A day at the office with Trigger

Trigger is a cowboy. He used to be a skatepunk vegan, but now he proudly works harder than most people i know to put American beef on the table of carnivores everywhere. On any given day he is fixing fences, clearing and repairing irrigation ditches, gathering cows from hundreds of square miles of range, or sewing up prolapsed cows (he'll happily tell you how he goes about this-less-than-pleasant task with nothing more than bailing twine and some willow branches).


I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days this week riding with Trigger gathering cows and pushing them to new pasture.


Some of my friends think i secretly want to be a cowboy, to which i reply, "who doesn't?" My desire to be a cowboy only increased when Trigger related to me that hot, european girls really dig cowboys (this observation is based on his short stint working at a dude ranch), though the chances of running into anyone, let alone hot, european girls, where Trigger works are pretty slim. The ranch house from where he works during the summer is a good hour down dirt roads from the nearest neighbor in any direction. But i digress, the reasons i want to be a cowboy are more closely related to the same reasons Trigger likes to cowboy:

1. fresh, clean air that smells of sage and pine (and occasionally cow shit).
2. the best office view one could imagine (and it's always changing)


3. the satisfaction of good, hard work
4. Wrangler butts drive me nuts
5. spending time on horseback (Trigger still does the majority of his work from his horse)


6. kipper snacks

Just kidding, i don't have quite the same love for kipper snacks that Trigger does. He considers them the quintessential cowboy food even though his wife was so grossed out watching him eat them one time that she threatened to never have amorous relationships with him ever again.

Trigger gets increasingly more conservative the longer he lives in Emery County ( i offered him an Obama '08 bumper sticker for his truck—he didn't want it). I guess i have to expect as much when the only thing he has to listen to on the radio is the local conservative AM talk station. I also offered to see if i could find him a bumper sticker with one of the most succinct takes on our current political and social situation that i have heard: "of course it hurts, you're being screwed by an elephant." He wasn't interested in that one either.

No matter how far gone he is, however, i do enjoy a day of work and conversation with my youngest brother. And to top it off he gave me some fancy new spurs for my B-day that came in real handy by the end of the second day.


Friday morning i managed to get in a quick bike ride before we saddled up and headed up the mountain. Sunrise over Capital Reef was beautiful, as always.