Category Archives: Family

Would Jesus wear spurs?

After last weeks subject on “Sex, nutrition, and electric fence” I had better do a flying lead change.

We all have different ways of dealing with things. Religion and the way we deal and express it is an interesting subject to ponder on.

I was not raised going to church regularly. When I was in grade school we had Bible class after school on Wednesday and I really liked that. I remember writing a paper about the meaning of Christmas in the sixth grade about liking being around animals on Christmas because of Jesus being born in the stable. That always stuck with me. On Christmas Day I really feel good taking care of animals and feel good about giving them a little special treatment.

My spiritual leaders lately have been a strange mix. A former woman bull rider, drug salesman, bull salesman, cowboy from Texas, and a welder turned cowboy preacher, and a singer that almost went to jail for shooting a guy.

Because of this I really don’t think I am qualified to tell you how you should act, but I would like to get you to thinking about some things that are important to spend a little time on.

A former woman bull rider turned preacher had a huge impact on me. The first time my family went to her service it was in Madison, Wisconsin at the Midwest Horse Fair. She was riding a real pretty black gelding and was singing a gospel song. She tried to stand up on him and he ended up bucking her off right on her butt. I could tell it hurt, but she never missed a word of the song, got back on and finished a very inspirational church service.

I really looked forward to Crystal Lyons words and displays of inspiration. We went to many of the same horse fairs and we became friends. If you have the opportunity to listen to her it will be a great experience, and I guarantee it won’t be boring.

Ron McDaniel, became a real good friend of mine. We spent a lot of time together and he has fun, is very good at his job, and is very humorous. Ron lives what he believes. He gave me a Bible that is called The Daily Bible. It has reading for every day of the year laid out for you. It is a great way to get the Bible read and understood.

If you have ever seen or heard Kit Pharo, you would know he is very strong in his opinions. He is not shy in speaking his mind about the cattle business or God. His Sabbath Day Devotions always provoke thought.

Todd McCartney is a fellow I have spent a lot of time with. When you travel with someone, away from family and friends and watch the ethics they use conducting business you learn about their integrity. Todd is a very committed Catholic, and I have said it many times that Todd McCartney is one of the most honest religious people I know.

My wife and I spent the winter last year in Hubbard, Texas. It’s a great little community, and I started attending the “Hubbard Cowboy Church.” The service is held in an old barn with a dirt floor and an outdoor privy. The Pastor, Butch Boatright, is as country as it gets, but really knows how to get the message out to us country folk.

As you may know I like good music. Billy Joe Shaver sings a song called “If you don’t love Jesus, you can go to hell.” I read his book and it talked about his feelings on religion.

I really admire people who live there faith. When I started this deal of writing, I said I would keep it positive. I am going to get just a little negative for a bit.

I have had it with people that use religion, church, the cross, the fish, or religious music on their cell phone, and then lie, cheat and steal like a bad outlaw. I have seen and dealt with this so much in the last five years or so and am sick of it. It makes me sad to see how low some people will stoop. Sorry for the bluntness, but is a bad deal. You will have a hard time getting me to do business until I truly know you if you are trying to impress me with a bunch of God symbols.

Don’t just talk about it, live it.

Pretty much everything I do has something to do with animal care and handling. I heard a cowboy preacher one time talking about man’s dominion over animals. His thoughts upset me a little, because he was saying we could do pretty much what we wanted because of our dominion that God gave us.

Well I got to thinking about that. We do have dominion, there’s no doubt about that. But I wonder if maybe we are not judged by how we handle that power. Not only over animals, but all things in our care.

If you have read the Bible, you may recall Jesus was a colt starter. Here is a question for you to think about, and if you would like to share your thoughts please do.

Would Jesus wear spurs, or use a hot shot? I encourage you to really think it over. I have heard lots of interesting thoughts that have come out of this discussion. I am sure we will learn of many opinions from many different points of view.

If Jesus did wear spurs I would be okay with him having a cross or a fish symbol on them.

~ Curt Pate

Fun Hater

Lets have a little fun. I have been getting pretty serious about all this writing stuff. It’s time for a funny story.

My daughter named a bucking bull after me a while back. She named him “Fun Hater” and that really hurt.  I do like to have fun, but my fun may be different than other folks.

I spend lots of my life like I am right now – writing.  I’m stuffed in an airplane with people all around me and not able to stretch my legs out.  I eat restaurant food all the time.  When I get home I have the need for freedom and the last thing I want to do is go to a movie or a concert to be surrounded by the same thing.  A good home cooked meal, having my dogs around, and throwing a few loops at the roping dummy seems more important.

Getting horseback and riding through some good grass, moving some cattle, or just riding up and looking over the Musselshell River that runs through our place is about as good as it gets for me.

When I look around me and see the stress that all these people are under just living in the crowded lifestyle so many of them must live in, it’s amazing to me we don’t have way more problems in society than we do.

If you are lucky enough to live on a farm or ranch or have a rural lifestyle, enjoy it.

For several years we traveled the country doing horse clinics and demonstrations.  Our children were home-schooled and most of the time had a geography lesson while doing other school work. This means we were going down the road in a pickup truck while they were doing school.  We had lots of fun and met many good people.

One person that we met was Charlie Trayer.  He was doing cow dog demo’s for Purina and we were on the same program several times.  We all really liked Charlie and the Hangin Tree Cowdogs he was raising so we ended up with some pups.  We had rope names for our dogs.
I named mine Lasso and Mesa named hers Roper.  They had a lot of go to them.  We decided we needed to get some goats to work our dogs the way we had learned from Charlie.

Goats were a little tough to find in Helena, Montana at the time.  I finally located some, but the lady didn’t want to sell them because they were purebreds and she was going to show them.  I think I ended up paying $250.00 each for five goats and she would buy them back when I did not need them anymore.  That’s quite a bit of money to spend on goats, but I was going to get it back so it was no big deal.  We really didn’t have anywhere to keep goats, but we did have a indoor arena, so we rigged up some pens and got ready to work our dogs.

We shut all the doors and turned the goats loose.  We got our pups and we were ready to have our first dog training session.  Mesa was probably 8 years old or so and always wore her Gus hat. She was what you’d call pure cowgirl.  We cut the dogs loose and they did want to work.  Lasso was a little older and he was aggressive.

They hit those five goats hard.  Goats were running, dogs were barking and not listening, and there were way more things going on than I thought were going to happen.  One thing I forgot to mention was the reason the goats were so expensive is they were little bucks. Lasso noticed this right away and would catch a goat by the balls and hold him.  If you have ever heard a goat cry when a dog has it by the balls, you will understand the intense drama shaping up in our little father-daughter dog working session.

Roper was running madly after the goats. Mesa was trying to catch him.  The goats could not outrun Lasso and he would get another by the balls and the screaming would start again. This did not go on for to long and Mesa said to me, “Daddy, I don’t think I want to work dogs on goats anymore.”

She got her wish, because when a goat finds that much pressure they will find a way out of it.  The goats got out through a door and $1250.00 worth of goats headed for the Scratch Gravel hills of Helena. That was pretty much the last time we saw them.

Just a few years ago I had some heifers that belonged to Craig Wenger which I had calved out for him. We also had about 60 head of two year old bucking bulls I had purchased from D & H Cattle Co.

I had been out checking some cows on a young horse that only had a few rides on.  When I got back to our place I decided to turn some chickens out to graze in a little hay field. (They were my wife’s chicken project, not mine.)

I was unloading my horse and saw that some bulls had gotten in with the heifers, and I was pretty sure Craig was not to interested in getting the bucking bull business, so I kinda hurriedly got on my colt to interrupt the bulls fun.  I was pretty busy trying to get these bulls separated when my horse decided he was not really ready for bull sorting. He proceeded to try to buck me off.

While he was taking my attention off the bulls and getting my mind to riding I happened to notice a little action in the chicken herd. My dogs had taken the opportunity of my mind being occupied with the bulls and were having a fresh chicken dinner.  Things were pretty busy for me for a few minutes.  After the dust settled, the tally stood at 4 chickens dead, 2 heifers bred, one horse rode, 3 dogs disciplined, one wife mad and a great big laugh had a few hours later.

So you see I am not a fun hater at all.

~ Curt Pate