Country Lifestyles
Cowboy Culture
By Clay Reid
Well, I just got back from the UIL state tournament of softball this weekend in Austin, Texas. I was there watching my little country girl Lindy, who is just a freshman at Archer City High School. She was there trying to bring back a gold medal. Even though they came up a little short to the eventual state champions, we sure are proud of her.
The neat thing about Lindy was she had a choice going into high school to either play softball or baseball. You see, she had been playing baseball since she was in the third grade with a really good group of boys from Archer City, a group that had won several league championships as well as tournament championships. Lindy played catcher and various infield positions and was the number two hitter on this team when she finished her eighth grade season. She said she liked playing with boys because there wasn’t as much drama with them, which I found hard to believe, but if she wanted to play baseball that was just fine with me.
Her greatest moment in baseball though, has to be the night she was playing in a championship game in Wichita Falls. The team we were playing had beaten us out the year before and were our nemesis. They had a good coach who had always been really nice.
You see, with the other team leading 7-5, the Outlaws (her team name) had runners on second base and third base with two outs at their last at bat. And the mighty Lindy Loo was up to bat.
That’s when the other coach called time and slowly walked out to the pitcher’s mound to give his pitcher some words of encouragement, I suppose. When he was done, he walked back to his dugout, but halfway there he stopped and turned back toward his pitcher and spoke these words as he pointed to Lindy at the plate, “Put this ponytail on the bench where she belongs. She ain’t got no business out here with these boys anyway.”
To read more pick up a copy of the July 2017 NTFR issue. To subscribe 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.
By Annette Bridges
Everyone needs a room with a view that makes their heart happy. My honest favorite panorama would be either the mountains or the ocean. I have yet to convince my hubby to make permanent moves to either, although he does enjoy the visits as much as I do.
The location of our house on our ranch does not provide the expansive field of vision of our land that I would enjoy. So, I have created a room decorated and furnished in a way that gives me smiles, giggles, and a wonderful peace-filled feeling when I am hanging out in it. I am in that place right now writing this column. I am in a lounging position with my computer in my lap on the chaise that was once my sweet mama’s. I had it reupholstered this year to give it a fresh look.
To read more, pick up a copy of the April issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.
Local celebrity dancers of the greater Gainesville area brought the house down recently at the second annual “Dancing With Our Stars” contest in Lindsay. The event raised more than $200,000 as the sponsored dance teams did their best to take home the grand prize.
The money raised will go to the “Heart of NTMC” Campaign for the purchase of a cardiac capable CT machine for the Gainesville hospital. Rodolfo “Rudy” Martinez and Sherry Sherriden took home the Mirror Ball Trophy.
To read more, pick up a copy of the April issue of NTFR magazine. To subscribe by mail, call 940-872-5922.
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