So, we’re living in our new house in the city, my son and I. The cowboy came up from the ranch last weekend to help do things like install the gas dryer, teaching my son as he went. Yesterday, two days after the cowboy left the city to go back to the ranch, my kid [...]
Letting the Stronger Person Lead
May 22, 2012 4 Comments
One of the many things I discuss at length in my forthcoming memoir (LEARNING TO SUBMIT, out January 3, 2013 from Gotham Books) is how I learned to trust the cowboy to be in charge — and bit by bit, let him. Few things in my life have been as liberating to my spirit as [...]
On Leading Cows, Cowboys, and Marriage
May 14, 2012 21 Comments
Okay. So I tried to understand what the cowboy was telling me about “leading” cows as opposed to “pushing” them…his symbolic way of trying to give me advice about how best to approach independent cowboys like him when you want them to do something like, oh I don’t know, marry you. Here’s an email he [...]
Victories & Commitment
April 27, 2012 2 Comments
Amazing. One day after I posted about the Dept. of Labor’s bill seeking to ban children from participating in work on farms and ranches, the department announced it had withdrawn the bill and would not reintroduce it. I’m glad Labor Secretary Hilda Solis heard the outcry from rural families about how damaging such a law [...]
Should Rural Kids Be Allowed to Work on Farms & Ranches?
April 25, 2012 98 Comments
A year ago, if you’d asked me whether the U.S. Dept. of Labor should regulate child labor on farms and ranches, I would have stood up, done a big ole fist pump, and shouted “Heck yes! Go git ‘em!” Visions of Dickensian exploitation would have swirled in my head. But that was before this (formerly) [...]
20 Things I’ve Never Heard a Cowboy Say
April 5, 2012 21 Comments
1. I think I’ll sleep in today. 2. Give me the skinny latte. 3. Where’s the nearest sushi bar? 4. You know, beans and rice together are a perfect protein. 5. Do these Wranglers make me look fat? 6. Ew, poop. 7. I need an umbrella. 8. That poor bull. 9. I prefer Toyotas myself. [...]
7 Tips For Catching and Keeping a Cowboy
April 4, 2012 22 Comments
So you think you might have a thing for cowboys, huh? Yeah, me too. Well, one cowboy anyway. My first cowboy. And with any luck, my last. As a city girl new to the whole cowboy culture, I’ve had to learn a lot, and fast, in this whirlwind year of getting to know the type. [...]
Learning Ranch Life The Hard Way
April 2, 2012 2 Comments
Early in our relationship, I visited the cowboy at the ranch. He took me out on the four-wheeler, to run the Catahoulas. At some point, we came upon a wild Longhorn bull. The bull belonged to the neighboring ranch, but because the older man who owned that place had sort of given up on taking [...]
The cowboy stands up for a cull sow
April 2, 2012 1 Comment
This long transcript of an actual conversation with the cowboy comes from my forthcoming memoir. It occurs during a chapter where I describe how surprised I was by him, by his compassion and empathy, by his intellect. I’d been very prejudiced against his “type” before actually meeting one and getting to know him. I’ll let [...]
3 Things I’ve Been Wrong About Lately
1. It was wrong to think I could put a “fun little post” on this blog about how SOME things were better in “the old days”. I should have known it would be difficult for SOME people to read the word SOME and take it to mean, well, SOME. I should have known that if [...]