Last year, at about this time, we saw a neighbor outside with a lasso, a bale of hay, a fake steer’s head affixed to the bale of hay, and a stedfast determination permeating about him. He was going to rope the hell out of that hay.
As it turns out, our friend is a regular at team roping competitions (intro to roping here), and for the last year, we’ve joked about hopping on a horse and giving it a try. Well, the time has finally come.
We took the 40 minute ride up to Carefree, AZ, north of Phoenix, where we met up with our friends and their horses, Surge and Pumba. With far too little instruction, and far too much trust, I was hoisted up onto Surge, who I was assured has arthritis and couldn’t do too much damage to an untrained rider. Lianne and I both got a turn at herding the steer, which is the equivalent of collecting your darts or tennis balls or other game collateral so that you can play with them all over again. We rode around a bit, and got pretty comfortable.
Lianne, as it turns out, is a natural at roping. Her wrist-action is impeccable 
. Though we didn’t rope any actual steer, she caught us a bale of hay. She roped the hell out of it.
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