Matt's Family
... there's a lot of pics here, give this page a moment to load...
Here's my Dad and I at the Ben & Jerry factory in Waterbury, Vermont. I did sample Heathbar Crunch while I was there, but quickly got addicted to Cherry Garcia. Right now I think my favorite flavor is Phish Food.
Here is my dad again, this time with his wife Blue. I think this picture was at my step-sister Rainey's wedding, but I'm not positive, because there is green grass in the picture and well, you just don't see a lot of green grass in Arizona. I could be mistaken. It's definitely not at their house anyway, because if they DID have green grass the horses would have eaten it by now.
This is my step-sister Rainey and her husband Hector. Rainey is currently at the University of Arizona, where she intends to major in veterinary medicine, and she is excellent with horses... one thing she particularly loves is barrel-racing, and she's excellent at it. Hector is also good with horses, and he enjoys doing the rodeo thing... he occasionally competes in bulldogging and team roping when he's not busy working. If you don't know what bulldogging is, it's where you chase a bull or calf on horseback and grab it by the horns and tackle it to the ground. Better him than me, that's what I say.
These are a few of the family horses at the family homestead near Show Low, Arizona. Left to right, they are Hollis, CoCo, and Cimmy (short for Cimmarron). Each one has a distinct personality... Hollis is a clown, CoCo is the mature grown-up (sometimes), and Cimmy is... well, Cimmy is Cimmy. Hollis has yet to be broken in, but CoCo and Cimmy are barrel racing horses. BTW, CoCo is my step-sister Rainey's barrel horse. CoCo is interesting because he was a wild horse when he came to the family... he's part mustang and part quarterhorse (we think). No one was ever able to catch the little bugger, but he took a liking to Rainey for some reason and decided to hang around for good. He's getting up in age and she doesn't race him much anymore, but he's still a solid horse.
And this is a partial view of the ranch itself, facing from the.. uhhh... ummm... north. I think. I'm not really sure, I get turned around easily in the mountains. It's from the road, that's all I know. Anyway, you can see a few of the horses on the far side clowning around running back and forth. My step-sister Rainey used to practice her barrel racing here before she married and moved down to Tucson... and like any place else, you have to watch your step. Oops, too late.
Here is Hollis again, trying to stir up some trouble with my brother-in-law's horse, Leo. Leo is stuck in the nursery to the right with the two colts (Glory and Trouble) because Leo is basically a big wuss and gets picked on and kicked around by all the others. So he can pick on the ponies... for now. Until they get big enough to push him around, too. Leo is actually a retired race horse, but Hector uses him for team roping now... he's extremely fast.
This is the "nursery," as it's known by the family. Leo is a bit old to be in the nursery with Trouble (left) and Glory, but like I said, that's because he's a big baby. Glory got her name because she was born on Flag Day, June 14. Trouble got his name because of all the predicaments he's been into already. BTW, that is Cimmy peeking in from the big pen on the right, for some reason she actually liked me enough to follow me all over the place while I was shooting these pictures. I guess she likes to show off. She also has a bit of a jealous streak, she wouldn't let any of the other horses near me at all, and constantly demanded my attention. I think she must have been hungry at the time.
