Caballos Descarados y Vacas Salvajes --- Sassy Horses and Wild Cattle

The ground breathes an aching sigh from its frozen, icy heart and spring awaits.
The sun will come around and greet the new lives with warmth and beauty .
The foals will buck and snort and breathe the cool spring air and the calves will bawl and blow snot when something moves just wrong.
Their bodies, thick, stout and strong from their mammy's milk.
The clouds will float airy and bright and rain showers shoot the grass vibrant green out of the ground.
Branding season eagerly awaited by cowboys and cowboygirls.
Their ropes will be greased and ready, their cowponies fresh and sassy and the world smiles.
Everything new and pristine and full of life.
A warm fire in the brisk air, branding irons steam and the horses get excited and the cowboys' hearts jump.
The calves come bucking into the trap and the young horses watch intently their first branding.
Their eyes big and bright and their nostrils flare as they suck in the smell of burning hair.
Fancy shots and cowboys scoop up heels.
Big bridle horses lean into the pull and they handle the husky, wild calves with precision, care and habit and they are the awe of the branding.
The little ponies try their hand first with the dopy, small calves and their minds reel.
Hackamores, engraved bridle bits and hand braided reins hang over saddle horns and horses graze hobbled in a little meadow...
But, the ground is frozen hard, won't thaw for a couple months.
So close your eyes and let yourself float back to a dream about springtime..the beauty it promises.

For all of you that are dreading winter, spring WILL come around :)
... and for those of you who don't, when the dark skies get you feeling a little down, dream. Dream about fat, sassy caballos and wild vacas ;)



xoxo ~ Gussie Lou

P.S. - Sorry for small bits and pieces of spanish! It just keeps happening! Haha Kricket is about to whack me!

P.P.S. - Dream BIG. Always ;)

"...the horses out along the high mesas..."

"That night he dreamt of horses in a field on a high plain where the spring rains had brought up the grass and the wildflowers out of the ground and the flowers ran blue and yellow far as the eye could see and in the dream he was among the horses running and in the dream he himself could run with the horses and they coursed with the young mares and fillies over the plain where their rich bay and their rich chestnut colors shone in the sun and the young colts ran with their dams and trampled down the flowers in a haze pollen that hung in the sun like powdered gold and they ran he and the horses out along the high mesas where the ground resounded under their running hooves and they flowed and changed and ran and their manes and tails blew off them like spume and there was nothing else at all in that high world and they moved all of them in a resonance that was like a music among them and they were none of them afraid horse nor colt nor mare and they ran in that resonance which is the world itself and which cannot be spoken but only praised."
  -- All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy

Me an' Ol' Smokey My Friend

He was born at "The Sixes" on the west Texas plains, 
A son of Gray Badger and a hard one to tame.
A heart full of willing and a mind full of try.
It's the look of the eagle you see in his eye.

And we'd ride across prairies where nobody's been,
Sleep under the sky where the eagle is king.
And we'd bunch up the dogies that nobody's seen.
Just me and ol' Smokey my friend.

Early each mornin' I'd line out my tack,
Smooth out the hump in old Smokey's back.
We'd bunch up them dogies from dawn until dusk.
Just God an' the prairie an' coyotes an' us.


And we'd ride across prairies where nobody's been,
Sleep under the sky where the eagle is king.
And we'd bunch up the dogies that nobody's seen.
Just me and ol' Smokey my friend.

When his ride is over, I'll dig Smokey's grave.

I own that hill where the Bluebonnets sway.

So he'll be remembered, 

I write with my pen, 

this song about Smokey, 

this cowpuncher's friend.

Now we'd ride across prairies where nobody's been,
Sleep under the sky where the eagle is king.
Now we'd bunch up the dogies that nobody's seen.
Just me and ol' Smokey my friend.
Old Smokey this cowpuncher's friend.

   --Smokey
      --Red Steagall 


Well, this song is a little tender to my heart.
The first horse you fall in love with, you won't forget him/her. Ever.
It could have been a borderline worthless, sometimes hotheaded, ill built, almost ugly horse, but it had heart, so it didn't matter because you can't help it.
You just fall in love with the creature. And the creature, he falls in love with you.
Once you've seen it, you understand, if you've lived it then, well, yeah.
Now I'll bet I could make almost any one of you out there reading this cry if I told you to put your favorite horse's name in place of Smokey's and sing the song to yourself.
Well now, I should be fair and do it too. But I don't have to change any names or words.
My horse, his name; Smokey. Same spelling, same heart.
Alive enough to play games, but always watching out for his little girl.
Always remember your horse.
That one that pops out among all the others.
The exceptional one.
The horse that, from other eyes would not be first choice but that you loved dearly.

The one that you clicked with.

Your very own, one and only, other piece to the puzzle.

--Gussie Lou

Tell her I still remember the smell of sage in her hair...

Her hair was thick and braided,
skin freckled by the sun.
Our eyes deep hat brim shaded.
We'd watch the wild horses run.
In the shadow of the mountain,
On that hot desert floor.
I'd ride those narrow trails
With the girl I adore.
We'd ride along the river bank
Under the cottonwood's shade.
Hold each other while our ponies drank,
And Oh the love we made.
If you ride that wild old desert,
If you find her there,
Tell her I still remember the smell of sage in her hair.

And underneath the pinion pines,
We laid our beds in the cool night,
And her breathe mingling with mine.
We rode the oceans of starlight.
Saddle up in the morning,
She'd reach and touch my hand,
And life was rich and full in that dry and empty land.
We'd ride along the river bank 

Under the cottonwood's shade.
Hold each other while our ponies drank,
And Oh the love we made.
If you ride that wild old desert,
If you find her there,
Tell her I still remember the smell of sage in her hair.

I close my eyes and I see her now.
Just as clear as day.
I wonder why,
I wonder how, 
I could have ever rode away.
I'm a dust blown refugee,
Tumbled by the wind.
And I'd give all I own to find my way back again.

We'd ride along the river bank 

Under the cottonwood's shade.
Hold each other while our ponies drank,
And Oh the love we made.
If you ride that wild old desert,
If you find her there,
Tell her I still remember the smell of sage in her hair.


Tell her I still remember the smell of sage in her hair.

~Sage in Her Hair -- Dave Stamey

I wish he wouldn't have rode away! Then it would be an adorable fairy tale ending...I want THAT fairy tale to be my life ;)
<3 bittersweet little love song!
You should go listen to it! You won't wanna stop!!! :)

~Gussie