Real Cowboys RULE!

Cowboy rules for: Texas, Arizona, New Mexico,

Colorado, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Montana,

Utah, Idaho, Nevada... and the rest of the

Wild West are as follows:

1. Pull your pants up. You look like an idiot.

2. Turn your cap right, your head ain't crooked.

3. Let's get this straight: it's called a 'gravel road.'

I drive a pickup truck because I want to. No matter

how slow you drive, you're gonna get dust on your

Lexus. Drive it or get out of the way.

4. They are cattle. That's why they smell like cattle.

They smell like money to us. Get over it. Don't like it?

I-10, I-40, I-70 and I-80 go east and west, I-17, I-15,

I-25 and I-35 goes north and south. Pick one and go.

5. So you have a $60,000 car. We're impressed. We

have $300,000 Combines that are driven 3 weeks a year.

6. Every person in the Wild West waves. It's called

being friendly. Try to understand the concept...

7. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of

geese/pheasants/ducks/doves are comin' in during

the hunts, we WILL shoot it outa your hand. You

better hope you don't have it up to your ear at the time.

8. Yeah. We eat trout, salmon, deer and elk. You really

want sushi and caviar? It's available at the corner bait shop.

9. The 'Opener' refers to the first day of deer season.

It's a religious holiday held the closest Saturday to the

first of November.

10. We open doors for women. That's applied to all

women, regardless of age.

11. No, there's no 'vegetarian special' on the menu. Order

steak, or you can order the Chef's Salad and pick off the 2

pounds of ham and turkey.

12. When we fill out a table, there are three main dishes:

meats, vegetables, and breads. We use three spices: salt,

pepper, and ketchup! Oh, yeah . . We don't care what you

folks in Cincinnati call that stuff you eat....

IT AIN'T REAL CHILI !!

13. You bring 'Coke' into my house, it better be brown,

wet and served over ice. You bring 'Mary Jane' into my

house, she better be cute, know how to shoot, drive a

truck, and have long hair.

14. College and High School Football is more important

here than the Giants, the Yankees, the Mets, the Lakers

and the Knicks, and a dang site more fun to watch.

15. Yeah, we have golf courses. But don't hit the water

hazards - it spooks the fish.

16. Turn down that blasted car stereo! That thumpity-thump

crap ain't music, anyway. We don't want to hear it anymore

than we want to see your drawers! Refer back to #1!

A true Westerner will send this to at least 10 others and a

few new friends that probably won't get it, but we're friendly

so we share in hopes you can begin to understand what a

real life is all about!!! A Western Woman will plant it on a blog

for the world to see, and won't care whether you're western

enough to understand it or not.

Butte Creek

Don't let this dry creek bed fool you, during the rainy season (which is any day in which the clouds build up across the eastern prairie) this pleasant sandy haven for rattle snakes can become a raging river at flood stage carrying rattle snakes and debris toward the Two Buttes Reservoir.

In his book Rivers of Wind, Gary Penley talks about flooding along the creeks in southeastern Colorado, sharing the picture of a small boy held tight by his mother and grandfather as they escaped the raging flood waters up the base of a rocky cliff as their home washed away.

Cottonwoods grow in the basin of the river, the only place they can gather enough water to keep their leaves green through the year. In high water, many of them break off and become part of the rushing debris.

Two Buttes Mountain

Not nearly as far away as the mountain appears, this illussionary mountain rises from the prairie in a long slope to twin peaks, most often referred to as Two Buttes Mountain. This prairie, mostly never plowed feeds cattle and spreads as far as the eye can see. The eastern horizon may be as far as 40 miles from the standing point of this photo taken midway between Lamar and Springfield.

Emick Wind Farms

These magnificent sentinels stand along the drive to Emick Ranch toward the west.