Tag Archives: BigShotsNow

End Of Summer

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2016-10-24endoffall-6941seed pods along the Gibbon River, Yellowstone: to see larger version, right-click, choose open image in new tab 

This time of year is probably more a start of fall rather than an end of summer but the exact name doesn’t matter that much. If you’re looking backward from here you see the trees starting to turn, the grass heading towards that golden color it gets when it’s ready to drop its seed for the year. If you’re looking forward, the air is cooler, almost cold in fact, and the grass is still stiff from the morning frost. Mist rising off the river is silvery opaque, and its passage downstream is slower, the surface of the water flat and mirror-like reflecting the foliage along its banks. Your jacket is buttoned up to the top button and you can see your breath with every step.

Your focus is on the smaller things now. Getting ready for winter, thinking about the chores you need to finish up now while it’s easy, before you’re doing them in the snow. Thinking about what’s left to harvest, some pumpkins, a few squash, root vegetables still in the ground. Turnips, rutabagas, bunching onions, small, round beets, short carrots, radishes, winter radishes,  mustard greens, leaf beets, bunching onions, Swiss chard, kale, spinach. Maybe there’s Brussels Sprouts, everybody’s favorite, right after any zucchini that needs picking.

Chores that need to be done now are stuff like tilling up the garden, draining the fuel out of the lawnmower so it starts next spring. Making sure the  flap in your long johns isn’t sewn shut. That’s a favorite reminder from your spouse if you weren’t nice enough to her over the summer. Haul that hay in from from that very last field. You really want to plow all the way out there when there’s four feet of snow on the ground.

Yes there are chores to be done, and equipment to be gotten ready or put up for the season but there is also the need to get out there and walk the trails around the place. See how things are winding up. Get your fill of looking at the things you love before they’re covered by winter’s snow. Take in that fall feeling before it changes into that frozen ears, snow down your boots, winter we all get tired of way to soon. Be in the moment.

This is one of the good times of the year. Make sure you make the most of it.

Don’t Be Sad Little Chicken

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Well then, OK… hummm. There are many problems both big and small that plague the birds and animals of Yellowstone. There’s freezing cold and wildfires and big hairy scary things that jump out at you and eat you. There is sometimes little food or else there’s too much and you eat until your size 2 is a size QQXXXL that is only made in certain parts of rural Russia which was the Union of Soviet Socialists Or We’ll Kill You Republic.

But one of the biggest hardships of all is when for some reason they do not have access to BigShotsNow the blog, which is published by The Institute and is the sole source of news and events for all the denizens of the park. Without it they don’t know the results of the annual park inspection report that determines where the individual animals will be stationed within the parks borders, or how much they’ll be making, or who’s baby was just born, or if you’re an elk or buffalo, whose baby was just eaten. Or of you’re a wolf and/or wolf pack, where the best place for elk and bison to hang out. So having the blog is a really big deal for them.

If you read the announcement a few days ago explaining our tale of woe then you know we’re having problems with our image storage system. We’re still having trouble. Big Trouble. NASA kind of trouble. Tesla kind of trouble. Third or Fourth ex-wife kind of trouble. Not mid-east kind of trouble that’s just over the top, but sometimes it feels like it.

We have double shifts working around the clock on it but even with all the help we have, it’s still slow going. We can’t do anything about the current or future news we report on but we can lead you towards our archives where we keep the news of the past. There are literally hundreds of articles and poems and handwritten prose, over eight hundred to be exact, and they are rollicking tales and ripping yarns filled with adventure and mis-stated fact, and thoughts that I bet you haven’t thought your ownself or even could if you tried. They’re all there just begging to be reread. Just go to the calendar and find a blue day, hover your cursor over one and it’ll tell you its name. What could be easier than that. Or you could scroll down under the search box on the far right hand side of the page where it says Archives and see that each month with its corresponding year is listed below and you can poke around in those until you feel funny and have to quit for a while.

We’re working hard and not just screwing off like we do sometimes when there is a problem but really working, so the best we can say is “Don’t be sad, little chicken. We’ll be back up with new pictures and words real soon.”

2016 A New Dawn

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2016 A new dawn, A new year. We said good-bye to 2015 yesterday with a sunset image that represented the end of a less than stellar year so we thought it only fitting that we start the new year off with a sunrise image taken from the deck here at Blog Central. This is how we have decided the new year should be, bright, colorful, beautiful, vibrant, full of promise and generally a perfect start to what we hope is the same kind of year.

 If you are one of those that are thankful that 2015 is past (and even if you’re not) then join us here at Blog Central, home of The Institute, and the constant beauty that is Colorado at its finest, to move forward into the new year with enthusiasm and hope. From everyone here at BigShotsNow the blog, which as you have no doubt figured out by now is primarily me, I would like to say Happy New Year to all of you from the perspective of the first dawn of the year, and the wonderful events it will lead to in 2016.

Remember visit once, visit again, in fact just make it a habit, and tell your friends about us. Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas

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Merry Christmas to you all. I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all the very best of the holidays with the hopes that you truly have Peace and Contentment in your lives. The holidays all mean different things to different people and no matter how you do, or don’t, celebrate them, it is still a time that draws people together.

The blog has seemed to do that even more so this year. The drawing people in part I mean, as we have had thousands of visitors from here in the States and in 2014 we had over 66 different countries visit the blog. This year we are ahead of that total. So a special thanks and Holiday Greetings to all of our International readers. If I could say thank you in each of your languages I would. However, because of the holidays The Director of The Institute and I, gave our entire Linguistic department plus the rest of the staff, even the interns and other minions, the entire holiday season off. Clear into next year. Yes I know, that is unprecedented, but we just felt the spirit of fellowship and good will this year and let sentiment run away with us.

The gorgeous landscape above is actually from where both I and the imaginary Institute are located. High above the plains in the mountains North of Ft Collins, Colorado. This is where I live and where the more trustworthy of our interns from The Institute pass by everyday when we go down the mountain to get the mail or head out on one of our many incredible adventures. It is a real pleasure to be able to share this beautiful sight with you.

I am Dwight Lutsey the blogmaster, and along with The Director of The Institute, who as always will remain nameless, would like to say Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and the very best wishes to you and yours. Make sure you visit us regularly throughout the rest of this year and the next so you don’t miss a single extraordinary event that happens here at BigShotsNow the blog.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Horse Spinning

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This post has been moved to OpenChutes.com. All future postings of Powwows, Indian Relay Races, Rodeos and Rendezvous will be posted there from now on exclusively. So if you’re looking for new images and posts for all those events attended this year, plus all the old posts posted on BigShotsNow.com check out OpenChutes.com. See you there!

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We don’t normally repost images here on BigShotsNow but some information that has surfaced and been made public require our clarifying facts regarding this picture. This shot was originally posted on 2015-09-02 and referred to events taking place at the Crow Fair rodeo. http://www.bigshotsnow.com/crow-fair-2015-rodeo/

Originally there was a comment attached to this photo referring to an unusual way to dismount a bucking horse when one tired of riding it. We have to tender an apology as we were mistaken in providing that information. This is not what is happening at all.

What is happening in the image is not a regular or common shot of a cowboy falling off his horse, but is in fact a horse and rider participating in one of the newest and most spectacular events on the rodeo circuit. That event is Horse Spinning. Many of you who attend rodeo events regularly, have known about this event for sometime but have been remiss in sharing this information, (I’m looking at you, Eddie) so we misreported a very important event when it should have received worldwide attention due to its uniqueness.

It is a simple appearing event but that is totally misleading as this event brings into play every skill that the horse and rider possesses. What you see in the image above is the rider entering into position so the horse, who is just stepping into the first part of the circle, can complete a rotation. The horse has to have complete control of its bucking ability as it needs to know exactly how and when to ‘Unload” the cowboy while maintaining enough speed to keep its revolutions up, and the cowboy has to have dexterity and strength and an ability to overcome dizziness similar to what astronauts are tested for, to keep the horse totally focused on “getting his rev’s in”. Where the cowboy places his foot on the side of the horses body allows him to be the pivot man and determines how much strength he needs to have, to pull the horse around him in a 360° circle. The amount of bucking the horse does in his circuitous route around the cowboy and the cowboys ability to remain properly suspended in the proper position while spinning around with his horse, will give him a point rating for the event.

One to three rotations of the pair will give the team a score of two to four depending on how stable the cowboy looked while competing and how the judges viewed their performance. Turning in a performance of eleven rotations or more within the eight seconds allowed for the event will send the team to the National hands down. This team was only able to get one and a half revolutions in the eight seconds and were  ultimately disqualified due to the cowboy letting his left foot leave the horse’s side. His foot must be firmly stuck to the horse’s side throughout the event. One of the rules applied to this competition event is that once airborne, the cowboy’s foot can not leave the horse’s side or use his foot to hook into the stirrup or the team will be disqualified and given no score. That’s what happened here. Tough luck for this team.

It was a bitter disappointment for the team as they were thought to be one of the frontrunners in this event and destined to bring this event to a much broader audience by attending the Nationals. But this is rodeo. One day you win, another you don’t. There’s always the next time when fortunes can change in a heartbeat, or a rotation in this case. Be sure to watch for this event in upcoming rodeos. This will be a showstopper right up there with bull riding. For more information on this event and how to enter contact The Director at The Institute and we’ll send you to the proper people to talk to.

Sweet Nothings

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This post has been moved to OpenChutes.com. All future postings of Powwows, Indian Relay Races, Rodeos and Rendezvous will be posted there from now on exclusively. So if you’re looking for new images and posts for all those events attended this year, plus all the old posts posted on BigShotsNow.com check out OpenChutes.com. See you there!

2015-10-31SweetNothings9394

The highlight of any Indian rodeo is the Indian Relay Races. That event alone is worth traveling just about any distance to see. These races must be held out doors as the excitement generated at one of these races will simply blow the roof off any building you try to hold them in. I know, these are bold statements, but once you see one of these races you’ll be a convert. To see more about these races visit this post http://www.bigshotsnow.com/crow-fair-2015-indian-relay-races/ to see it in action.

The intensity of the races builds to a fever pitch with horses, riders and even those in the grandstand filled to the brim with frenetic energy. Sometimes the excitement gets to the point where the horse loses control and begins to act up because it wants to be out on that racetrack running its heart out. But it isn’t its time yet. It has to remain here in position so that when the relay rider comes in, it is ready for him to mount and race away, hopefully winning the race.

What you see here is a brief moment in time where the handler has an intimate quiet discussion with the horse explaining to it that it needs to remain calm. If it does it will have its chance in a second and that if it just stays calm a little longer it’ll be out on that track running like the wind and it will be the winner. A horse among horses. King of the stables. Or something like that. It was hard to hear over all the screaming from the grandstands.

Surprisingly the horse calmed right down and patiently waited for the rider to come in and make the exchange. We’d like to report that this horse and rider did win the race but unfortunately that didn’t happen. He came in second. There is only one winner in a horse race and this wasn’t this horse’s day. But there’s always the next race, the next rodeo, the next chance to be a winner. They’ll be back.

OK That Wasn’t Funny

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HardCase5496

For those thousands upon thousands of loyal readers from all over the globe who noticed that BigShotsNow, the blog, has been off the air for several days we want to announce, we’re back…..

We were hacked. (*Note: For those of you on a time budget go to the end of this post for a quick summary) Yes just like a big phlegm ball we were hacked and spat out on the miserable roadside of the internet, unable to get to our site, unable to fix it, left with nothing but a screen declaring that “This website is currently unavailable. If you want to know why call this number. 1-8OO-oh crap!” which we immediately did.

Upon reaching our tech support we learned that thugs, despicable internet gangsters, lowlifes of the worst sort had some how gotten into our server and left despoiled files all over our html coding like little piles of puppy droppings. Of course our host, the folks who allow us to have BigShotsNow, the blog, on their servers, had to pull the plug on us. I mean, who wouldn’t. We’re not mad at them. But we are mad at those miserable, misbegotten, worthless pieces of humanity who defiled our home.

We’re not sure why they did it, that pond scum. It was probably some nefarious plan to attain world domination through thru the access of our loyal readers, or maybe they were just screwing around. In any event, that wasn’t funny.

When we saw the extent of the damage we had no recourse but to hire the best technicians available who went into the bowels of our site, as it were, wearing hazmat suits, carrying tools of reconstruction, and sparing no expense, clean, repair and reconstitute BigShotsNow, the blog. It took them nearly three days to complete this task before they came out weary, coated with the unmentionable residue of the their job, but they were successful. Fortunately not one of our readers was ever at risk of being effected or even infected in any way except in being denied the wit and wisdom they come here to find and that is the true evil that these slime-covered mental mutants do.

The technicians were successful, but worried. “This could easily happen again” they said in a voice weary but determined “These are bad, mean people. They are loveless, craven souls who exist only to bring misery and sorrow to others. They are so mean many of them bite themselves if they have no one else to torment. You should hire protection.”

So we did that too. We found the hardest, strongest, most morally superior jackbooted digital Stormtroopers around, who exist only to help keep this kind of evil at bay. They live to fight evil like this, gnashing their teeth, glaring, they make short work of any net trash looking for trouble. They will stand guard at the portals of our website keeping ever vigilant, and ruthlessly meet any challenge to the integrity of our home. So battered, bruised and bloody we return undeterred to keep publishing BigShotsNow, the blog, for you our loyal readers. The truth will always be available even if it is sometimes tarnished and barely discernible . We shall not be silenced.

Thank you for your patience and your support during these troubling times. The Director thanks you, The Institute thanks you, and free people everywhere thank you. Watch for a new post soon.

* We got hacked. We fixed it. We’re back. Mean people suck.