Across the Ozarks
Can you believe just how much the way we raise cattle, farm and life has changed in the last century?
All We Need’s More Rain
Agood friend of mine, John Duncklee, is an award winning western writer who was educated in geography, and taught English in colleges in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. John ranched in the dry 50s in Arizona, and bought and sold feeder cattle on the Mexican border. A navy veteran from World War II, he’s grown cotton, made range studies in the San Francisco mountains north of Flagstaff and built furniture from desert wood. He owned and ran many race horses on the Tucson track, and worked mules in his pre-college years in Wyoming.
Life Is Simple
My wife and I were watching the local news one evening recently when one of those odd “human interest” stories grabbed our attention. A recent immigrant to our country was trying to raise money in order to pay a “dowry” to the father of the woman he was wishing to marry, back in his home country. The “dowry” was what caught our attention, because the groom had to come up with 110 cows in order to receive permission from the father to wed the young lady. My wife and I were appalled, but for very different reasons.
Across the Ozarks
I made a mistake in my last column. I mentioned a train wreck in Bois D’Arc, Mo., I thought I’d seen in an old picture. Turns out, back in the old days they sold postcards with pictures of train wrecks on them, and Ryan’s great-grandparents had picked those postcards up somewhere along their travels in life. Sorry for the mistake, and the confusion. Clearly I should be more careful when digging through old pictures. But I will remind you, that oh-so-short bull I saw in the photos and mentioned last time? He was real. Can you believe just how much the way we raise cattle, farm, live has changed in the last Century?
Headin’ for the Last Roundup
Here's an old story of a boy I once knew and identified with. I bet some of you will feel the same about this boy and his adventure.
Life Is Simple
My wife and I were watching the local news one evening recently when one of those odd “human interest” stories grabbed our attention. A recent immigrant to our country was trying to raise money in order to pay a “dowry” to the father of the woman he was wishing to marry, back in his home country. The “dowry” was what caught our attention, because the groom had to come up with 110 cows in order to receive permission from the father to wed the young lady. My wife and I were appalled, but for very different reasons.
Across the Ozarks
A few weeks ago Ryan was cleaning out the attic in his 100-plus year old house, and found boxes of very old family photos, including a few livestock photos (one of a very muscled, short bull), pictures of a train wreck decades upon decades old, class photos from his great-great grandparents’ school days and more. My, how times have changed. We just have to look to nations like Haiti to see how our advancements have helped us live better, healthier and happier, even in our own times of peril.
All We Need’s More Rain
Everyone makes jokes about rural fire departments, like the one about how 'the old boys go by and polish the red truck every Saturday night, and polish off a few six packs, too.' Or, 'they’ve never lost a concrete foundation yet...' But when it comes down to push and shove over fires, I hope you have as good a rural fire department as I do.
Life Is Simple
It has been a daily adventure getting around the farm over the past month, considering we went almost 30 days with the temperature rarely getting above the freezing mark and nightly lows in the single digits or lower. Then, throw in about a foot of snow during that same period of time, along with a howling north wind and a little freezing rain for good measure, and the old farm truck seemed to be permanently locked in four-wheel drive. I thought I surely had slipped and slid as much as in the past five winters combined, and things couldn’t get much worse… and then came “the January thaw.”
