wow, loved your 'cowboy type history'... just resaw all this, from a bump...
my twin buddies will enjoy it, :)
they like living the cowboy way, :)
they got a ranch, and do all their own work, raise appaloosas, and some cows... well, and
little furry critters on the side--meaning their dogs and cats, :))
i enjoy helping, when i can--but that was a long time, back,
:)
An old cowboy went to a bar and ordered a drink. As he sat sipping his whiskey, a young lady sat down next to him. She turned to the cowboy and asked, "Are you a real cowboy?"
He replied, "Well, I've spent my whole life on the ranch, herding horses, mending fences, and branding cattle, so I guess I am."
She said, "I'm a lesbian. I spend my whole day thinking about women. As soon as I get up in the morning, I think about women. When I shower, I think about women. As I watch TV, or even eat, I think about women. Everything seems to make me think about women."
The two sat sipping in silence. A short time later, a man sat down on the other side of the old cowboy and asked, "Are you a real cowboy?"
He replied, "I always thought I was, but I just found out that I'm a lesbian."
Those of us who actually live here and own places all joke: what's the commonality between cowboy hats and hemorrhoids? Answer; sooner or later, every a$$hole gets one...
Yup, I was a wrangler for 2 years on a ranch in Moose, WY. I was a climber too. Guess I didn't look much like a climber 'cuz no one threw any beer cans at me!!
Thanks Splitter!
I just now saw your comment about the horse.
Yes, she's a beauty and a real piece of work. She respects me, but not much else. A big curious dog, always trying to be in the middle of whatever is going on. Whenever I'm working in the pasture, on the pond, on digging/pounding/chopping, I can rest assured that soon there will be a large black nose looking over my shoulder.....
Reading some of the posts in this thread got me thinking of my father who was not a cowboy but rather a jockey. Born in 1907 in Kentucky he was apprenticed out at age 13 to the JKL Ross stables in Toronto. He had no interest in being a jockey but his family had too many mouths to feed and he was was 5 feet tall when fully grown. He cried all night on the train To Canada. He was a taciturn man when I came to know him and rarely spoke of himself so these matters were related to me by my mother. He rode on tracks all over North America and Canada. As a teenager I was disdainful of him for a variety of reasons not least simple youthful vanity and misplaced self-regard. I recall him performing some remarkable athletic feats that seemed to have no relation to his normal rather somnolent state. I remember him and my uncle, also a small man of about 5 feet and a bit, drinking beer and laughingly comparing their biceps which to my astonishment bulged like demented grapefruit with multiple deep indentations and dimples and snake-like veins. Wherefrom these arms came I had no idea and never saw their like until I met David George Cook who had similar biceps and a remarkable ability to destroy people in arm-wrestling while all the while looking amused and dismissive. Of course for my father it had to have been the iron discipline of racing horses and living a life of hard work and self-denial that most jockeys of that day and age had to endure that gave him the powerful arms and body. His was not the life of the cowboy though both occupations have the horse at the centre. A different ethos occupies the cowboy and the jockey though for a while in the thirties my father had a SAG card and was an extra in Hollywood films when lots of wild "redskins" were called for in cowboy films; then he put on a loin-cloth and red paint and rode over the sagebrush in emulation of the noble savage. It seems the work resulted in many serious injuries to horses and riders too. His relationship to horses was not something I was ever to know other than that he knew them well and had been taught that they must be treated with the greatest care and respect. I don't know for a fact that he never sat by a campfire with his horse hobbled nearby but some how it seems very unlikely. The horses he rode were incredibly valuable princelings who often lived better than most humans, and for him and the horses the vast skies of the plains were replaced by the thunder of the straining men and horses galloping flank to flank and the screaming crowds.
Let us know!