"Blood sister to these fields..."

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Janice here for Cowboy John:

One of the fun parts of the Gathering each year is browsing new books. One I’m reading now, Sharing Fencelines is a journal of ranch life in the remote Nevada desert.

Carolyn Dufurrena, Linda Hussa, and Sophie Sheppard, ranch in Nevada-California’s shared corner. Desert, many years dry, some years in flood, always open and lonely. I’ve just finished Dufurrena’s portion.

These women live in a largely male world, yet their lives, and the lives of their men folk, too, are infused with intimacy of the earth that comes from years working the ground.

The price is hours on horseback, following cattle, in all weather. Dufurrena’s husband’s directions:

“Follow too close and she’ll turn around and fight you…If you’re riding flank, stay way away off to the side once they’re lined out…See where you’re going; figure out how to get there…Look. Think. Wait…”

Driving cattle demands an intimate knowing of their ways, a closeness garnered through years of exposure.

I felt Dufurrena’s embarrassment at being at the bottom of the learning curve, not having instinct infused when she was young, raised to horseback and empty horizons. She’s a “city” girl.

As much as I love being close to the earth I’m afraid I don’t have this kind of intimacy. I’d be embarrassed seeing obvious evidence of my "green-hornedness."

I envy this intimate knowing of the land. Riding its canyons and dusty valleys and turning the brown earth for seed, Hussa can say she’s a “Blood sister to these fields.”

You’d better read the book. It’s a sensitive inside-look at life close to the land. I’m still trying to put my finger on why the Cowboy Poetry Gathering exerts such a pull on the psyche of modern folks.



There’s the start of an answer in this book, I think.

Janice

PS: We can show you open country like the country Dufurrena, Hussa, and Sheppard make their home.
Open vistas you can't see the end of.
Check out the web site: cowboyjohntours.com