Wordless Wednesday: A Glimpse of Heaven

Gorgeous Kansas sunset astride Rooster

Cancer and Ode to a Cowboy

Some of you may have noticed a Facebook status I posted in late July about cancer and Alzheimer's needing to leave my family the hell alone. Alzheimer's has and continues to take a toll on the Frobose, Buzzard and Baker branches of my family and I don't know many people out there that cancer hasn't touched in some way.

Without delving into too much detail, because I am honestly not fond of sharing intimate minutia of my personal life with the interwebs [or anyone for that matter], my cousin Marty Buzzard quietly lost his long battle with cancer on July 31. I felt, and still feel, like someone jacked me in the aorta with a ton of bricks.

Marty, rest his blessed soul, was a quiet cowboy, however the few words he did offer were heavy with meaning, ultimately consistent with the rest of the Buzzard men. He loved his family and roping, playing basketball and causing a little bit of mischief along the way- an unexpected quality thanks in large part to his calm and reserved demeanor.

A kind and adept horseman, Marty always rode well-broke horses and valued behavior and skill over flash or style. Marty broke colts and rode outside horses for years with unmatched finesse, skill and patience, training his own horses and selling them after he made them into equines of worth. Rare in a multitude of fashions, he was a left-handed heeler and I never tired of watching him deliver a loop. As with all roping, heeling is an art and left-handed heeling is art in motion.

Marty had a horse named Rooster, a champagne amber gelding, who is by our stud Take Care O' Neall [you'll drool]. I liken Rooster and Marty to Doc and I and when Marty was in the later stages of his disease, my father took care of Rooster for long stretches of time so that the horse would remain in capable hands and not be sold during the mires of terminal illness.

You can imagine the shock I felt when I received a phone call from Podge a few weeks ago informing me that I had been given the ultimate gift; Rooster's torch had been handed off to me. The gamut of emotions I've experienced during the past few weeks has been jarring - I'm reeling from the shock of receiving such a special gift, humbled by the trust my cousin, father and grandfather have put in me to take care of Rooster and excitement at owning a son of our stud. Of course, he's not really mine, I'm just watching over him until he meets up with Marty again. However, until that fateful day arrives, I'm going to cherish the runs I'll make and the calves I'll capture on the gorgeous, well-bred, inestimable gelding.


Rooster the rodeo horse with Rooster the rodeo dog making a cameo

 

I'm certain I've never felt more of a higher calling to give an animal supreme care than this very instance and I know that Marty will never be far away.

Until next time,
~ Buzzard ~

Wordless Wednesday: I'm Not Bilingual and Little Cowboys Are Cute

Uno, dos, tres - I can't count to 56 in Spanish.

 

Little cowpokes stickhorse race at a memorial team roping

Wordless Wednesday: Checking Cattle and a Video!

The feed rig we use- we didn't have to ride this pasture to count heifers, because they all run to the bunk and we can do it there! The cattle really like the feed mix that we give them - it's stored in the white box on the back of the truck.

Those storm clouds were moving pretty quickly.

We tried awful hard to gather and count all 83 head in this pasture before it started pouring but were unsuccessful - we got soaked from rain that flew in sideways and sometimes rain seemed to come straight up from underneath.

Isn't he just adorable? Rooster is growing up - he's losing his baby teeth and weighs about 55 pounds!

 

I wish I could post Instagram videos on my blog because the one I shot and edited on Sunday would win an award at the Sundance Film Festival. Seriously. If anyone knows how to put Istavideos on a blog, please let me know! If you want to check out the cinematic masterpiece, follow me on Instagram @brandibuzzard.

 

Until next time,

~ Buzzard ~

All Things Encompassed

This post will boast of all my favorite things in life. Whoopa

This is what I did this weekend...

No, I'm not a big fan of running the chutes but Podge only has one useful wing right now due to shoulder surgery so I popped the gate for 7 hours to be helpful. and got sunburned. On a happier note, rode Friday/HB and she didn't buck and she also got two new pairs of shoes. Such a well-dressed lady.

And watched this guy coach the Cats to a 7-0 start and a #3 BCS ranking - I don't want to brag, but I've already put in my ticket request for the 'Ship. Snyder for President!

Also, this guy is unstoppable. He's gonna get the Heisman and be the first Wildcat ever to earn one. And the best part is that he doesn't do it for himself - he does it for Bill, Wildcat Nation and the K-State family.

Collin: "It's ok Geno - Oklahoma didn't think we'd win either. You should call Landry Jones and see if he has time for you to cry in each others beers."

It was a great weekend, as usual, to be a Wildcat. We've got Tech this weekend, at home - should be a good game.

What did you do this weekend?

Until next time,

~ Buzzard ~

p.s. I've got another giveaway in the making - stay tuned on Wednesday for the details!

No Cowboys without Kansas

I was born in raised in Colony, Kansas and if I have my say, I'll be buried in Anderson County Kansas. I'm exceptionally proud of my home, The Wheat State, and love coming across headlines that praise my great state. I love it even more when my rodeo and Western background are highlighted, which is exactly what I found in this article by Becky Tanner of the Wichita Eagle.

I've posted the whole article below -- I smiled most of the time I read it -- like I said, I'm very proud to be a cowgirl from Kansas :) I've highlighted my favorite parts below. Please, please, please read the whole thing, it's fantastic. Even if you're not from Kansas, it'll make any Westerner, cowboy or cowgirl puff up with pride.

Ideal of the Cowboy Lives on in Kansas

Becky Tanner

“The typical cowboy. . . . . . is a bad man to handle. Armed to the teeth, well mounted, and full of their favorite beverage, the cowboys will dash through the principal streets of a town, yelling. . . . This they call 'cleaning out a town.' " — Kansas newspaper, 1882

But Kansas gave the Old West everything iconic that westerners hold dear: The boot. The hat. The cowgirl.

The Marlboro Man, Matt Dillon, Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Buffalo Bill, Billy the Kid.

Lee jeans. Sheplers. And songs.

But while the evolution of the West began from Kansas, it seldom draws the recognition of other states. “The challenge for Kansas is that we are not the only western state out there,” said Jay Price director of the public history program at Wichita State University.

“Texas can be western, New Mexico is western, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming and Colorado — all these places claim to be western and in some ways pull it off better than we can and are certainly able to market it more,” Price said. “We are simply not the only jeans in town when it comes to being western.”

Perhaps, after nearly a century and a half, the Old West has become a state of mind.

“Anymore, Kansas seems to be like a border state. When people think of the Old West they think farther west,” said David Flask, director of Old Cowtown Museum in Wichita.

But, Flask said, there are people out there who know Kansas was the cradle of the Old West. “The international tourist knows exactly where we fit,” Flask said. “They are big Old West fans and have done their research and know we are the Old West.”

Kansans? Not so much.

“The biggest population that we have the hardest time convincing is the people who live here,” he said. “For a long time, if you were western, it meant you were backward. The goal was to promote us as a big, modern place with airplanes as opposed to capitalizing on our history.”

Talk with enough rural Kansans, though, and chances are the Old West still resonates.

Jim Hoy, director of the Center for Great Plains Studies at Emporia State University, remembers the shock he had the first time he gazed at a map of the Old West and Kansas wasn’t included.

“They’d just wiped us out,” he said. Blame Hollywood. Blame marketing campaigns.

Think about all the old westerns: Dodge City’s Matt Dillon in “Gunsmoke” rode with mountains as his backdrop; Kevin Costner’s “Dances With Wolves” had Kansas fort names, and even the lead character, Lt. John Dunbar, was a real Kansan, but the movie was filmed in the Dakotas.
And, the Marlboro Man — Wayne Dunafon, from a ranch in northeast Kansas near Wamego and Westmoreland — became an American icon from 1964 to 1978 when he wore a long shearling duster, chaps and a Stetson hat.

“Those icons of the West wouldn’t be without Kansas,” Hoy said. “There wouldn’t be the cowboy, the boot or the hat. The cowboy was born on the dusty Chisholm Trail.”

The world is plenty full of faux and wannabe cowboys. The 1950s and 1960s brought with them TV shows such as “Gunsmoke,” “Bat Masterson” and “Wyatt Earp.” The 1970s brought in the “Urban Cowboy” look. For some Kansans in their 50s and 60s, that look took a permanent hold, Hoy said.

“There are pockets out there, like in Arizona and Utah, where every CPA and dentist wears a cowboy hat and boots but has never been close to a cow,” Hoy said. “But the Flint Hills, Smoky Hills and western cowboys of Kansas don’t make a splash.

“They are the real thing.”

Making legends
Perhaps no other figure in American history is as romanticized as the cowboy. Hero. Loner.

He and his trusty horse traversed a handful of trails from Texas to the Kansas prairies with cantankerous Longhorn cattle.

It wasn’t until after the Civil War that the East Coast in particular was demanding quality beef. With the advent of railroads, supplying it became easier.

In Kansas, the heyday of the long cattle drives was from the late 1860s to 1887. The first cattle traversed the Chisholm Trail into Kansas in 1867.

The cowtowns that developed — Abilene, Wichita, Caldwell, Newton, Ellsworth and Dodge City — had rough and rowdy reputations.

In these towns, men such as Bat Masterson, Jack Ledford, Mike and John Meagher and Wyatt Earp developed their reputations as gunmen.

But on the prairies, cowboys lived and breathed. They still do.

The cowboy way
Look almost anywhere in Kansas and the American cowboy is alive and well.

They wear the clothes. Their faces and necks are tanned and weathered, their hands callused and rough. They may hang out at livestock auctions, the local co-op, Tractor Supply and Orscheln, but more likely than not they are just out there doing their jobs.

John Schmidt of Pawnee Rock was 5 years old when he broke his first horse. “He was a colt. I was messing around with him, sitting on him, rode him in the creek without a bridle,” said Schmidt, now 57. “My folks saw that and decided it was time to break the horse. They brought out a cowboy. He saddled him up and rode him and said ‘this horse is already broke.”

When he was a kid, Schmidt outgrew plenty of cowboy hats and boots. Five decades later, his wardrobe hasn’t changed much. He wears the hat, the chaps, the spurs and boots with cow manure on the toes and heels. He drives a pickup truck whose front seat is so littered with the tools and medicines he needs to doctor cattle that no other human can fit in.

More often than not that mud-splattered pickup has a livestock trailer connected to it and his favorite horse, J Bar, saddled, waiting inside.

Schmidt farms, but his preference is being a cowboy.

“It’s just freedom,” he said. “People talk about when you are on the back of a Harley going out and riding as freedom; but for me, freedom comes when you are on the back of your horse and checking cattle. It’s early morning and the grass is still damp. It gives you a peace of mind. It’s a way of life.”

Any cowboy knows, there are different breeds of cowboys. There are feedyard cowboys — and cowboys that still ride the open range and are rodeo champions in their spare time.

Rodeo champion
By the time he was 6, Randy Peterson was herding cattle from the back of his horse. His daughter started going with him when she was 3.
He’s a third-generation Flint Hills cowboy. He runs several thousand cattle on the Buck Creek Ranch near Cottonwood Falls. This year, Peterson is once again vying to be the world champion in Ranch Rodeo events. His team has qualified the last eight years in a row.

Being a cowboy is what he knows. “That was just what we did,” said Peterson, 45. “The thing about it is you learn to be somebody who is going to get the job done with whatever it takes to do it. When we go doctor a calf, you don’t leave until it is doctored. I’ve seen some people go out and the calves will start running off — and they don’t get them. We’re not like that.

“There’s not enough hours in the day,” he said. “I always see these people who live in town, who always seem to got a lot more money than I do. They go to work at 8 and get off at 6. And we are always working from dark to dark. I never did think that part was very fair, but that’s life.”

On Thursday morning when rain clouds swept over parts of Kansas, Peterson was out moving hay. He was wearing wet clothes as he talked into his cellphone. He’d stayed up late the night before baling. His jeans, boots and hat were all drenched.

“I did take my spurs off to haul the hay,” he said. He got the job done.

Singing cowboy
What would the Old West be without music — without Roy Rogers, the Sons of the Pioneers and Gene Autry?

“Tennessee” Jim Farrell grew up in Tennessee, but moved to Kansas. He owns his own recording studio and is the harmony vocalist and rhythm guitarist for the Diamond W Wranglers.
He says the mystique and work ethic of the American cowboy started in the 1860s on the cattle trails to Kansas.

The cowboy way, Farrell said, was and still is all about integrity, doing your job and staying independent.

“It’s about doing the right thing when no one is looking, knowing what you are supposed to be doing and sacrificing your time, desires and goals to make it happen,” Farrell said. “The true cowboy code has to be that way or nothing would have gotten done.”

When the first cowboys traversed the trails, Farrell said, those virtues were quickly branded into their mindset.

“A lot of these kids had never been away from mom. Dad may have been killed in the (Civil) War and the boys had to be the breadwinners,” Farrell said.

“They saw that if you worked hard, you could be successful and you could make $50 to $75 when $200 would buy you a house and land. One of the things that freed the cowboy was that he could be on his own, away from society and still be okay.”

When he was growing up, Farrell said, he was drawn to the cowboy way first by its music, and then by its simple, philosophical code of conduct.

Every day he wears the clothes, hat and boots of a cowboy. He believes in the cowboy philosophy and way of life.

“The cowboy way is like a force of nature,” he said. “If you have integrity and do the right thing, treat people well and take care of your job to the best of your ability, then that is what I think the cowboy is still admired for.”

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To me, being a Kansas cowgirl means being independent, determined and tough through hard times. Rodeo is a time honored tradition; one thats roots run deep and are based upon true American values like hard work, integrity, camaraderie and honesty. It is absolutely a way of life.

What does being a cowboy/cowgirl mean to you? What are some of the things you think of when you hear the word 'cowboy'?

Until next time,
~ Buzzard~

image from here