that are hard. Tonight I had lettuce with dressing and rolls with butter.

I wasn't standing too close to the horse, so I didn't see anything too icky.

Anonymous said...

I was glad to hear that the horse was knocked out -- I saw goats castrated once (by a vet) with these horrible metal tongs that smashed their little packages while they were fully awake. I can still remember the sounds -- horrible.

TK said...

Ugh. I don't think I would have watched if the horse had been awake and making horrible noises.