Aristocrats of the range
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Julie Carter

Cowboys are the aristocrats of the agricultural wage earners. As such, there are two or three things which are absolutely essential for their well being: well-trained, prestigious-looking horses, a good rope and a nice hat.

Dan had the horse department covered with Slats. And he was following Tex's advice about roping.

Since the last problem he had was roping his heel horse's front feet occasionally, Dan went to see what Tex had to say.

Tex advised getting a rope his horse could see and then he wouldn't step in the loop. So Dan went down to the feed store, looked over all the brightly colored twines and came out with one of the new Roper Vision ropes - a glow-in-the-dark lime green.

This iridescent wonder came with a pair of matching sunglasses, the theory being that the roper would better focus on his rope when wearing them.

Dan didn't follow this logic as he wasn't the one having trouble seeing a regular colored rope, but most definitely, Slats wasn't going to get the sunglasses.

He decided that a little pasture roping might help Slats out with his difficulty of stepping into a heel loop. Tim came to help him out. The project would not be a wasted effort. They needed to doctor a few yearlings who had picked up something at the sale barn.

In the pasture, they rode through all the new cattle slowly and doctored each one who needed a shot. With the job well tended to, they decided to practice a little to break in Dan's new rope.

The owner of the cattle had driven up to the pasture fence and was watching the entire operation; the cowboys were unaware of their audience.

After watching the flurry of activity through the initial doctoring, the cow boss walked out to the ropers and asked, "What you boys doing now?"

"Why, we're roping and doctoring the sick cattle."

The owner allowed he had seen quite a bit of roping going on but in the most recent timeframe, he hadn't seen any shots given.

Dan, quick with his wit, answered sincerely, "Last night I soaked my rope in a bucket of penicillin and there's no need to give a shot. And, besides that, we been looking at these cattle and thought we might need to check and see if some of them had a bone in their leg."

Good help is hard to find, so, begrudgingly, the cow boss decided to tend to some of his other business.

While he was putting his paycheck in circulation with the new green rope purchase, Dan also selected a brand new straw hat. He really hated to part with the extra money, but lately he'd noticed there were some quite pretty girls at the team ropings.

He also knew that one of the secrets to good looks is a good hat. Sometimes a new hat needs some breaking-in, so he was wearing it a little to get the sweatband broke-in before next Saturday's team roping.

This morning's job was to do some pasture shredding with the tractor in the horse trap. Dan got the shredder hooked up, was moving right along with the blades cutting down the old grass neatly when a little puff of wind hit and lifted that new straw right off his head.

The next thing he heard was "brrrrrrtt" as the new straw went through the shredder. A few choice words later, Dan shrugged and thought to himself, "Those pretty girls are just going to have to be impressed with Slats and the new lime green rope."

Two out of three is not bad for an aristocrat.

Julie's rope of choice is powder blue. Visit her website at www.julie-carter.com