A cowboy’s New Year’s resolution

My friend Jubal is a wise cowboy. He’s spent a great deal of time in the boonies, for a while on his homestead in west central New Mexico and later in various line-cabins on big ranches.

He doesn’t run off at the mouth, as they say, but when he does speak all of us who know him pay attention because we know he has thought about it. These days thinking seems to have become an activity we indulge in only when it’s really quiet where we are and we can’t find anything else to do.

I asked Jubal what he thought of the world situation right now, and whether he had made any New Year’s resolutions. He always fiddles with a piggin string or works on a handmade braided halter while he talks. Says it helps his brain get in gear.

The resolutions he shared with me are…unusual:

“I guess the first thing I’ll plan on doing is try out that deal where you feed the springer heifers just before dark so I can find out for sure if that will give me more calves born in the daytime,” he said. “Supposedly, the cow’s body digests the food before it starts the birthing process.”