Texas Bix Bender - Dont Squat With Your Spurs On, Volume No. 2: A Cowboys Guide to Life

Never do dirt to man nor animal. If you find youre drinking most of your entertainment out of a can, its time to look for your fun elsewhere. A strangers business aint yours. The good thing about cowboying is that any boss will gladly give you eighteen hours to do your days work. When cattle die standing up, its hard times. Avoid flasharity, foofaraw, and fumadiddle in dress, speech, and conduct.

Leave the peacocking to the peacocks. You wanta be careful that a freshly branded calf aint suckin at the wrong cow. We might not be so bad off if we had a little less of everything. Theres no use for a man who owns a dog to do the barking himself. The best way to set a record is to be a good ways off from any tape measures, scales, or witnesses. If your job is to shovel, and all you can see ahead is dirt, its time to change jobs.

A good pard will ride with you till hell freezes overand a little while on the ice. Before you let anybody measure you for the big wooden overcoat, make sure youve wrung all the life out of your livin. In the mounting of a horse, the right side is the wrong side, and the left side is the right side. Your backside is the broadside, and thats the side you sit on. Some waddies take a little time to work it up and spit it out. Give it to em.

Life aint so short that you cant take the time to hear a man out. A mixed herd of both sexes and all ages is the easiest kind to manage. You will find it is always easier to walk if there is a horse between your legs. Given the right dose of prickly pear, any nag will buck. A Texas breakfast is a twopound hunk of steak, a quart of whisky, and a hound dog. If youre wondering why you need the dogwell, somebody has to eat the steak.

If youve got a voice like a burro with a bad coldthe kind that makes a coyote cringedont risk singin to the herd. When youre in the wrong and you need to set it right, how far you have traveled in the doin of it has nothing to do with the rightin of it. A cowboy wears his bandana for the same reason he wears his pants: He aint decent without it. If youre itchin to have somethin, youd better be ready to scratch for it. You cannot improve somebodys part by combing their head with a sixshooter. Anytime you find a little shade, take it.

If you own it and run it and have cattle on iteven if you owe the moon on itits yours and youre a cattleman. Thats what folks will call you. They may call you a good one or a bad one, but theyll call you a cattleman. This aint the same old range. When you get bucked off, the easiest way to explain it is to say you dropped your hat and got off in a hurry to get it. If you lead somebody around by the nose, it dont say much for them.

It says even less for you. Its the work, not the clock, that tells you when its quittin time. Most bonanzas are just holes in the ground owned by big bullshitters. If a cowboy drops by around dinnertime, its okay to say, What the hell do you want? But you still have to invite him in for dinner. Building and fixing fences wouldnt be so bad if you didnt have to get off your horse to do em. You cant weigh the facts if youve got the scales loaded down with your opinions.

See the heavens, smell the air, taste the dust and the alkali, hear the wind and the wild, feel the motion of your horse.... On a good day, thats all you need. On a bad day, thats all you need. If you want to liven up a conversation, just say the right thing the wrong way. Cattle guards are grates in the road that keep cattle from crossing. They are not women with whistles and stop signs who help the cattle safely cross the road.

When its your butt thats about to go flyin, try to have more common sense than pride. Go ahead and choke the horn and claw the leather. A few sweet words and a little bit of kindness can coax the hottest iron outta the fire. Its hard to keep a secret around the campfire after a hearty meal of pinto whistleberries. Dont make a long story short just so you can tell another one. If youre wonderin what this ol world is comin to, youre in the same shoes as your daddy, your daddys daddy, and every other daddy thats come down the trail.

When you forgive and forget, forget that you forgave while youre at it. If youre ridin a high horse, there aint no way to get down off it gracefully. However onesided a man may be, he will have other sides if you look hard enough. The best way to knock a chip off a shoulder is with a friendly pat on the back. Work less at worrying and more at working. A little mud on the carpet from the boots of honest, working cowboys is a lot better than a slicksoled bandbox sitting in a parlor chair.

Advice is like a pot of chili: You should try a little of it yourself before you give anybody else a taste. If you aint pullin your weight, youre pushin your luck. A hand thats not there when you need it is kinda like a blister it only shows up when the works all done. Sorry looks back. Worry looks around. Faith looks up.

If the job you did speaks for itself, dont interrupt. Doin things the smart way doesnt cost half as much as doing em the stupid way. Nothin keeps you honest more than witnesses. Sometimes courage takes no more than sittin down, suckin it in, and listenin. Theres a high cost to low living. You can always find free cheese in a mousetrap.

Cowboying would be a lot more pleasant if Noah had taken the time to swat a couple of mosquitoes on his ark. Never be too quick to criticize yourself. Its not fair to all your friends and relatives who are dying to do it for you. A week spent around a campfire will tell you more about a man than a decade spent living next door to him. Just because some yahoo puts Tabasco in your oatmeal dont mean you gotta eat it. The purest metal comes out of the greatest heat.

Going faster when youre lost wont help a bit. If youre carrying a big roll, dress down, not up. Never bluff when youre dealing with a woman. If you have to count your chickens before theyre hatched, keep it to yourself. Nobody gives a damn how many chickens youre gonna have. If you are careless by nature, you have to learn to be careful as a necessity.

Soft grub, feather beds, and easy livin can lead to a sold saddle. Youre not being diplomatic just because you put please in front of shut the hell up! When you cant find somethin, either its lost or you are. Sometimes it takes a lot more thinking to deal with changes than to make them. You dont have to step in a cow pie to know what shit smells like. If you meet up with an alligator and hes as scared as you are, the water wont be fit to drink. There are rules to horse ridin, but the horse wont necessarily know them.

Look out usually means dont lookduck! If somebody says you ride like youre part of the horse, you might wanta ask which part theyre talking about. You generally learn the value of money from a lack of it. Theres no better friend than a horse thats saddled and ready to go. Its easy to see things youre lookin for. The trick is to see things youre not lookin for. When a running horse gets to the edge of a cliff, its way too late to say whoa.