BUCKEROOS AND COWBOYS

 recently I was watching a cable show that was describing what great stockmen vaqueros and buckeroos were.  they described the Spanish origens that all American and south American evolved from. they talked about texas cowboys, they talked about Montana, Wyoming and the great basin stockmen, but they danced all around the Arizona cowboy.
  the Arizona cowboy is a corruption of Mexican and texas styles of  stock work. the big difference in Arizona cowboys and other hands is the rough country and the bigger pastures that seem to make cattle a little trottier or wilder. the buckaroo and vaquero are used to big wide open pastures with little or no brush. the mountains they deal with while being steep  have a different kind of vegetation. in texas while they have big thickets with some really bad thorns they arnt in rough country such as you see here.  over the years ive seen buckeroos come to Arizona and tried to assimilate. generaly don't work. some have stuck it out and found that when you go to a new country you need to adjust to the ways of that country. most haven't figgered  that out and go back home. the sayen in Arizona is that the great basin must have some good buckeroos there because none ever came here.  ime sure they are good hands where they come from, but when the cactus is thick, the mesquite sharp , and cattle hard to gather, they load up and go home. thin skinned is what the old saying is.  the Texans assimilate a little better. ive met some young Texans who were hell on horseback. the cactus and the brush didn't deter them from catching the forked toed bovine.  but once in a while when the trail turned down hill so steep that your horses tail flops over your face and blinds you some of them choke. the idea of the tied rope verses dally isn't really a big deal as ive seen as many cowboys tie hard and fast as dally on the ranch . its just personal preference.   but no Arizona cowboy who dallies will slide 60 feet of rope just so he can. the idea is to get the cow brute where he needs to be, not look pretty doin it.  so the old hippy sayen aint far from wrong, different strokes for different folks!