♪ I Love A Parade ♩ ♫ ♥ ♥

This year three little hummingbirds found my feeders.   The largest is a shimmery green.  There is also a smaller less colorful bird as well as a really tiny one.  If I’m outside when one of them zooms toward the feeder I can hear the humming vibration of its wings beating furiously as it pokes it pointy beak into the feeder attached to my front window.  Now and then I see it perch on the edge of the feeder or on the tomato cage nearby but only for a few seconds before it zooms back to the feeder to drink the clear sweet nectar it needs to supply the energy to keep those wings beating.

Sorry that's the best picture I could get.  Most of the time all I got was a blur of wings.

I’ve been feeling a little hummingbird-like recently.   As it’s gotten hotter outside my body’s been vibrating with energy as I water half an acre of grass, five flower and one vegetable garden, one hanging flower pot, six barrels of flowers, eight flower pots of peppers and tomatoes as well as four fruit trees, a raspberry plant and a grape vine.  On top of that I've been lovingly and faithfully watering eight seven five three two one itty bitty blue spruce start I got as part of my Arbor Day Foundation membership (which I accidentally joined thinking I was joining the Audubon Society).  I can't figure out what's been happening to them though.  They were doing great for weeks, growing and getting new little bright green buds and then, one at a time, one day they would be green and healthy looking and the next they would be crispy and brown. 

I'm sorry little spruce.  I did my best for you.

All my hopes are pinned on you my little spruceling.

All that watering, death, and lawn care takes it out of me so, like my little hummingbirds, I also need to drink sweet nectar so I'll have the energy to keep going.   Mine just happens to be red and comes from a box. 

I miss that automatic sprinkler system we had in Casper but we are on an irrigation ditch system here.  The up side is the water costs next to nothing.  The down side is we use a pump which we have to turn on and off manually.   Even though Dean was in charge of watering the lawn and gardens in Casper, somehow I have become the watering specialist here in Sheridan.  Dean used to just turn a dial and leave.  I drag out the hoses, set up the sprinklers, turn on the pump and start watering ... move the sprinklers ... water ... move the sprinklers ... water … until it’s time to turn off the pump, roll up the hoses and put away the sprinklers.  It takes me about a day and a half to water everything and that takes a lot of energy.  But I look at this duty as my own personal challenge because no matter how hard I try, at some point while I am moving or adjusting a sprinkler, I end up with the business end of the sprinkler pointing straight at me.  Just once I would like to water everything and stay completely dry, although onsidering the number of times that creek water has hit me square in the face, I suppose I should just be happy I haven’t come down with Giardia … yet.

The whole town of Sheridan was vibrating with energy last week because it was WYO Rodeo week.  There were activities every day of the week, not the least of which was the rodeo, but Friday (according to the five people I overheard) was a national holiday.  Because Friday – Friday was parade day.  The WYO Rodeo Parade is no ordinary parade.  Okay.  It is.  But the night before the parade is definitely not ordinary.

Yep.  The evening before the parade people bring out their chairs, set them up, rope them together, leave them, and show up the next day with their “perfect” spot for parade viewing reserved. 

Parade Day begins with a pancake feed downtown where for a mere $5.00 all are welcome to stand in a half block line, get a plate of pancakes, slather on syrup and sit elbow to elbow outside with a few hundred of their closest friends. 

Dean and I skipped the pancakes and sat in a local bakery where we indulged in a cup of smooth, mellow coffee and a mouth-watering, artery-clogging pastry while we watched as preparations for the second event of this big day were completed – the Sneakers and Spurs Rodeo Run/Walk.  We didn’t see anybody running in spurs but one little girl put on her best tutu for the event. 

By the time the last person staggered across the finish line most of those reserved chairs were filled with people because now it was time for the Bed Race where groups of people decorate a bed and push it down the street just so they can have the honor of saying they decorated a bed and pushed it down the street faster than anybody else. 

Dean and I did not have a reserved chair to sit in for the race but we did manage to find a section of curb where somebody had chalked “reserved for no chairs” so we settled in and had a perfect view of the bed race. 

Before the parade began I noticed a guy in the building across the street hard at work mudding a wall.

“Poor guy has to work on this national holiday,” I told Dean.  It turned out that when the parade began, that guy and his fellow worker had the best seats in the house. 

And then it was parade time! 

As in all parades there were cowgirls and cowboys.

There was the color guard.

There were bands.   

There were floats.

And of course there was what no parade can be without – dancing fruit.

Because this parade was in Sheridan Wyoming, home of the oldest polo field in the United States on which polo has been played continuously and because native American dancers and drum teams had come for the Indian Relay Races and the First People’s Pow Wow  … there was a lot of finery and a lot of horses.  Lots and lots of horses. 

Of course, being the political year it is, there were also a few political statements. 

(It's hard to see but the left fake dead person says BLM and the right says EPA. 
The above two photos in no way represent the views of the blogger. 
As in SERIOUSLY guy running for Congress?!
Could your "float" BE any more tasteless and offensive?)

An hour and a half later the march of the street sweepers signaled the end of the parade.  If Dean and I were younger, the next night we might have gone to the culmination of all the week’s activities  – the street dance.  But it didn’t begin until after the rodeo ended (which was about an hour past my bedtime) and was scheduled to go until 2 in the morning.  I have a feeling a lot of golden nectar was consumed that night because with all that dancing I bet those people expended as much or more energy as my little hummingbirds.  
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♪ I Love A Parade ♩ ♫ ♥ ♥