Dear Cowgirl, Your Role Is Not Forgotten

Dear Cowgirl,  

This is a letter for the ranch wives. 

The ones who can pull a calf and wrangle kids, get rowdy babies saddled up for the day and handle a skittish colt.   

For the women who have learned how to feed as the baby steers the truck, and give up on the concept of perfectly clean floors at any time of the year.  

To the women who sit in that damn tractor cab for hours on end, put up hay and giggle at the animals found and quietly wipe away a tear at the ones who don’t run.   

For the women who arm themselves with a .45 and a juice bottle for when there is a tragedy, no matter what kind.  

For the women who fix the tears and holes in worn Levis and Wranglers, and know when to put their foot down and when to offer a hug and smile.  

For the women who came from ranching families, the ones who came from town, and the ones born on the back of a rope horse.  

For the women who rope every chance they get and choose a cotton glove over manicures, or who never pick up a rope and shine at working the ground. 

For the late-night dinners eaten hastily, the branding pen crockpots in truck beds, and mud pies made in the driveway with dirty, summer-tanned ranch kids, excited for the longer days. 

For the times the damn truck gets stuck, the times you lose the heifer or fail to turn back a cow. 

For the times your loop settles perfectly and when he smiles at you across the truck, or for that one colt who drops his head. 

To the women of the ranch, the women of the home, and women of the hearth. 

 Dear cowgirl, your role is not forgotten and your worth is not unnoticed. 

Adrian “Buckaroogirl” is a 20 something firecracker who is equally at home in the branding pen, ranch bronc or stage, who burst onto the western music scene at just 14 years old.