G.K. Chesterton was born in Britain in 1874. I’ve found his insights to be helpful in trying to untangle the world around us today. Here is one of my favorites from him: “But there is one thing that I have never from my youth up been able to understand. I have never been able to […]
Damn Mountains
“Those are just damn mountains!” Bill Clements was an old timer 35 years ago when I met him. For him those mountains presented economic hardship. He was right. For the rancher, the logger, the trapper, the cowboy, those mountains make for a lot of work, risk, and expense. If you could take a gigantic flat […]
The Battle: Order vs. Chaos
Let’s face it: we live with a lot of chaos in our present day culture. Some of us have lived with it from birth as a sort of default position regardless of culture. I am one of those. Chaos on the one hand, is like a screaming baby that demands attention and wants his way […]
Two Extra Pancakes
It was the summer of 1983 while working in a saddle shop in Bozeman, Montana where I met a fellow by the name of Harry Cosner. Harry was living in Challis, Idaho at the time and working for a molybdenum mining company there. He told me of a little saddle shop in Salmon, Idaho (about […]
Protected: Cliff Wade Saddle Order 1937
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Protected: The Rope Bag
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Lucky
In September 1981 I rode into the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness on a horse named Lucky. I’d hired onto an an outfit whose area had familiar names to me: Magruder, Paradise, White Cap Creek, Cooper’s Flat, Paloma Creek. My dad had spoken often about these places, about the men, the mountains, mules and elk. And now […]
Stitches
HIGH NOON SHOW, PHOENIX, ARIZONA, A FEW YEARS AGO … The dealer had a saddle for sale that may have been 80 years old. It was a cowboy rig, plain, unmarked, and well worn. The one thing I remember most about this nondescript saddle was the stitching. It was sewn with linen thread at ten […]
TCAA 2017
I’m headed off in the morning to meet up with a great group of cowboy craftsmen/artists who bring their A game every year to the show in Oklahoma City. I’ll also be meeting up with this saddle. This saddle was designed and built in honor of all the brave, horseback women who get it done […]
Ray Holes Saddle Butter
When I worked in a saddle shop in Bozeman, Montana (1983), I became acquainted with a boot/shoe repairman by the name of Howard Pfaff. He loaned me his mare for a team roping that summer, but the thing I remember most about knowing him was something he said. He sold boots as well as having […]
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