We have lots of dogs on our place right now.  We have one old Hangin Tree named Taco.  Tammy got two pups awhile back from Daughter Mesa.  Son Rial has 7 coyote chasing dogs, and Mesa came to visit from Oklahoma and brought 4 dogs along.  That  is 14 dogs

The amazing thing is they all get along, and they don’t chase our cats.

I forgot to put music on last week.  I was trimming one of my big horses feet this morning and the dogs were hanging around eating hoof trimmings.  I had the radio on KGHL and “Grass Roots Gold” was on and they played a Wilf Carter/Montana Slim song and it reminded me of “Old Shep” that was one of my favorite songs as a kid.

You might laugh at my choice of music, but listen to the words and you will get a lump in your throat if you are a dog lover.

i was headed to Iowa last week and I needed to get to Austin, my barber before I left.

I really like Austin as he always has something fun to talk about, hot shaves my neck and it is still $10 dollars.  I don’t think he wants me to tip as I gave him a twenty and he gave me two fives.  If he gives me ones I slip him a couple. He might think I will give him a five, and I might if it was Christmas!

After I came out Wife Tammy was in the car and when I got in she was on the speaker phone with Corb Lund.  Linda Thurston had put her in touch with him to see if he would MC a big event she is putting together called “The Art Of The Cowgirl” .  (Google it)

He was very polite and very humble.  I had spent some time with him in Brandon, Manitoba and he remembered how long ago it was but didn’t remember my brilliant conversation.

Monday and Tuesday I am going to be working in Utah and I am pretty sure there might be some good folks of the Mormon Faith, so this song fits in every way, except for maybe some of the Mormon Principles, but who knows, it’s all how you interpret it.  I like the song and I like how Corb Lund sings about our Western way of life, so here it is

A few things to add to Agape post.  

I got to wondering what “Agape” meant and I looked it up.  My friend Kevin Devine commented on it as well.

This is what I found:

Agape love is selfless, sacrificial, unconditional love. It is the highest of the four types of love in the Bible.

Every time I start mentioning names I forget someone or “someone’s”.

There were so many people making the program work and I just mentioned a few that I remembered names, because we all went to supper together.

There we two young fellows that did lots of work and stayed out of the spotlight.  They had been in the program, then interned and then worked.  I’ve forgotten the one boys name, as he never hung around the horses much but was always going to do something.  He was always on a four wheeler or side by side getting something. Another boy that was real helpful was named Jordan, and he took care of things around the barn and was always looking out for the boys and covering Riley’s back.  Those two boys really new how to work and get things done, and stayed out of the spotlight doing it.

I feel terrible I didn’t mention them.  Jordan has a real proud Mom.

There of lots of real thoughtful folks that have given me suggestions on how to improve my writing in the last few years.  I appreciate the feedback.

When I first started the Web-site several years ago I had Jesse Bussard develop it for me and I would write a scoop loop, send it to her and she would fix all my mistakes.  It worked really good as far as spelling and grammar, and Jesse was really good.  The problem was sometimes my bad grammar and cowboy language is what I want to use to get my point across.

It’s my style.  I try to write them on a airplane or in an airport when the thoughts are fresh and I don’t have anything else to do.  Sometimes I get in a hurry and don’t proof them as well as I should.  I’ve always got something else I want to read or do, so I need to really discipline myself to look them over.

You should be very thankful for spellcheck or it would be much harder to savvy!

I was not very interested in school, especially english so I am terrible at putting sentences together.  To tell you how much fun and how bad I was, the third quarter of my senior year, two of my buddies and myself’s grade point average didn’t add up to a 2 point.  That was all three added together.  I had to work and charm pretty hard just to graduate.

Another thing that some people have suggested is that in this day and age you have to make things real short or you can’t hold someone’s attention.  I don’t want to write about stuff that is not interesting enough for folks to stay hooked.  Thats why I try to write the way I do.  Maybe some people will stay with me to see how many mistakes I make, but I hope to have enough “draw” to keep em hooked.

I get to listen to lots of presentations.  Some people are so good at presenting and if they have that “draw” they can keep an audience hooked no matter what the content.  I listen to some and they can have very good info and pretty soon my mind and everyone else’s is wandering.  It seems the ones that do things by the book and use proper language and don’t have a little “wow” factor you lose em.  I feel it may be the same with writing.  One of the best books I’ve ever read is Charlie Russell’s “Trails Plowed Under”.  Read it sometime and I bet you will figure out he wasn’t listening much in English class either.

I watch the wrangler network a lot as they put rodeos on live.  My old friend and mentor in the speaking world, Bob Tallman would not be the great announcer he is without what I call “The Tallman Factor”.  My father and many old school rodeo folks don’t like his style, but he can sure baffle people with the green stuff that comes out of the back end of the bulls he talks about!

So I will work on doing better and I do appreciate the help and suggestions.  My goal is to promote good stockmanship and stewardship, but I want to do it the best way I can.  I’m not going to have someone proof for me as that changes the meaning sometimes, and I have learned how to run WordPress pretty good, and can do it all myself.

It’s really wet here in Ryegate, Montana.  It’s to muddy to do much outside and its still raining, so I watched two colt starting videos I did for the AQHA clear back in 2007.  I enjoyed seeing our old place, the kids when they were younger, and my old dog Lasso.  I really miss him.  Good memories and I am real proud of how I presented things.  There was some fun stuff on the end of one of them and I will try to record it and put it on the website.  Tammy and I got some good laughs.

So here I am again rambling on to long for your short attention span so I’ll quit.

I am tired of writing and thinking so I would really like to copy and paste to my website, but I will look it over a couple times to see if I have any mistakes.  The trouble is is you have to know a mistake before you can see it.  Sure wish I would have payed more attention in school!

I did pay attention to John Wayne and the Cowboys when he said “Gentleman, this is where school really begins” and the school he was talking about has been my classroom for the last 50 years and I’m proud of that.  I am glad I can “read” a horse and cow better than I can write about it.