Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Lost and found

Julie Carter

John Rex believed himself to be, and therefore claimed he was a lover, fighter and a wild horse rider. Not an uncommon thought process for cowboys.

In real life, he was very much married and had a couple tow-head kids that would run into his back pockets if he suddenly stopped in his tracks.

There was the possibility that he might have accidentally become involved in a bar fight a time or two in the distant past. Considerable distant.

As far as riding the wild horses, his current job entailed starting the colts born of very gentle mares on the See Nothing Ranch (branded C 0 ) where he was currently employed. "Wild" was a relative term as far as these horses went.

For the most part, John Rex stayed at the ranch. Only when caught in his "unawares" was he enticed to travel with his wife to town. And at that, it absolutely never involved Walmart. That just wasn't tolerable for him.

Somehow, on this occasion, his bride had successfully pulled a fast one on him.

Before he realized it, he was walking along in a building that, to his notion, would work pretty good for an indoor roping arena. Except of course it was filled with clothes, groceries and everything else from power tools to tennis shoes.

The little woman had told him she needed to pick up just a few things, so in resignation, he followed along.

Not paying any serious attention, he suddenly lost mama. He wandered up and down aisles until he encountered a sudden obstruction.

He found himself hemmed in behind a corn-fed lady in millennium yellow spandex pants. Since there wasn't any clearance on either side of this glow-in-the-dark object in the aisle, he stood there with many thoughts running through his cowboy brain.

The first of which was "How many folks had it taken to get her into those britches?" Surely, it involved all four of her kids that were milling around and her husband, and probably a neighbor or two had helped out with the project.

John Rex needed rescuing in the worst way and his bride was lost to him somewhere in the endless vista of dry goods.

Finally escaping when he and this yellow aberration reached the end of the aisle, he turned down the next one, still on the lookout for his wife.

It was in this runway that he circled up on another wonder of the world, also wearing yellow spandex. However, this time the model was blonde, every bit of six-feet-tall and built like the proverbial well-shaped brick outhouse.

John Rex, like any other lover, fighter and wild horse rider, appreciated well-made clothes so he decided that since he was lost anyway, he would just stand there and visually inspect this lovely and her fine yellow garments.

Predictably, this was close to the same time his bride located him. In an instant, John Rex was catapulted into validating the "fighter" part of his legend. Yellow never was a good color for him.

Julie's website.

Song Of The Day #114

Ranch Radio's gospel tune today is the 1948 recording Everytime I Feel The Spirit by Pee Wee King & His Golden West Cowboys.

Go here to see what I've written before about King and his available recordings.

Card Games Banned for Seniors

Old folks, having worked hard all their lives, now want to enjoy their retirement. Many go to senior centers for recreation, and playing cards provides a good structure for socializing. Making small bets on the games puts a little spice into the action and motivates the players to win, and so make it a little challenging. But now the mayor of Baldwinsville, New York, has banned games played for small change at the Canton Woods Senior Center. Gambling for low stakes does not violate state or county laws at Baldwinsville, but the mayor pointed out that any gambling at all is against the rules of the senior center. Since the center is owned by the village government, in effect the village government bans playing cards for money, even if it is small change. This ban on petty gambling is in itself not a major issue, but it points to a deep problem in laws and policies. Government is often not a servant of the people, but a cruel master...FreeLiberal

Turning Uncle Sam into Peeping Tom

Buried in the 1,017 pages of the House Democrats’ health-care bill is a little-noticed provision that for the first time could give the government access to the checking or credit-card information of every American. Under section 163, which is entitled “Administrative Simplification,” the bill sets new “standards” for electronic transactions between individuals and their health-care providers. According to section 163, the standards will “enable the real-time (or near real-time) determination of an individual’s financial responsibility at the point of service . . . ” In addition, they will “enable electronic funds transfers, in order to allow automated reconciliation with related health care payment and remittance advice.” What is envisioned is a “machine-readable health plan beneficiary card” that, in addition to information about a person’s medical history, will contain checking-account or credit-card information, so as to allow electronic payments and, if a person is lucky, occasional remittances. Since under the proposed legislation everyone would be required to have health insurance, all Americans would have to provide this information. The required collection of such data is unprecedented. At no other time has the government sought to collect this type of financial information from everyone in America...NRO

Los Payasos - Government At Work

Life imitates the Simpsons: a 10 year old New York girl has been fined $50 for operating a lemonade stand without a license. Clementine Lee set up a lemonade stand in Riverside Park, New York Saturday as a way to raise some pocket money, but that was before not one, but three city officials pounced on her illegal operation. “I was kind of nervous, and I also really felt bad because I didn’t know I was doing something against the law,” Clementine told local media. “They made me feel really, really bad, and scared at the same time,” Clemetine said. “We could have gotten into really big trouble and gotten arrested or something.” A spokesperson for the New York Parks Department says that the three agents “showed poor judgment” (you think so?) and that the ticket will be dismissed. For the record, Clementine had managed to sell $19 worth of lemonade before being slapped with the $50 fine. Link

Elmer Kelton dies at 83

Elmer Stephen Kelton, 83, died Saturday. He was born April 29, 1926, at Horse Camp in Andrews County to Mr. and Mrs. R.W. “Buck” Kelton, and grew up on the McElroy Ranch in Upton and Crane counties. He completed his education at the University of Texas after serving in Europe during World War II.

Kelton married Anna Lipp of Ebensee, Austria in 1947 and began a career in agriculture journalism at the San Angelo Standard-Times in 1949. He became editor of the Sheep & Goat Raiser magazine in 1963 and associate editor of Livestock Weekly in 1968, retiring in 1990. Kelton maintained a parallel career as a freelance writer, beginning with short stories in the post-war pulp magazine trade, progressing to novels, non-fiction books and countless magazine articles. In all, he wrote more than 40 books, including “The Time it Never Rained,” “The Wolf and the Buffalo,” “The Day the Cowboys Quit,” and “The Good Old Boys,” which became a Turner Network movie directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones. Kelton was named the number-one Western writer of all time by the Western Writers of America. The WWA voted him seven Spur awards for best Western novel of the year and the career Saddleman Award, and he received four Western Heritage Wrangler awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.

He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Ann Kelton of San Angelo, sons Gary Kelton of Plainview and Steve Kelton of San Angelo, with wife Karen McGinnis, and daughter Kathy Kelton, also of San Angelo and companion Pat Hennigan. He and Ann have four grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and one great-great grandchild.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the giver’s favorite charity or the Tom Green County Library’s Elmer Kelton statue fund through the San Angelo Area Foundation at 2201 Sherwood Way, Suite 205. Arrangements are pending at Johnson’s Funeral Home.

SanAngelo.com

Fla. court OKs force against retreating attackers

Florida's "stand-your-ground" law allows the use of deadly force for self-protection even if an attacker or intruder is in retreat, an appellate court said Wednesday. A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal issued that explanation for last month releasing Jimmy Hair from jail, where he had spent two years awaiting trial on a first-degree murder charge. A trial judge had refused to grant Hair "stand-your-ground" immunity due to conflicting testimony on whether Harper was being pulled out of the car by a friend when he was shot, but the appellate court said that didn't matter. "The statute makes no exception from immunity when the victim is in retreat," the panel wrote in an unsigned, unanimous opinion. The new law amended Florida's existing "Castle Doctrine" that allows people to use deadly force to defend themselves and others in their homes against the threat of death or great bodily harm. It extends that right to public spaces including the street or a business and removes a duty to retreat before using deadly force...AP

Mexico Decriminalizes Small-Scale Drug Possession

Mexico enacted a controversial law Thursday decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs while encouraging free government treatment for drug dependency. The law sets out maximum "personal use" amounts for drugs, also including LSD and methamphetamine. People detained with those quantities will no longer face criminal prosecution when the law goes into effect Friday. Anyone caught with drug amounts under the personal-use limit will be encouraged to seek treatment, and for those caught a third time treatment is mandatory -- although the law does not specify penalties for noncompliance...AP

Feds gather vast collection of artifacts dealer

With a shovel, garden rake and a tarp, the artifacts dealer explained while digging how the government valued the damage to ancient burial sites by the cubic inch. By that measure, Vern Crites calculated, he was doing $9,000 worth of damage, according to a secret recording made by a government informant. Crites, a 74-year-old antiquities dealer from Durango, Colo., surrendered his vast collection Wednesday, the second defendant to do so in a sweeping federal investigation of looting and grave-robbing in the Four Corners region. The case peeled open the murky world of American Indian artifacts trafficking. Crites was recorded discussing exploits of digging by moonlight or in camouflage, and tagging items with a code of origin only he could decipher. In June, Crites and his wife were among 25 people arrested in Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. Along with others, the couple has pleaded not guilty. "It's enormously traumatic for them," said Wally Bugden, a Salt Lake City lawyer representing Vern Crites. "He's collected artifacts for 50-plus years, as have many people in the Four Corners area. Whether they were legally obtained or not is obviously the issue." Under indictment for trafficking, theft and grave desecration, Crites agreed to turn over his entire collection without the promise of a plea deal, federal authorities said Wednesday as agents, archaeologists and curators worked into the night to photograph, wrap and box up the artifacts. The government brought in two moving vans to haul them away...AP

U.S. State Department Signs off on Controversial Tar Sands Pipeline

The U.S. State Department approved a controversial pipeline project today that, once built, will carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, into the northern United States. Environmental groups and Native Americans who have been fighting the Alberta Clipper pipeline plan are already preparing a legal challenge. "The State Department has rubber-stamped a project that will mean more air, water and global warming pollution, particularly in the communities near refineries that will process this dirty oil," said Earthjustice attorney Sarah Burt. The pipeline will run from Canada, across northern Minnesota, through the Chippewa National Forest, to Superior, Wis., a Great Lakes port and terminus for other U.S. pipelines bounds for Chicago and elsewhere. The groups planning legal action — Earthjustice, Indigenous Environmental Network, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy and Sierra Club — say the permit decision for the pipeline contradicts Obama's promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to cut the nation's addiction to oil while investing in a clean energy future...SolveClimate

Drop in world temperatures fuels global warming debate

Has Earth's fever broken? Official government measurements show that the world's temperature has cooled a bit since reaching its most recent peak in 1998. That's given global warming skeptics new ammunition to attack the prevailing theory of climate change. The skeptics argue that the current stretch of slightly cooler temperatures means that costly measures to limit carbon dioxide emissions are ill-founded and unnecessary. Proposals to combat global warming are "crazy" and will "destroy more than a million good American jobs and increase the average family's annual energy bill by at least $1,500 a year," the Heartland Institute, a conservative research organization based in Chicago, declared in full-page newspaper ads earlier this summer. "High levels of carbon dioxide actually benefit wildlife and human health," the ads asserted. Many scientists agree, however, that hotter times are ahead. A decade of level or slightly lower temperatures is only a temporary dip to be expected as a result of natural, short-term variations in the enormously complex climate system, they say...McClatchy

Montana grizzly ‘Maximus’ found shot dead

He was one of Montana's greatest grizzlies, a behemoth towering 7 1/2 feet and tipping the scales at more than 800 pounds, "a big, beautiful, wild bear," said Mike Madel, who recently found the mighty "Maximus" shot dead near Dupuyer. Madel is a grizzly bear specialist with the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and he wants to know why this bear was killed. "He wasn't a problem bear in any way," Madel said. "He kept to himself, stayed out of trouble. It seems someone just indiscriminately shot him." Such killings are rare, Madel said, adding that "we almost never see this kind of thing here." The occasional bear is killed in self-defense, he said, or by a hunter who mistakes a grizzer for a black bear. But Maximus steered clear of people, and it's not even bear season...Missoulian

Cougar Terrifying Hikers Shot

A cougar that had been terrifying residents and hikers near Leavenworth was shot and killed over the weekend, according to the state Department of Fish and Wildlife. Craig Bartlett, a spokesman for the department, said a rancher shot the cougar Saturday after he caught it in his pigpen with part of a pig in his mouth. Bartlett said the rancher was within his rights to shoot the cougar because he was protecting his family and his livestock and the cougar was on his property. Fish and Wildlife Services had been trying to track the cougar for months after mountain bikers on the Freund Trail began reporting that the cougar was confronting them and being aggressive. One biker even had to hit the cougar to get away from it. The Forest Service had closed the trail after a hound tracker was unable to locate the cougar, but they were able to reopen the trail Tuesday...KIRO-TV

No end in sight for bear issues

In the 40 minutes that Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) spokesman Randy Hampton spent talking to Aspen police officers after Monday night’s bear attack, he said he heard at least eight more 911 calls about bears come over the officers’ walkie-talkies. That’s par for the course this August, it seems, as Aspen-area bears have broken into a host of homes, countless trash cans and Dumpsters, a television studio and even a fur shop. Despite massive public outreach efforts from the DOW and local law enforcement, as well as ordinances passed in 2007 mandating people bear-proof their trash, the problem persists. And Hampton says his agency is overwhelmed by Aspen. “We are at a point now where we don’t know if anything can be done to alleviate this on the human side,” he said Tuesday. “We are at the end of our rope.”...AspenDailyNews

Contagious Disease Affecting Wild Animals in South Texas

There are a growing number of cases of Sarcoptic Mange being discovered in the wild. It all has to do with a mite that gets under the skin of animals. And in Cuero, world wide attention was called to the Chupacabra.....an animal that had no hair on it's body. Now they are discovering more animals in our hometown countryside with similar conditions. A warning -- the graphic images in this story may be disturbing to some viewers. Called Sarcoptic Mange.......the mite attacks the skin of an animal, causing irritation and in most cases, the fur or hair falls off. The condition is highly contagious, and can spread to not only other animals. It is similar to scabies ......the extremely itchy condition caused by mites. "This condition, it's Admemal mites basically, and it gets underneath the skin. And it does cause total hair loss. Then after the hair is gone, the skin is exposed to UV and begins to wrinkle. Wrinkle on top of wrinkle. And the animal almost gets un-recognizable." says Scott Mitchell, Biologist with the Texas Parks and Wildlife. And although this animal looks like a wild pig, it's actually a raccoon without hair....In addition to wrinkling the skin.......it can cause the animals mouth to fold up toward the teeth. Typically.....wolves.....foxes and coyotes as well as other animals found with the mange are separated from the packs of other animals in the wildlife population...KAVU-TV

The video referred to is available at the link.

Officers swarm home

In the latest drug bust, officers from the Rolla Police Department, Phelps County Sheriff’s Department, South-Central Drug Task Force and the U.S. Forest Service arrested a man suspected of running a meth lab in his home. Thomas E. Bradley was arrested and transported to the Phelps County Jail, where he is being held on a charge of manufacturing a controlled substance, according to RPD Lt. Jason Smith. Bradley, 48, of St. James, was the only person officers found in the home Wednesday. The initial sweep of the house on County Road 1130 by the RPD SWAT team took only a matter of minutes...RollaDailyNews

Remember this the next time the Forest Service says they don't have enough officers to police federal lands. They're too busy "swarming" a private residence on private property.

Grasshopper infestation forces livestock sales

Grasshoppers are eating grass and other forage grown for livestock in such proportions that some U.S. ranchers are selling cattle because they won't have feed for the animals this winter. Mark Tubbs, who ranches in southwest South Dakota and inside the Wyoming border, plans to sell about a third of his cows this fall after putting up a sixth of the hay he usually does. He had been expecting a decent cutting — until the grasshoppers started chomping. "This year we had a good start but they just took it," said Tubbs, 57. "The grasshoppers have taken it down to the dirt. They've eaten everything but the cactus." Much of Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Idaho have the worst infestations of grasshoppers this year, but large populations also have been found in North Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, Utah, Washington, Oregon, California and Arizona, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "It's just off the charts," said Bruce Helbig, state plant health director with the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) in Pierre. In far southwest South Dakota, there are more than 60 grasshoppers per square yard...AP

Closing arguments begin in lost crop lawsuit - BLM & herbicides

After nearly 70 days of testimony, a federal case involving thousands of acres of herbicide-damaged farmland neared an end Wednesday as attorneys gave closing arguments over who was to blame for the damage. More than 100 people packed the courtroom and overflowed into the hallway as the arguments began in Boise's U.S. District Courthouse. The six-year-old case pits more than 130 farmers against the Bureau of Land Management and the maker of the powerful herbicide Oust, E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co. Among the questions posed in the case: Was Oust labeled and promoted correctly by DuPont, did the BLM apply it properly, did the agency know that the application would put nearby crops at risk, and was the federal government negligent when it decided to use the herbicide? In an agriculture-driven state - where many lawmakers are ranchers and farmers, and where some of the most prominent residents rose to power from potato fields - the emotions behind the lawsuit were high. The lawsuit arose after range fires burned across southern Idaho in 1999 and 2000 and federal land managers decided to combat invasive weeds by spreading Oust on scorched public land. But the winds picked up, the powdery herbicide blew across nearby crops, and farmers watched as seasons of work wilted and died...AP

Time attacks ag

If you are in the mood to read a scaremongering article about how our food is produced, then mosey on over to Time magazine and read this diatribe.

It's a lengthy call for people to "radically rethink the way they grow and consume food."

Ranchers indicted on fraud charges

A group of ranchers are accused by federal prosecutors of falsely claiming that more than 500 head of cattle they owned on Bolivar Peninsula were washed away three years ago by Hurricane Rita. In an indictment unsealed Wednesday, the six members of the High Island Cattle Association and another rancher were accused of supporting each others’ claims of cattle losses in affidavits that the U.S. Attorney’s Office said were false. The ranchers sought federal money to cover their losses through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Livestock Indemnity Program. Prosecutors allege the cattle claimed to have been swept into the Gulf of Mexico or to have drowned never existed. None of those indicted actually live on the peninsula...DailyNews