Yesterday, Sunday 22nd of September I was blessed to be able to haul my beautiful golden Palomino horse into the beginning of the Canadian Rockies. It was a trail ride for charity. To raise money for 3 therapeutic riding stables.
We had a super brunch...help your self, eat all you can type. Great meat, gravy, and vegetables.
It was a sunny day, a little warmer that is usually for late September, so we were all in good spirits.
There was about 60 of us riders, mostly Western but some English. We set off on our 3 hour ride; not far along one man turned his horse around and took of photo of me and Goldie, afterwards saying, "It's not often I get to ride with Roy Rogers and Trigger."
I had Goldie all dressed up with silver saddle and bridal, looking her wonderful self, and I was in some pretty fancy Roy Rogers' clothes.
We wound up to the top of some hills and had a magnificent view of the valley and mountains before us. Then on to a lovely lake, with its green-blue color; this was our half way stopping point. Then it was back to the ranch via another trail. There for us was nice snacks and drinks.
All in all a wonderful day out in God's great creation. So here's some cowboy stuff.
Little Things
I've laid for hours upon my back
Just looking at the sky,
At clouds, or if the sky was clear,
The motes within my eye.
D'ja ever spen an hour or more
Just staring at the crick?
Or a scarab roll a ball of dung?
Or ants raslin with a stick?
Or, on a cloudy, windy day,
See a windmill seem to fall?
Or stop stock still with neck hairs raised
By a plaintive coyote call?
Swallows slice their swaths across
The sky like scimitars.
I'm humbled by the intricate
Snowflakes' prismic stars
I've laughed as stove-top killdeer!
Go a-scrabblin cross a draw.
I've seen cedar trees explode in flames
As I'm consumed with awe.
Arms crossed and leaning forward,
Weight on the saddle horn,
I'm a fascinated crowd of one;
A calf is being born.
The measure of your intellect
The learn-ed people.say,
Are the things that fascinate us
They're a mental expose
You got to. be-dang careful
If you want to be thought smart,
And keep sorta confidential
Little things that's in your heart.
—WALLACE MCRAE. COWBOY POET, RANCHER, FORSYTH, MONTANA
70 years and an Old Pickup
A guest at a fancy Colorado dude ranch was trying to make conversation with Jack, a grizzled cowhand smoking his pipe on the porch. After a while, the guest asked, "Jack, do you ever feel like you've kind of wasted your life?" Jack didn't say anything, and the guest kept talking. "All you've got to show for 70 years is that old pickup."
Jack just sat there, puffing on his pipe. Finally, he said, "Mister, all my life I've done for a living what you save up all year to do for two weeks."
The Plainsman's Eye
"To leave behind all noise and mechanisms, and set out at ease, slowly, with one packhoijse, into the wilderness, made me feel that I had found the ancient earth I—again after-being lost among houses, customs, and restraints.
"I should arrive three days early at the forks-—-three days of margin seeming to me a wise precaution against delays unforeseen. If the Virginian were not there, good; I could fish and be happy. If he were there but not ready to start, good; I could still fish and be happy.
"And remembering my Eastern helplessness in the year when we had met first, I enjoyed thinking how I had come to be trusted. In those days I had not been allowed to go from the ranch for so much as an afternoon's ride unless tied to him by a string, so to speak; now I was crossing unmapped spaces with no guidance. The man who could do this was scarce any longer a 'tenderfoot.'
"My vision, as I rode, took in serenely the dim foothills—tomorrows goal—and nearer in the vast wet plain the clump of cottonwoods, and still nearer my lodging for tonight with the dotted cattle round it.
"And now my horse neighed. I felt his gait freshen for the journeys end, and leaning to pat his neck I noticed his ears no longer slack and inattentive, but pointing forward to where food and rest awaited both of us. Twice he neighed, impatiendy and long; and as he quickened his gait still more, the pack-horse did the same, and I realized that there was about me still a spice of the tenderfoot: those dots were not cattle; they were horses.
"My horse had me in the wrong. He had known his kind from afar, and was hastening to them. When was I going to know, as by instinct, the different look of horses and cattle across some two or three miles of plain? The plainsman's eye was not yet mine, and I smiled as I rode."
--From the classic Western novel: THE VIRGINIAN, by Owen Wister
Psalm under night Skies
O Lord, my Lord, your name is Awesome!
In created things I see your touch.
I hear your praise on the wind in the sage,
From bawlin calves, and babies and such.
From bawlin calves, and babies and such.
When I consider your night skies, God,
The moon and stars, all works of your fingers,
I wonder, what's a cowboy to you, Lord?
But you care 'bout me—and this thought lingers.
Somehow a broken down, busted cowpoke
Rates up with angels in your heavenly host.
You bless my days in the saddle, and make me
boss of your spread, from mountain to coast.
All catde grazing the canyons are yours;
Every prairie hawk, rattier, or bobcat I see;
Every cuthroat leapin the stream is yours, too-—
Like me, alive by your blessing, wild 'n free.
O Lord, my Lord, your name is Awesome!
And it's comfortin' to know.. .you think about me!
— BASED ON PSALM 8, BY DAVID KOPP
That's Why I'll Never Want to Be Anything But A Cowboy
In a myriad stars' light,
I ponder the night
And gaze on its splendorous treasure—
A beauty so rare,
just-a-hangin' up there.
The Lord did it all for my pleasure.
I awake with the dawn,
the thrill lingers on.
I bow, I worship with wonder....
That's why I'll never want to be anything but a cowboy.
— FROM "THAT'S WHY I'LL NEVER WANT TO BE ANYTHING BUT A COWBOY," SONG LYRIC BY JACK HANNAH, OF THE SONS OF THE SAN JOAQUIN
DRIFTIN' ON
I had money in my pocket, my clothes were new
I could do whatever I wanted to; I was free as the wind that strummed the night stars
Like the strings of a cowboy's old guitar. Waitin' to meet each new dawn,
Just a cowboy driftin' on.
— FROM "DRIFTIN' ON," BY EVERETT G. JONES, COWBOY, ELLENSBURG, WASHINGTON
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