What was your New Year’s resolution last year? You can’t remember, can you. Or if you do you are one in a million, or else you have an eidetic memory, like Sheldon on Big Bang Theory. I remember one year, long ago, I resolved to give up cussing. My wife told a family friend about it, who commented, “What a shame! He had so much promise! ”

Well, with this new year, another chance is offered, to kind of start over. I guess I’ll have to come up with something. I heard one wit say he’d resolved to quit throwing phonograph records at whales. Must’ve been a while back, since CDs have near about replaced vinyl. To say nothing of the short supply of whales. I asked him why, and he said, “Well, I have systematically failed at everything else, so I thought I would set up for success! ”

I considered doing less, and doing it better. But, I am married with children and grandchildren and three jobs, so you know how that’s going to end. What I am probably going to have to do, is to resolve to live in the moment. I’ll drive when I’m driving, so I don’t have a wreck, and I’ll cook when I’m cooking, so I don’t burn the biscuits, and I’ll ride when I’m riding, so I don’t get bucked off… Oh my God what’s that smell… Damn, the biscuits are burning!

I always wanted to be a pick up man. You know, those guys at the rodeo who help the rough stock riders escape from the bucking horses and bulls. The ones, that is, who didn’t fly off and face plant in the arena dirt! Those men are the ones who never have a name but who ride athletic talented horses, and deftly go in next to flailing hooves, and flapping stirrups, or hooking horns, to rescue cowboys, and strip off bucking straps. Then they usher the broncs and bulls out of the arena. Yeah, them. When I was trying to become a teenage calf roper, I admired the professional, cool skill of those guys. I guess I still want to be a pick up man when I grow up. If I grow up. (Growing old is unavoidable, growing up is optional!) I guess being a doctor and operating a ranch will have to do. I still help people and animals, and get to ride horses. Not long ago Western Horseman magazine ran an article about rodeo pick up men. I was fascinated by their connection with their horses, and the number of skills they have mastered. But mostly I was impressed by their motivation. All of them expressed a similar desire to help. They felt the connection with people, the ones they helped, the ones they met and got to know, and the ones they worked with and mentored. they considered that connection the most important part of their job. It was mostly about something called brotherly love. Seems we all could use a helping of that! 

Madison Avenue’s advertising geniuses would have us consuming more fried fast foods and sweet soft drinks, but in ranch country there’s an American conspiracy to grow our own food, eat wild critters, and consume fewer carbohydrates. (Unless you include biscuits and gravy. Oh well.) Also, we get a lot of exercise, especially the ranchers who use horses. There are a staggering number of ways we can burn calories working with horses. From hauling hay, hauling feed sacks, and shoveling stalls, to backing horse trailers and driving tractors with front end loaders. We work both body and mind. Add to that walking behind a colt on long lines in deep sand for an hour, riding at a rising trot for fifteen minutes, and loping circles in search of that perfect, cadenced, collected, slow canter. And that’s just a normal morning’s work around here.

I’ll admit horse ownership is expensive. Other activities can be too. Sporting equipment, event tickets, clothing with names stitched on pockets, large television screens and fancy vehicles can draw down a bank account. On the other hand ownership of land and horses, feed, tack and saddles can indeed add up. But “you gets what you pays for.” Horsemen get to work outdoors, lots of healthy exercise, and you have the opportunity to stimulate “the little gray cells” while you try to solve problems involved with attempting to coerce another thinking being of another species and language into doing your bidding. This, in the view of the “being” in question, having its own agenda. You get the chance to learn patience.You can study books, videos, and clinics to increase your knowledge. Finally, you add in love and caring. Yep, in this age of infernal combustion engines for transportation, ol’ Equus Caballus still has a place in our lives!