HAT TIPS
Hello,
They call the wind “Maria.” Remember that song? “Oh the wayward wind, is a restless wind.” Now that I have you humming that tune… Dang it, I can’t get it out of my head now.
We try to ranch a little in Harding County. Try being the key word. But you have to admire people that try. Now, Harding County is in the northwest corner of South Dakota. It borders Montana on the west and North Dakota on the north side. Maybe it touches Wyoming too, I’ll leave that for you to look up.
If you watch the weather, oftentimes you will see that Harding County and Buffalo, South Dakota are under a “high wind warning.” I think they just post it and leave it up. If you live there, you don’t really think about it that much. It’s just life. It’s like breathing. You just do it. Without really thinking.
What brought this about is what one of our neighbors recently said. They have a new hired man. And this cowboy came from California. If you’ve seen cowboys from California, Idaho, and pretty much all of the southwest United States, you notice something. They wear big brim hats. I mean really big brim hats. And when roping, many pride themselves on throwing a big loop.
This California cowboy said that he left home with a big hat, but as he worked his way to Harding County, he kept buying hats with a smaller brim!
I’m guessing he’ll be wearing a baseball cap on the days the high wind warnings are out! Because we haven’t had a good blow in awhile.
Which reminds me of an old cowboy saying, “Never hire a man that wears a straw hat or rolls his own cigarettes. Because when he is needed, he is either chasing his hat or rolling a cigarette!”
I’m guessing that there aren’t a lot of people out there that still roll their own smokes. Unless of course, you live in Colorado. But that’s a different story. Used to be you could sell a good horse if you could guarantee that “he’s so smooth you can roll a cigarette while traveling at a trot!” But the west changed as most people started using “tailor mades.”
I don’t smoke. Haven’t in a number of years. But I can still recall how I could admire a guy that could sit on a horse, roll a smoke with one hand, and strike a match on his leg.
“Oh the wayward wind is a restless wind. A restless wind that yearns to wander…”
Later,
Dean