God, I'm Just A Cowboy...

I'm Just A Cowboy

It’s a cover, a guard which I let no one nor animal break through. 

They say I’m rough and heartless, mean and unforgiving. 

I’ve been starched stiff by fate, the past and the world.

I’ve rode the rank ones and they’ve soured me to most everything gentle, the wild stuff is all I want, horses, cattle and women alike.

 I’ve gained an invincible mentality and I run at danger, a sickening grin on my face, just to see if I’ll survive. 

I’ve been torn by love and my body beaten, so the barbed wire curse I’ve strung around my heart and soul. 

Emotion and feeling I’ve left for the weak to dwell and stone is the likeness I’ve taken on. 

Broken ribs don’t cause pain, for pain is just a state of mind.

 Everything ill that falls upon me I believe I deserve and if God wanted me dead he’d get me that way. 

Those who come close to melting this metal I’ve made of myself, my instinct is to break their hearts because of fear. 

I live life as if I’m careless only for dread of loss.

 I try to shield myself from love for betrayal will torment my heart. 

I don’t want to be victim to emotion, to love. 

For I am a man and God has made me to be tough, but I do not grasp that God made me with tears as well. 

Any who come close, who’ve ridden my wild and threatening trail, who’ve clawed at my heart strings, I tear them down and batter them in worry that they may break me open and I fall apart, or in love.

I think not much of tenderness and the girl I love, her heart I’ll break, Lord help me for that girl’s sake.

 God, I’m just a cowboy, prone to many a mistake.

Happy day friends.

Gussie

Coffee and Horses

This morning I was supposed to be an ambitious little child, bouncing around and doing chores, riding horses, etc.

I got up late.

So 7:30 I get up, refresh yesterday's make up (I'm horrible, I know) and start prodding mom out of her pajamas, which is hard because this woman is perfectly content with coffee, jammies and movies :) 
Driving up to the barn, mom in the passenger seat holding to her coffee cup like it's a small child, is stomping the 'brake pedal' which she doesn't have while I drive us there ;) hehe she thinks I'm a bad driver, no, no, no, I'm just so good, I can do it all fast! Ride a horse and drop miss momma off at work.

All days should start with coffee and horses, all days like so will be good ones. 

"I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles."

~Audrey Hepburn

And I believe I like this quote!!

Luvs! Have a wonderful day all!!!

Gussie 

Dorothy Morrell, World's Champion Cowgirl Bronc Rider

Hello friends...

I know I said I was going to do this on Wednesday and I was being a horrible liar, things got a little crazy, but here we are on Friday and I really am going to tell you about Miss Dorothy Morrell! 

Dorothy Morrell on Skuball

(Photo Credit: flickr)

This photo was taken by photographer Doubleday during Cheyenne Frontier Days in 1926.

I had a really hard time finding any information on her besides in the book Cowgirls by Judy Crandall.

So here is what I did find...

Nothing about when she was born, some of the photos I have looked at are dated around 1920, so I am guessing she was born sometime around 1900, probably a few years earlier.

She was not a only a bronc rider, but a trick rider as well.

She won her first prize money at the Clayton New Mexico Rodeo.

In 1914 at the Pendleton Roundup, she received her lifelong title of World's Champion Cowgirl Bronc Rider

Other accomplishments;

She was elected Queen of the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco where she was awarded with a golden watch.

She received a medal for World's Champion All-Around Cowgirl.

Won the title World's Best Cowgirl Bronk (sic) Rider.

In 1917, she received medals on Movie Day during the New York Guy Weadlick Rodeo.

She later married a man named Skeeter Bill Robbins.

I wish I could have found more information, but that is about all I know about Dorothy!

There is a photo of her where she has literally fallen off of a donkey and is landing on her head. It seems to be quite a joke that she could ride a bucking horse as well as she could but she fell off a donkey. This is where my special interest in her began. Because I have fallen off a donkey! It is quite a good story really, I rode it while it bucked, but those little things can bring things to a stop quite quickly! This may or my not be how I separated my shoulder a couple summers ago... hehe oh dear

She gives me hope that maybe if I am lucky I might be able to ride a bucking horse too, I guess we will find out!

Anyways, the first time Gussie and I were perusing photos and reading about miss Dorothy, Gussie busted up after reading that and told me she was going to start calling me Dorothy! Luckily that one didn't stick, I really don't need another nickname, I have plenty! 

I hope you guys enjoyed this, let me know if there is any certain special cowgirls you would like to hear about next!

I'm off to gather my things and sharpen my knife... because tomorrow is BRANDING DAY! First one of the year and I am so excited I can hardly stand it!!!!

I hope you all have a more than wonderful weekend and enjoy your Easter holiday celebrating in the Lord :)

Much Love,

<3 Kricket

Palomino and Dust

So this past weekend, I was lucky enough to go to a Justin Lawrence clinic, and it was awesome!

I got there, pulled lil' pally out of the trailer, brushed mud out of his long winter fur and threw a slick fork saddle over. 

I put on my chinks, slipped a hackamore over his ears and stepped on.  

Then is about when I started looking around.  

Sleeked off show horses and girls in ball caps with swell fork saddles. . . hehe is was pretty entertaining.  

But dang it!  

My lil ranch horse did good!! 

G

Lost In A Fantasy

Lost In A Fantasy

It's a memory

It's a life

It doesn't exist but in my dreams

Sometimes this is what the best answer seems;

To be lost in a world of belly deep grass

Glossy horse hair

Frisky black calves

The refined silhouettes of colts

Old cedar corrals

A rickety old barn

Fields of green

Some of the most beautiful things ever seen.

Riatas hangin on adobe walls

Hackamores, mecates, spade bits and all

Remuda flowin in

The whisper of the prairie wind

The howl of a lonesome coyote and the stomp of a stud 

The nicker of a tot foal and the bawl of a calf

Riding through the days

The clear and the haze

A dusty road

A vibrant meadow

Racing swiftly through the green

It seems only to be a dream 

A fantasy 

A life unseen

A trance that overpowers your mind

If you don't keep up you'll be left behind

Spurs jangling

Faded sun lingering over the mountains tops

Thundering hooves

Vigor in my heart

Rope in hand

A good ol' horse

And lots of open land.

Luvs, Gussie

A Bronco Twister's Prayer

Bronco Twister's Prayer

It was a little grave yard
  on the rolling foot hill plains:
That was bleached by the sun in summer,
  swept by winter’s snows and rains;
There a little bunch of settlers
  gathered on an autumn day
‘Round a home made lumber coffin,
  with their last respects to pay.

Weary men that wrung their living
  from that hard and arid land,
And beside them stood their women;
  faded wives with toil worn hands.
But among us stood one figure
  that was wiry, straight and trim.
Every one among us know him.
  ‘Twas the broncho twister, Jim.

Just a bunch of hardened muscle
  tempered with a savage grit,
And he had the reputation
  of a man that never quit.
He had helped to build the coffin,
  he had helped to dig the grave;
And his instinct seemed to teach him
  how he really should behave.

Well, we didn’t have a preacher,
  and the crowd was mighty slim.
Just two women with weak voices
  sang an old time funeral hymn.
That was all we had for service.
  The old wife was sobbing there.
For her husband of a life time,
  laid away without prayer.

She looked at the broncho twister,
  then she walked right up to him.
Put one trembling arm around him and said,
  "Pray. Please won’t you Jim?"
You could see his figure straighten,
  and a look of quick surprise
Flashed across his swarthy features,
  and his hard dare devil eyes.

He could handle any broncho,
  and he never dodged a fight.
‘Twas the first time any body ever saw
  his face turn white.
But he took his big sombrero
  off his rough and shaggy head,
How I wish I could remember what
  that broncho peeler said.

No, he wasn’t educated.
  On the range his youth was spent.
But the maker of creation
  know exactly what he meant.
He looked over toward the mountains
  where the driftin’ shadows played.
Silence must have reined in heaven
  when they heard the way Jim prayed.

Years have passed since that small funeral
  in that lonely grave yard lot.
But it gave us all a memory, and a lot
  of food for thought.
As we stood beside the coffin,
  and the freshly broken sod,
With that reckless broncho breaker
  talkin’ heart to heart with God.

When the prayer at last was over,
  and the grave had all been filled,
On his rough, half broken pony,
  he rode off toward the hills.
Yes, we stood there in amazement
  as we watched him ride away,
For no words could ever thank him.
  There was nothing we could say.
Since we gathered in that grave yard,
  it’s been nearly fifty years.
With their joys and with their sorrows,
  with their hopes and with their fears.
But I hope when I have finished,
  and they lay me with the dead,
Some one says a prayer above me,
  like that broncho twister said.



This is one of my favorite poems/songs to listen to.
Don Edwards and Waddie Mitchell did a rendition of it with Don Edwards playing Amazing grace in the background, it is truly beautiful!

Amazing Grace/Bronco Twister's Prayer -- check it out. It is lovely!


Hugs, 
Kricket and Gussie

"sagebrush and speed limit signs"

Border Signs

The smog that lurks just beyond the sign

The love and the land that we're leavin behind

The border line.

The Elko town casinos

The Elko town bars

The rearview mirror scene of ours.

The horses, the hats, the cowboys and ropes

They stand behind us with bowed heads and our hopes.

Mountains and white lines

Sagebrush and speed limit signs.

With dreary hearts and lingering souls we drift on out of old Elko.

Coffee still on our breathe

And like a traitor to my own heart

I find us driftin farther apart. 

A haunting feelin dances in the air

And it just don't seem quite fair.

So with Nevada in our hearts

And Utah on our minds

We'll be wherever our road finds

Forever haunted by these border signs.

A little something I wrote on our way home from Elko!!

-Gussie