By T. L. Bush

As the fire of my youth yields

To the wisdom of my years

My eyes dim but my vision clears

Oh, but to have had this clearness in my younger times.

The world spins in reverse

Wisdom and age should start a life

This would make our youth much better

Fixing those that we know will break

Weakness in age does not strengthen wisdom

The young man does not look at my trail as he travels

He will not see where I stepped

He needs only his courage to get him through.

His pride tells him I have failed

Now it is his turn to make things right

Pride tells him his manhood will do it

He is blinded by the smoke of his burning desires.

The man that is consumed of his self

Desires others to see him in a great light

Not realizing that great lights

Sometimes reveal great flaws.

If age came before youth and wisdom before pride

A man could face death knowing all possible was done

To better the world

For those that follow

By T. L. Bush

We are not important, some say

Our lives are but pages of life’s book

Lost in the many volumes of time

First glance no different than the others.

But I ask?

Is not a story cheated?

Would it not be incomplete?

If even one page is removed.

]]> http://uswranglers.com/?feed=rss2&p=209 0 http://uswranglers.com/?p=203 http://uswranglers.com/?p=203#comments Sat, 21 Aug 2010 02:33:43 +0000 TLBush http://uswranglers.com/?p=203 Finding the correct stirrup length

Finding the correct stirrup length is very important in riding safely, having proper control over your horse, and keeping a good and balanced ride. When you’re sitting in your saddle, your ear, shoulder, hip, and heel should all be in alignment. If your stirrups are too long or too short, your heels will be out of alignment and be too far forward or back.

The length can also depend on your body shape, your horse’s barrel, the type of saddle you’re riding, what discipline you’re performing, and your own preference. Many riders like the extra security of a shorter stirrup.

With that in mind, pay attention to the way your leg hangs when you’re on the horse. Are you consistently getting pinched? Are you dropping your heel to get your knee in the right spot? If so your stirrups are too short. Are you pointing your toe to stay in the stirrup? Is your foot consistently falling out? You guessed it. Your stirrup is too long.

The following methods are what many people use to judge stirrup length. Try one or of them to determine yours.

TIP 2: Stirrup to Ankle

Have someone eyeball this one for you. Once you’re on your horse, put your leg straight down, out of the stirrup. The bottom of the stirrup should be even with your anklebone.

I hope this helps. Now go have a good ride!

TL

U.S. Wranglers

“KEEPIN’ AN EYE ON THOSE KEEPIN’ AN EYE ON HORSES.”

“The most beautiful, the most spirited and the most inspiring creature ever to print foot on the grasses of America!”

J. Frank Dobie

It’s reported that man first domesticated the horse around 2500 B.C. Used basically for war and pulling chariots, riding as a means of transport didn’t come to pass until much later. Today the horse has many roles and uses. It still bears the heavy loads of man, pulls wagons, plows and provides entertainment in racing, horse shows and rodeos. It’s used for pleasure riding and in the movies.

There is nothing more beautiful, to this writer, than watching a band of horses running through a field or down a mountain side. No matter where you grew up, on a farm, ranch, in the city, whether you owned horses, watched them at the track, on TV or in the movies; horses have had an impact on your life.

In Iowa alone, the American Horse Council estimates that there are over 201,000 horses owned by 31,000 Iowans. Anyone involved with horses can tell you just how important they are in their lives.

The total estimate of equines in the U.S. is reported at 9.2 million animals. A national average of 10% dies annually for various reasons. The vast numbers are not slaughtered. They are humanely euthanized, rendered or buried. Old age, illness and injury are the main reasons for the humane euthanasia of these animals. Horses are no longer just horses. They have achieved the status of pets and in many cases they are like members of the owner’s family and they deserve a respectable and dignified final disposition.

The Squeakin’ Saddle

Articles and snippits about the West and the things that make it up. Fact fiction and other made up stuff.

Just between you, me and the web…

By TL Bush

In an effort to develop a greater base of potential advertisers, I recently decided to delve into a field I know little about, “The Internet.” I have been told how simple it is to discover anything and everything you could possibly want to know about anything. I’m sure that is correct, but who wants to spend that much time on the Internet just trying to find something. I found it very confusing and not as simple as others had said.

I called one of my, computer nut, brothers and related my frustrations. This brought about much conversation about my I.Q., doubts about same parentage, maybe I was actually adopted from a pack of wolves and the determination that a book titled “Computers for idiots” was above my comprehension level. It’s never easy getting an answer from any of my brothers.

After capitulation that he was probably correct in his assumption, we continued my education. First we found the Google.com search engine; I must add they are very thorough. Then I typed in the words western store and hit, search the web. Are you ready for this?

Western Store produced 5,240,000 hits indicating western store as a part of their format.

Saddles produced 3,250,000 and included bicycle seats and saddle shoes.

Horse Feed - 1,240,000,

Cowboy Hats - 357,000,

Cowboy Boots - 659,000,

Horse Barns - 166,000,

Fencing - 284,000,

Horse Arenas - 89,500,

Western Wear - 2,530,000,

Horse Trailer Dealers - 711,000,

Horse Waterer’s - 10,900

And on and on and on. I might add each of the 40 categories; I did a search for, included porn sites in the results. No, I did not open the porn sites. I’ve been told that is a good way to get a virus and I’m not ready for that with my limited computer skills.

This attempt to locate western stores, that might become advertisers, became very frustrating.

Again a call was placed to ‘brother dearest’ and I was told of placement in a search engine and how it costs to be listed in the top so many. This didn’t help my disposition. After hours of reading through the search results the phone rang and I was told if I enclosed my search request in quotes it would narrow the search. So I did.

He was right. Instead of millions there were now only hundreds of thousands or thousands. Big deal!

I have come to this conclusion.

If you are a small or large company with a web site and you are not in the top 10 in a search engine you don’t stand a chance.

There are millions of potential Equiclients, (a new word I have penned) that will never see your page.

There are ways you can link your page to others that might produce additional hits if enough people go to the other web site and find your link and are interested in your product or service. The problem remains, how to let those people that are looking for what you have to offer, know how to find you. My solution, a Select Horseman’s.com directory of products and services. U.S. Wranglers is compiling such a directory. U.S. Wranglers will construct and maintain a web page on this site dedicated solely to the members in the directory, with banner links to their participating sites. At present there will be 30 categories limited to 40 web sites in each. Businesses and individuals interested in participating in the directory should e-mail uswranglers@yahoo.com requesting additional information. There will be a 1 time fee of $45.00 for inclusion and you will never be charged again.

By T. L. Bush

The latest dictionary I can find defines a Dude as a brainless dandy; an Easterner who vacations on a ranch, otherwise known as a Tenderfoot or a Greenhorn.

Seeing as how this was a new dictionary, I decided to look up the word “Wannabee.” It hasn’t made the book yet.

Now I’m not one to let any stone go unturned so I asked a scholarly friend. Her response, “I’ve never heard of one.” This did not surprise me having dealt with Scholars before. So I asked some cowboy friends if they knew the difference between a Dude and a Wannabee. They started kickin’ the dirt, grinnin’, spittin’ and almost laughin’.  The oldest one reached for a smoke, struck a match on his jeans, took a puff and calmly said, “The spellin.”

Let’s see if we can find out why these hands have this opinion.

Dating clear back to the late 1800’s. Anyone that went west to experience the cowboy way of life was known as a Dude. Just the sight of a Dude set off a hidden alarm in the minds of real cowboys. These Dudes were usually easy to spot. New boots, hat, chaps, cuffs, gloves, shirt and pants all at the same time was better than a neon light flashing, “I’m a Dude, I’m a Dude.”  No real cowboy could afford all that at one time. Several other things sounded the alarm as well. The way a Dude rode a horse, ate a meal, what they ate, what they smoked and how they smoked it. If they were young and smoked a pipe they were probably a Dude. If they were old and smoked a pipe they were probably a real cowboy that had gotten so busted up over time they couldn’t roll their own anymore.

Most Dudes never hurt anything except themselves or their family name. Real cowboys never had too much good to say about Dudes, but deep down inside I think they were glad they were there. Cowboys need a good laugh too.

Many of these Dudes had money and decided to buy ranches and live the romantic cowboy way of life. As the years passed the Dudes found out they couldn’t find any romance in being a cowboy.

Selling their ranches, a large number of Dudes moved back East and the Dude population almost dwindled into extinction. But no the “DUDE-DUDE Bird was not to die out.

By the turn of the century there were several places created for the preservation of this sometimes humorous species. DUDE RANCHES, places Dudes go, pay a fee and get to play cowboy.

This form of amusement became quite popular and even reached the fashionable state. Noted celebrities, actors, politicians and royalty spent thousands of dollars playing the game.

I know a lot of cowboys like to cuss the Dude and many refuse to accept the fact that Dudes or Wannabees have the right to breathe the same air. But in reality we owe the old time Dude and the modern Wannabee a great deal of thanks. Without them where would we be?

Stop and think about that. Look what happened to the Tin Smith. In the old days when this country was just getting started, the Tin Smith played a very important role. All the pans, pots, lanterns, and other things necessary to maintain and develop a new country, were made by the Tin Smith.

Most of us can only name one of these guys and that’s because he went riding through town yelling about the British coming.

Try as I may I can only think of one movie ever made about sanitation workers, and that was made in recent years.

There have been several professions that have played important roles in the development of this great country of ours, but only the cowboy has been placed on a pedestal for everyone to look up to. So let’s not be too hard on the Wannabees. Let’s hope the movie industry keeps makin’ movies about cowboys and the West.

I’m not so sure we shouldn’t create a Wannabee Hall of Fame, because if it wasn’t for them and the collectors, we’d probably just be throwin’ our worn out gear in a ditch.

Talkin’ that talk……….

By T.L. Bush

I know everybody has heard the way movie cowboys talk, “Shucks ma’Am.”, “That there is my favorite hoss.”, “Smile when you say that” and other expressions. Well some cowboys might have talked like that and I’m sure they said a few things mothers wouldn’t like.

Today society has again revived the cowboy and his romantic ways and we have started attending things called “Gatherings”. These original Gatherings were presented by real cowboys reciting their original poetry.

But as these functions became politically correct the Wannabees and Scholars started showin’ up like coyotes at a calving pasture. In my opinion there’s nothing really wrong with this as long as they don’t try to pass themselves off as real cowboys. There is one other problem that should be aired. As these Gatherings have become more popular, some folks have decided that real cowboy talk might be a little too harsh. We’’ I want to tell ya’. If you are going to have a real Cowboy Poetry Gathering, then you better damn well keep it real cowboy. Takin’ the real cowboy way of expressing himself out of a gatherin’ of cowboys and those that want to know about them, would be like inviting nobody but white folks to an NAACP meeting.. I’m not endorsing the excessive use of vulgar language. Most of the Hands I know and have worked with can be handy with the rough words when they want to be. But most of us are reasonably civilized and can control our vocabulary when mixing with decent folks.

For the continuing education of the self-declared Wannabees and others, I’m going to include some sayings attributed to cowboys. If you are of the scholarly mind and would like to spend the time looking them up, I’m sure you would find they, or a variation of them, have been said prior to cowboy use. A cowboy just has a little different way of repeating what he hears.

A COWCHIP IS PARADISE FOR A FLY.

THE TOUGHEST BRONCS ARE THOSE THAT YOU RODE SOMEPLACE ELSE.

IF YOUR HOSS KNEW HOW WEAK YOU WAS, HE’D PROBABLY STOMP THE CRAP OUT OF YA’

THE BEST WAY TO HANDLE CATTLE IS TO OPEN A GATE AND LET’EM THINK THEY ARE GETTING AWAY.

ADMIRE A BIG HORSE SADDLE A SMALL ONE.

ANY HAND THAT BRAGS HE AIN’T BEEN THROWED PROBABLY AIN’T TRIED TO RIDE NO TOUGH ONES.

THE DAY A PUNCHER GETS MARRIED IS THE DAY THE HAIRS ON HIS COAT BETTER START MATCHIN’ THE COLOR OF THE HOPRSES HE RIDES.

THE BEST COLOR FOR A HORSE IS FAT.

IT’S HARDER TO MAKE A BANKER OUT OF A HORSE THIEF THEN A HORSE THIEF OUT OF A BANKER.

A COW OUTFIT AIN’T NO BETTER THAN ITS HORSES.

ONLY A SORRY HAND WOULD RIDE A SORE BACKED HORSE.