Country Lifestyles
Cowboy Culture – Writing is Tough
By Clay Reid
Well, as you see by my headline, it’s another hard day for Clay as a writer. Writing is tough, and it’s even tougher when you’re stupid. No, John Wayne did not say that; big Daddy Reid did.
You can believe it, too. Being old doesn’t help either. If anybody has ever read any of my musings (I think that’s a word anyway), then you know that almost every deadline, I push to the very limit. Not out of meanness or spite—it’s just out of pure forgetfulness and stupidity (I know that’s a word).
Most every written article by me is done at 4 a.m., in my underwear, at my computer, after I had been awoken in the middle of my sleep by the article God is screaming at me, “Get up dummy, it’s your deadline day.”
I must drive poor Mrs. Crabtree crazy. She will even send me texts reminding me a few days before to try and help her “Ten-second Tommy” out. Sometimes it works, but most times, it’s something only the article Gods can do.
Well this month’s article was no different, well sort of anyways. You see I woke up, and of course it’s in the same manner and all, but just like always I was able to hurry through some scribblings and scratched together an article, barely making it safe at home plate.
The only thing is that nowadays the play can go under review. Well, that’s just what happened. My call at the plate was reversed. Now I know you’re sitting there with a puzzled look on your face wondering how I can mix in a baseball metaphor with an article screw-up.
Well, let me tell you how. After writing my article, I was soon headed out west as I prepare to defend my title as the New Mexico State Champion Coyote Caller. I had a smile on my face with the satisfaction of knowing that I had completed one more Flintstone-style writing and was in the clear for another month. That’s when Mrs. Crabtree pulled the rug out from under me just as I pulled into the middle of nowhere in New Mexico.
TEXT: Clay did you get my email? You wrote that article in February.” Are you kidding me? I sat down and wrote pretty much the same dang article I wrote in February about my horse “LE and Stupid.” I could not believe that I scrambled out of bed almost killing the wife, rushed into my office, painfully chicken-pecked on the computer for an hour and half, for absolutely nothing.
To read more pick up a copy of the December 2018 NTFR issue. To subscribe 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.
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.
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