Country Lifestyles
Cowboy Culture – Spring Branding
By Clay Reid
Well, it’s that time of year in the old cowboy world, that time which most cowpunchers look forward to each year, the time when everybody comes together to get all them little fur bearing meat wagons branded, ear notched and vaccinated as well as taking care of their mamas, too.
This is a time where you look forward to seeing some fellars you might not see but a few times a year as well as show off your cowboy skills in the dragging pen or cut gate.
Even though it’s a work house filled with early morning long trots and lots of sore muscles from flanking and roping, it’s a time we look forward to.
This year at my place it didn’t start out too well for this old fat boy. We were gathering an old brushy pasture over near Holliday, Texas, and I was riding one of the gentlest horses I got in my remuda.
This horse is so gentle that when I went to buy him up in Frederick, Okla., a little fat boy in flip flops who looked to be about maybe 13 years old, and to tell you the truth he looked as if he didn’t know one end from the other about a horse, met me out front upon arrival.
Then when we walked around back, he hollars for old Thunderbolt and pretty quick he comes a running up to meet us.
To read more pick up a copy of the May 2017 NTFR issue. To subscribe call 940-872-5922.
Spring branding. (Photos by Clay Reid)
By Martha Crump
That old adage, “What you don’t know won’t hurt you.,” may have some basis in truth when applied to minor situations. However, when what you don’t know is presented in the form of a “Trojan Horse” and is what amounts to an incredible attempt to fleece American property rights, it becomes a different story altogether.
To put this unbelievable tale together, we need to step back to Joe Biden’s 2021 Executive Order which pledged commitment to help restore balance on public lands and waters, to create jobs, and to provide a path to align the management of America’s public lands and waters with our nation’s climate, conservation, and clean energy goals.
To read more, pick up a copy of the April issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.
By Lacey Vilhauer
Ingredients:
1 whole lemon, seeded and roughly chopped
2 cups sugar
2 pounds strawberries, hulled
Juice of 1 to 2 lemons
¼ cup water
Directions:
Place the chopped lemon and sugar in a food processor and pulse until combined. Transfer to a large bowl. Puree the strawberries in a food processor and add to the lemon mixture along with juice of one lemon and water. Taste and add more juice as desired.
To read more, pick up a copy of the April issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.
By Nicholas Waters
As winter plods along – come Spring and gopher mounds – homeowners and farmers find themselves playing a familiar song – fiddling while Rome is burning.
Let’s make a mountain out of a molehill. Those mounds on your lawn and pasture could be moles, but they’re more than likely gophers; Plains Pocket Gophers to be pragmatic – Geomys bursarius to be scientific.
These rodents dig and chew, and the damage they can do goes beyond the mounds we mow over. Iowa State University cited a study in Nebraska showing a 35 percent loss in irrigated alfalfa fields due to the presence of pocket gophers; the number jumped to 46 percent in decreased production of non-irrigated alfalfa fields.
The internet is replete with academic research from coast-to-coast on how to curtail gopher populations, or at least control them. Kansas State University – then called Kansas State Agricultural College – also published a book [Bulletin 152] in February 1908 focused exclusively on the pocket gopher.
To read more, pick up a copy of the April issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.
-
Country Lifestyles1 year agoScott & Stacey Schumacher: A Growth Mindset
-
Equine7 months agoThe Will to Win
-
Country Lifestyles7 years agoStyle Your Profile – What your style cowboy hat says about you and new trends in 2017
-
Country Lifestyles4 years agoAmber Crawford, Breakaway Roper
-
HOME7 years agoGrazing North Texas – Wilman Lovegrass
-
Country Lifestyles7 years agoDecember 2016 Profile, Rusty Riddle – The Riddle Way
-
Country Lifestyles8 years agoJune 2016 Profile – The man behind the mic: Bob Tallman
-
Outdoor9 years agoButtercup or Primrose?