On the Range

On The Range You are an old cowboy now. Your bronco riding and rodeo days are over. You now mostly drive a pick up truck or ATV instead of a riding a horse. You drink you whiskey straight, and your cowboy style coffee black. You don't smoke any more, but when you did you rolled your own cigarettes and lit them with wooden matches. You got your tobacco from a white pouch with a yellow pull string that you kept in your shirt pocket. You wear blue Levi's and a leather belt with a silver buckle, and white straw Stetson hat with a woven white, black and turquoise hat band. You wear cowboy boots with riding heels and a shirt with pearl snap buttons. You keep a blue bandana in your rear pocket to wipe off sweat and act as a face mask in dust storms. You have worn chaps, fixed a barbed wire fence, and know about droughts. blizzards and prairie fires. You still ride a horse, can cut a calf out of a herd, and like your father before you own a Colt six shoot revolver and a 30-30 Winchester lever action rifle. You have heard stories of massive Texas Longhorn cattle drives up the Texas-Montana trail in the 1800 hundreds, and when you do, you wish you were born a hundred and fifty years earlier. Like you ancestors before you, you make your living raising cattle and enjoy watching the sun come up. Long ago you learned to appreciate the blue sky and openness of the high plains with its yellow prairie flowers, purple sage brush and tumble weeds. You have heard the howl of a prowling coyote, and the harsh caw of a magpie. You have seen wild prong horned antelope, prairie dogs, cotton wood trees and, beautiful night skies filled with a million stars.