The 2015 Texas State Championships held in Lockhart started with beautiful sunshine and warmth. A little different to the days of rain they had the weekend before.

Agarita Ranch and the Plum Creek Cowboy Shooting Society have a beautiful range, great facades, 'working' buildings, and a saloon guest house with two rooms decked out in turn of the century furniture.

The Marshalls Office is unreal, the detail. You shoot out of part of it near the 4 bed bunk cell, in the front it's a stove, backgammon, a desk and other details.

The blacksmith with anvil on a stump out front, horse stalls inside and all.

Thursday we went for registration and side matches. There were Plainsmen and Wild Bunch matches and all the speed matches. Vendors are all set up and doing business already.

Texas Flower held a costume seminar in the afternoon and I did a brief presentation on my hats and different personas I take on for cowboy and wild bunch.

We caught up with some friends for barbecue that night at the Chisholm Trail BBQ joint across the road from the motel. Slick Dale Six-Guns (a new shooter and active serviceman) joined us with his Mum (Mom) and I guess we introduced him to some cowboy rot and Aussie nonsense! Lol!

Friday is first day of Main Match and we are on the late shift, it's rather warm and the early shift has filled the range with colour!

I went with Texas Flower to assess some of the shooting costumes and when it came time for the late shift safety briefing we were able to check out the rest of the shooters.

We have a mostly 'new' posse, we only knew Goatneck Clem and Capt Sam Evans. So our new friends were now Bronco Birnhaum, Chisos, Circuit Judge, Cowboy Small, English Bob, Farr Ranger, Jim No Horse, John Selman, Kettleman, Preacher Man Lee, Slick Dale Six-Guns and Wildcat Bob. Later, we had Colt Faro and Matt Black join us for the duration of the match.

The stages were well written, some with plenty of movement and reasonable sized targets. Good clean fun!

Saturday morning came and we headed out early for the morning shift. At the end of the day, I finished with a few misses and Jacaroo was clean!

Back out in the afternoon dressed up for a stroll down some old cowboy street, I was honoured to be part of the costume judging committee that Texas Flower had put together. Nellie Blue, Cowtown Scout (both very experienced costume judges) and myself would serve as the panel whilst Texas Flower organised, took photos and handed out numbers to the participants.

Costuming is a very important part of our sport and It was great to see a good turnout at the seminar and for the costume contest! I thoroughly enjoyed being a part of it, if nothing else, to learn more from my fellow judges.

When it all came out in the wash that night, Jackaroo finished 3rd in his category and 23rd overall. Congratulations to 1st Place winner 'I Reckon', 2nd Place, 'Aberdeen', 4th Place 'Blind Bob' and 5th Place 'Verdadero Dan'.

I placed 1st in my category with fellow Lady Wranglers 2nd Place, 'Luna Blue' and no relation to 3rd Place 'Nellie Blue'!

Sunday was a gorgeous day and some of us decided to give it one last crack at playing in the man on man shoot out. I had a couple of goes with my last being against Fantom, a blistering run that ended up so close due to a hang up with his shotgun and couldn't get the reload in properly. AND Jack didn't video it.

Jack made it through to the end but was beat by Fantom, you will have to go to Facebook for that video.

The team shoot was a hoot, Jackaroo's team taking out over Oklahoma Dee's team which I was a part of. Great fun! Another great match!

Kat xo

Sorry, couple weeks late due to long days in the sweat shop! Look out for Senior Games

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Sunday afternoon following Land Run, Rooster, Constable Nelson and I headed out to the Museum to peruse the many exhibits.

The End Of Trail statue is an awesome welcome as you enter the main foyer, even though we have been before, it still takes my breath away.

At opposite ends you have the marble 'Canyon Princess' to the right wing and 'Abraham Lincoln' seated in the left wing, round towards the banquet hall.

As we had been through Prosperity Junction the last time we chose to hit the major exhibit halls of art, firearms, Indian artefacts, silver screen performers, pioneers, Cowboys, civil war etc.

Prosperity Junction in case you haven't been is a life size old western town built within the walls of the museum. Each building decked out as it would have been in the 1800's.

Our first stop after viewing the black and white photography exhibit was the art hall and quite fitting to our shoot theme for Land Run, was 'Madonna's of the Prairie'.

There were some stunning examples of women in covered wagons, Native American women and children and others by various artists but my favourite would have to be Tom Lovell's 'Target Practice'. Depicting a proud man with his wife in prairie dress and bonnet holding a rifle.

I wanted to tell her to lean into it! Constable said she must have hit the target as the man is looking pleased!

The Tom Lovell and Charlie Russell exhibits were spectacular.

Then it was on through the Indian artefacts of beautiful headdress, fanciful bead worked or embroidered clothing, gauntlet gloves and other items. Could take photos now without flash. Found some gloves for a classic cowgirl ensemble! Think I might have to make my own though.

On to the Silver Screen Performers and I love this area. I know we've mostly seen it before whether it be here or other museums but it still interests me. Robert Redfords, Nudie Cohen blinged out purple suit is like the ultimate B-Western attire! Now who needs one of those? Maybe that's what Flat Top Okie needs for the next banquet.

As we moved through we saw the barbwire and brand room. Bronco and rodeo performers, civil war and vaquero's. Have found new designs to consider for Dutch Henry and Trail Rider's suits now.

From there we went outside and wandered through the gardens and couldn't help ourselves, we had to go through the Children's Cowboy Corral which was pretty cool actually. Back outside we attempted selfies and tried to avoid the attacking goose that we had seen chasing a child just minutes before.

If you ever come visit us or go to Land Run or the Southwest Regional be sure to allow an extra day to fully view this Museum. It is one of my all time favourites.

Cheers to culture!

Kat xo

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For me it started the weekend before on the 18th and 19th. Posse 13 did the Pre Shoot in order for us to marshal the range and take care of the rest of the 331 shooters that would attend Land Run through 23rd to 25th of April.

We had some rain on our first day and light drizzle on the second day, hoping that good weather would fair well for the rest of them come the main match weekend.

Wednesday we hit the range helping with final prep and preparing the last two bays for Wild Bunch and Warm Up matches. People were starting to roll in and vendors were getting set up.

Thursday was side match day, plenty of people about and could catch up with Cowboys and Cowgirls from afar.

I went all Oklahoman Thursday! My skirt and corselet have the Oklahoma flag symbol and side panels feature the state bird, Scissortailed Flycatcher with the original state flower of Mistletoe. My top has Indian Blanket wild flowers on it.

Thursday night we enjoyed dinner with Constable Nelson, Rooster Cockburn, Singin’ Sue, Shanley Shooter, Aspen Filly and Aspen Wrangler. Lots of laughter and good fun!

Then came Friday and first day of main match!

331 shooters milled in the street for opening speeches, pledge and ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’. After Tonic Kids rendition there’s an eruption of cheers from the crowd. The safety meeting gets underway and then all depart to the 12 posses to start some sensational shooting.

Here’s where Jack and I departed. He went and joined Posse 7 to shoot his match while I worked.

I had worn my 1890’s wheel woman costume! Had so much fun on the revamped ‘faux antique’ bicycle. Riding up and down the range all day syncing scores into the iPad and back to the office.

The jacket came off after a couple of hours, tweed can get a little warm!

These great pics are from Sports Photography and Design – Just L and Fly.

What a laugh! That’s what ya get for drinkin’ too much sody pop!

So weather was overcast but clear for Friday. Had a late brief storm that evening.

Saturday morning it was all sunshine and what a glorious day for finishing up the main match.

The below photo courtesy of Singin’ Sue.

The day finished well with many passing comments about a great match and thanks for all the work. Match Director, Missouri Mae, along with the Territorial Marshal’s put on a fantastic shoot once again.

It was time to see how everything ended up for all of us and we were off to the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum for the banquet and awards.

Love this Museum and it’s very fitting to have a bunch of Cowboys dressed up in their finest town clothes and ladies in Victorian gowns and saloon attire.

Missouri Mae and I, caught with drinks in hand. My beer bottle is behind my back hee hee hee. 🙂

Once the doors opened it was into taking names and numbers for those entering the costume contest. My three lovely judges would be Constable Nelson, Aspen Filly and Marley Belle, who carried out a difficult and superb job.

Best Dressed Man went to Sgt Stro Dog, Best Dressed Lady to Alice Grierson, Best Dressed Couple was Omaha John and Complicated Lady, Best Dressed Young Woman to Add E Starr, Cowgirl Shooter was Sly Puppy and Cowboy Shooter was Rowdy Buckshot. Congratulations to all 27 Best Dressed competitors though.

Raffles were done, with 20 guns given away this year and some other wonderful prizes.

Forty shooters received clean match awards including my friend and new fellow Lady Wrangler competitor, Belle Vaquera.

Jack after having a not so good match finished 4th in Senior category and 57th overall. He says he can’t shoot without me anymore.

Congratulations to Shootin’ Newton 6th, Redleg Reilly 5th, Snake Oil George 3rd, Aberdeen 2nd and 1st Place winner for 2015, Naildriver.

Kat finished well, winning Speed Rifle, 1st in Traditional Wild Bunch and for main match 1st in Lady Wrangler category. 2nd lady and placing 23rd overall.

Congratulations to 2nd place Cheek A Bow Wow, 3rd Beans Haney and Belle Vaquera 4th.

Our very good friends and guests from Australia also placed in their categories, with Constable Nelson taking 2nd Place in 49ers and 5th overall! Rooster Cockburn 4th in Elder Statesman and 53rd overall.

This years overall winners were none other than my good friend, Match Director and fellow Territorial Marshal, Missouri Mae for the Ladies and Arkansas friend CS Brady took top honours for the Men’s.

Congratulations Missouri Mae and CS Brady!

Another awesome match.

Cheers

Kat xo

http://cowboy.okcgunclub.org/index.html

http://nationalcowboymuseum.org

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Hosted by the Texican Rangers, Comancheria Days is in its 20th year! Held each year at Stieler Ranch, in the Texas hill country of Fredericksburg.

This year April 9-12 they held their shoot and named it “Shots From The Past”. Each stage was adapted from shoots in years past. Very cleverly done.

Match Director, Shooting Iron Miller with her Assistant Match Director, Culebra Blaze (along with the other Texican Rangers) put on an awesome match. The hospitality and extra entertainment were excellent.

Wild Bunch and side matches were great on the Thursday.

Friday saw us with a rain delay but the show got underway an hour later and it pretty well held out for all to shoot.

Saturday had an early morning storm and just fog. It got done without a hitch.

On Friday the afternoon 'sideshow' was Pistol Packin' Paula. A little gun twirling, whip cracking, bundle of energy. She put on a great show! We were also entertained by Cowboy Poet, Walt Perryman and side match awards handed out.

With Fajitas from the chuck wagon and some sunshine, this made for an enjoyable Friday evening.

Saturday afternoon show was Kevin Fitzpatrick, Trick Roper, also entertaining with his trusty steed.

Saturday evening it was down to brass tacks, a great roast dinner, costume and final category awards.

Helped Squawty Bawdy and Shotglass with the stretch raffle!

Jackaroo finished 1st in Senior category and an excellent placing of 4th out of 200 odd shooters.

I finished 1st Lady Overall and Lady Wrangler, placing 12th. Picked up the Soiled Dove contest and a few side matches as well.

The overall winners Kathouse Kelli and Copperhead James were presented with the trophies by none other than Tex and Cat Ballou.

Sunday morning we headed out to the range to have a go at the man on man, all plate rack challenge with reloads on pistol if you missed and rifle if you missed. I ended up against Jack and ahead by 1 on rifle until one didn't go off. He finished off going against Skyhawk but Skyhawk got him!

A great match, a great range and wonderful people.

Kat xo

P.S. Stieler Ranch and Becky Patterson (descendent of Stieler) deserve a mention and huge thank you for hosting all the Cowboys and Cowgirls for the past 20years.

“Stieler Ranch was established in the late 1800's by Adolph Stieler on one of the highest hills in Kerr County. Goats were the primary livestock ranches by the German settlers and with over 60,000 goats grazing on several ranches, Adolph Stieler was proclaimed “King of the Goats” in 1945 by Life magazine.

Though Adolf Stieler is gone, his descendants still live on the ranch and cattle and Cowboys have replaced the goats.” Excerpt from the shoot book.

http://texicanrangers.org/comancheria-days/

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Now there could be 101 good uses for Double Chocolate Vodka so far I'm up to 2!!

1. Pour carefully one shot of Double Chocolate Vodka from pre-chilled bottle. Directly consume, either by sippin' or throwin' it back! This is the preferred method. Repeat if necessary.

2. Pour one shot of Double Chocolate Vodka and with rag and a bit of elbow grease remove masking tape residue from rubber grips on bike handles.

Whaaaatt?! I hear you ask?

Story goes a little something like this.

Dare to be different she says. Why yes I think I will. Make a bicycle costume and procure bike. Done. (Think we covered this in the past.)

Give Jack a project to strip bike down, clean up – although he made me pick off the stickers 'cause he just wanted to paint over them! Paint her up in black and give chrome a new lease of life. Chrome in a can (aka silver paint).

Then new tubes and she's ready to roll. I left the front guard off because they only had one on the rear in 1890's and so became my faux antique bicycle for the liberated wheel woman of the day.

HOWEVER, and this is where we get back to the vodka bit, the tape he had used for masking off the rubber grips on the handlebars are now left with a considerable amount of sticky residue.

So research on the internet tells me rubbing alcohol or vodka for removal without ruining the rubber.

Easy!

It's a little early in the day to be doing a, one shot for me, one for the bike, scenario – I resisted well! And so I set out to try this theory and folks I can tell you now it works!

They are all cleaned up good now ready for my grand debut on Friday at Land Run, watch out for the crazy woman in tweed.

Though my handlebar grips may not look like chocolate, THAT'S how you get the “Best Smellin' Handlebars In The West“!

Cheers! (It's noon, so final clean up might require a shot for me)

Kat xo

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An early morning with a beautiful sunrise against the Oklahoma City skyline.

Pink and orange hues dancing across the windows of multi story buildings as we travel down the interstate.

Picture turned out blurry. 😦 It looked so good!

A 9 hour drive, we are heading down to Fredericksburg, Texas. The next few days will be spent at Comancheria Days.

It's a little grey coming into Texas but don't be fooled it's 80F/27C and muggy as hell.

I finished all car projects, did computer work and cleaned out 10,000 odd photos and videos – about a year and a halfs worth. I'd already deleted the previous 2 years after transferring them to the external hard drive!!

Searching for something to do……nup, got nothin'. Take up singing, eating grapes and maybe it's time for a nap? Or not! In amongst the Country music, we get Meghan Trainor, Kaitlin's old Nightwish and Him songs, mixed in with Saddle Tramps, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis and the odd 150bpm workout remix! A very eclectic mix indeed.

We passed through Fort Worth, Waco (quick stop at Cabelas), Austin and down the 290 thru Johnson City – blue bonnets, indian blanket ( and another little orange flower can't remember the name of) are flowering in abundance!

Lady Bird Johnsons's favourite thing to do was wander through all the native flowers on their property here. We visited the 'Texas White House', LBJ's ranch now a State Park and museum. When we visited in 2012 they had redone the kitchen back to 60's decor if I'm correct and were planning other restoration works.

See you in Fredericksburg hill country, home of German heritage, winery's, pecans and peach orchards.

Kat xo

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In amongst the painting of props and revamping the Mercantile, a request and discussion ensued about the 4' x 4' Land Run sign needing to be replaced.

Now it was a great creation by Bluegrass Girl but the years had not been kind to it. Having lost its shine and paint peeling, it really was time to come up with something new.

So what does ones mind think of for Land Run but of course, Land Run! And of course I do like challenging myself.

Last April we visited the Land Run Monument here in Oklahoma City. Beautifully detailed bronze statues that are larger than life.

Here's Jackaroo, Rooster and Constable Nelson. Puts it into perspective, you can see just how big the statues are!

Wanting to depict the settlers arriving, I decided on using this picture of the horses and wagon.

Now the next thing was, how the heck do I paint horses from a pic of bronze statues??! I haven't painted horses before and so began the challenge. My creative little brain kicked into overdrive, switched up the colour photo for a dual tone so I could see the shadowing etc and just went with it.

Once I drew it all out it, it was time for painting. The results were pleasing and feel pretty good that I actually got them looking like horses! Bonus!

After throwing down layers and layers of paint, this is the final product!

Looking forward to having it fixed to the stand and seeing it at the front gate in a few weeks when The Territorial Marshal's host the 22nd Annual Land Run match.

Hope to see some of you there!

Cheers

Kat xo

http://cowboy.okcgunclub.org/index.html

http://www.visitokc.com/listings/Oklahoma-Land-Run-Monument/467/32/

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Well some days it is feeling more like Summer already! Yee haa, bring it on! I can even hear the hum of the neighbours air con.

So, the trees have been in bud for sometime. The ones at the gate entrance have had there white blossoms and since the last storm 2 nights ago the flowers are gone and the leaves are bright green!

The tree on the Fort stage at the range is in full beautiful pink bloom!

The trees behind us are losing the little crackly covers to show new unfolding leaves!

The Rose bush that I gave ‘the Heather’ (term used to describe Mum’s hacking back of Rose bushes for great successful growth. True story!) cut in Winter has exploded into new leaves and buds are on their way!

And then there’s this…….remember last August I planted so called plants that were to be deer proof, frost proof et etc – sounded pretty damn good at the time (Can’t find related blog, maybe was only FB that I posted, anywho).

…..well they now look like this.

A bunch of no good weeds and dead sticks. Looks like the green thumb didn’t make it to these delinquent specimens.

However, still looking for colour and low maintenance, I have come up with the most dodgiest thing I’ve probably done in my creative life. Yes people, I have turned to fake plants (it’s okay I haven’t advanced to plastic fruit like Ma yet, so I’m still okay…..I think)

At least I steered Jackaroo from some of the more dodgier looking plants and still stayed cheap. So have gone with one of Grandma’s favourites, blue hydrangeas. The pink was too tacky. FYI, did you know the difference between the two colours depends the acidity and alkalinity of the soil. Now THAT I did learn from Grams.

So here is the terrifying but eye pleasing result.

If nothing else, I’ve given you all a good laugh. Til next time!

Keep smilin’! 🙂

Kat xo

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It’s a 5th Sunday which gave us another shoot at OKC, Territorial Marshal’s club today.

We had two posses, 38 shooters, glorious weather and great stages.

When all was said and done, we had a couple of new shooters, plenty of laughs and some good finishes for some.

Short and sweet for today but must include this – photo bomb by our friend Tonic Kid!! Lol! Could hear him ‘sneaking up’ with his spurs on!

Cheers

Kat xo

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