Country Lifestyles
Style Your Profile – What your style cowboy hat says about you and new trends in 2017
By Jessica Crabtree
Almost immediately after seeing a hat, Jeff Biggars of Biggar Hat Store in Decatur, can tell you a lot about a person. You see, Biggars claims “that is the biggest change in the style of cowboy hats today: style and color are an extension of the individual’s personality.” He has been in the cowboy hat industry for 20 years, and has seen many styles come and go, while also researching the history of the hat.
The cowboy hat is an iconic symbol, beacon to onlookers of one’s existence, a piece that over centuries has evolved with fashion for function. The beaver hat can be traced as far back as the 1550s. The hat most cowboys wore in the 1800s looks much different than the hats worn today. It had a smaller brim and little shape. Over time, the cowboy hat literally began to take shape.
“Hats like the top hat in the 19th century were made for style and status, but weren’t very functional because they would get knocked off by branches and the smaller brims provided little protection from the sun and rain,” Biggars explained. Smaller crown hats like the bowler were the next transition towards the cowboy hat, because they were more functional while horseback. In the late 1800s brims got bigger and shapes in the crown were established to give cowboys a “handle” for their hat. Shapes on the brim started because of the way cowboys took their hats off repeatedly.
To read more pick up a copy of the February 2017 NTFR issue. To subscribe call 940-872-5922.
Vintage shape crown called “Flat Hornet.” (Photos by Jessica Crabtree)
Arrow crown in pecan.
West Texas puncher.
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.
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