LZ Cowboy: A Cowboy's Journal 1979-1981 (Western Life) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is a 5-star book for anyone interested in the day-to-day of cowboying on a modern ranch. Writer John Erickson (best known for his humorous not-just-for-children's series "Hank the Cowdog") spent two years as a hand on the Ellzey spread in the north Texas Panhandle in 1979-1981 and kept this journal of his working days there. The entries give accounts of moving cattle between pastures, doctoring for pink eye and bloat, roundups, winter feeding, calving and putting out prairie fires - all outdoor work in weather that is too often wet, bitterly cold, or fiercely hot.
The cowboy interest in roping and horses gets extensive treatment. The author and has friend Tom Ellzey often work together, and the measure of their days is often taken in tallies of successful and unsuccessful attempts to rope usually uncooperative cattle. We also get to know their horses - Calipso, Happy, Casey, Popeye, Deuce - and the peculiar personality of each. After a season of practice together, the two men enter a rangeland team-roping contest, where they hope to find out how good they really are.
What comes across most strongly in the book is the physically punishing work of cowboying. Both men sustain injuries and have some near-fatal on-the-job accidents. In one instance, the author's frightened horse gets her rider and herself tangled in electric fence wire. Meanwhile, the ranch teeters at the edge of financial failure as cattle prices drop and interest rates soar up to 20%. (In one brief reminder of the world beyond the ranch, Erickson makes note of the American hostages in Iran.)
Not originally written for publication, the book stands up well as a description of real cowboying. It's a rare day when the weather is tolerable and things go smoothly. A reader can wonder why anyone does this work at all, let alone account for the romantic hold it has on the imagination of people who get no closer to cattle than the hamburger they order in the drive-thru. But the pride taken in work done well and difficulties overcome - plus the satisfaction of a well-thrown rope - seems to make up for the rest. This book demonstrates that well. There are also numerous photographs by the author's wife Kris.
Other recommended reading: Linda Hasselstrom's day-by-day journal of ranching in South Dakota, "Windbreak" and Montana rancher Dan Aadland's "Sketches of the Ranch."

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