Tag: Cowboy

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Essential Things Every Cowboy Needed In Order to Survive In the Wild West

Most drovers on a trail drive didn’t have much to call their own. They may have owned a saddle, some tacking and a bedroll. Many did not even own a horse. On a trail drive, they would draw one, usually green broke out of the remuda.

But there were some things most had in order to survive and to make life a bit more bearable on the long trail drive. Rich M. in an article in “Off the Grid News” listed “15 Things Cowboys Carried With Them In The Wild West To Survive.”

I will make a short paraphrase of those 15 essential things he believed every cowboy needed . . . Continue reading “Essential Things Every Cowboy Needed In Order to Survive In the Wild West”

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Comparing the Church to an Old-Fashioned Branding

When I think of a local functioning church, I imagine an old-fashioned branding. At a branding, everyone has a job to do. There are no by-standers; no observers–everyone has an assigned task to do:

  •      Someone tends the gate
  •      Another rounds-up the calves
  •      One does the roping
  •      A person attends the fire
  •      There is one who heats the irons
  •      Someone holds the calf (That was usually my job)
  •      While another does the branding

And if some folks remined after jobs were assigned, well they didn’t just stand around. They got involved too, doing everything they could to assist, Continue reading “Comparing the Church to an Old-Fashioned Branding”

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The Real Deal

I carry an 1878 Morgan silver dollar in my pocket. I do it for a couple of reasons. For one, a dear friend gave it to me a number of years ago and told me that every time I reached in my pocket and felt the coin, it would be a reminder that he was praying for me–a pretty good reason.

But there’s another reason. I carry it because it is authentic. It is the real deal. it is the most authentic thing I have that actually identifies me with the cowboy of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is the exact currency cowboys carried in their pockets and used to buy, sell and  trade.

You know the old saying, “If only this coin could talk!” I often rub the silver dollar between my thumb and finger and wonder, where all has this coin been? How many pockets, how may hands have handled it? How many Continue reading “The Real Deal”