How live the real American cowboys today
Wide-brimmed hat, a glass of whiskey in his hand, swearing hoarsely, shooting from the hip and frenzied horse riding in the desert. This image of a cowboy draws for us popular culture. We also describe how modern cowboys live in reality.
“Yeah, they just mummers Slickers” – these words speak of his “colleagues” from the southern states smiling and friendly people in wide-brimmed hats, camped for the night somewhere in the middle of picturesque and slightly weird expanses of the American state of Montana in the herd. If you do not pay attention to cowboy hats, boots and buckles on belts, they bear little resemblance to the rodeo fans swearing and shooting from the hip from some of Texas. Such modern cowboys they put it mildly, dislike, find them dude who turned cowboy culture in kitschy glamor pathetic caricature of itself. They – a modern cowboys from northern states, muzhichina and women who consider themselves as bearers of tradition is the Wild West of the shepherds of the nineteenth century.
In everyday life the current cowboy – quite an ordinary farmer Diluting pets, mainly horses on his ranch expanses. A Montana – it is quite trivial American heartland, not outstanding in itself nothing remarkable. Grazing herds, shepherds small houses or simply broken on a picturesque landscape tent shifts of two cowboys, changing every few days – the quiet days and starry nights in the midst of wilderness. Drive comes only when will overtake herds between seasonal pastures.
Once the Cowboys earned the lion’s share of their money is on the transhumance. After stage – this is a serious test of skills and abilities of the Shepherds (it will not show with lasso or rodeo, for which Montana cowboys do not like demonstrations urban dudes in the southern states!). Horse flow is in non-stop mode. Drovers change horses under his seat almost on the fly. In order to quickly throw a harness, you need skill as the mechanics of the “Formula 1”. But manage avalanche stream in three or four hundred horses even harder. Leader is the most experienced ferry pilots, its price error – in thousands of hooves hammering behind. Peregonschiki rest are on the sides of the herd, constantly changing places. They ensure that the system was not scattered horses, filed sideways return to the stream using the lasso, which for greater efficiency previously frozen until the ice crust. A few cowboys herd followed behind, urging stragglers horses.
Herd driven directly by the shortest route, often in contact with modern civilization closely, sometimes even invading her, and driven along the railroad tracks, and even on the streets of small towns, where vehicular traffic is blocked, and people gather along the streets to look at the rushing stream horses . And if the sight of onlookers absolutely safe, something about themselves cowboys is to say that distilled for them – very extreme occupation. After a maximum of protective equipment in a cowboy – is familiar to us from movies wide pants that actually – Cases of skin protection against high thorny thickets. From injury when falling at high speed, they will not be saved. But injuries, including serious fractures occur during the movement of the herd between pastures often. Often, the Cowboys lose even falls due course, but after recovery still back in the saddle.
Herds are trying to overtake quickly. Driving takes a break only for the night, which for all its length is approximately three to four. Overnight camp is broken. Each tent – candle, quickly warming the air, because in April, when traditionally change pastures in these places at night the temperature drops to zero. Bonfires, preparing dinner (eat cowboys mostly canned hunting during long haul they have not foraged). And the night begins romance spans. Campfire – informal, very easy to communicate tired people stories about the legendary cowboys of old times, singing to the sound of violins and guitars with traditional ballads rollcall couplets (here it is, a true American bluegrass). However, it goes on all the not too long – tomorrow will be another day haul – but it’s enough time to feel the real cowboys of the Wild West.
Adjustments to the cowboy life makes urbanization. Young people from Montana, not wanting to engage in animal husbandry, prefers to move to the west or east coast, where life is boiling, and not slowly stretches between the hills and pastures, interspersed only occasionally dashing distillation. A place occupied by emigrants keen enthusiasts of large cities – those who can be called daunshiftera. For successful management of financial or example, IT-sphere horses grazing in the vast Montana became a hobby and recreation, which allows and restore emotional balance, and learn things that are gradually forgotten in today’s society, and even energize your adrenaline.
Unfortunately, not coping with competition from larger farms, ranchers Montana and neighboring Wyoming and Idaho, slowly but surely sell their herds. Livestock in the classical traditions of the Wild West brings them downright ridiculous profits to be a real cowboy today simply unprofitable. It is difficult, of course, to say that wild and desperate beautiful expanses of Montana extinguished fire last forever in a collapsible camp when the streets sweep last distilled from pasture to pasture herd, the last time bryaknet cowboy harness and horseshoe on the hoof horse. Maybe soon, maybe never did. But if this does happen, then nothing will be to remind us that a real cowboy – it’s not elegant whiskey napivshiysya snapper, shooting from the hip and fighting in the saloon, but just friendly and smiling shepherd, very loving nature of their native state.
