This song is one of the tunes I grew up with, being a country music fan from back when I was just a little girl. It always makes me laugh, though, because I have never been a “cool cowgirl”. I grew up so far out in the sticks that being in style was never on my agenda, and keeping up with the times was about twenty years in arrears. There were four girls in my family of seven siblings, and we wore hand-me-downs and homemade clothes, and whatever we threw on made no difference to the horse so it really didn’t matter to us. I’ve been looking through some old photos of me riding, though, and some of my outfits are good for a laugh.
This is me in 1987 riding our ranch gelding Smokey. My high-water pants, big glasses, and crocheted stocking cap can’t detract from the huge smile I’m wearing. Clothes don’t make a rider.
And this photo was taken in June of 1992, three of us on poor Peppy, clad in shorts and flip flops. Again, note the big smiles and waves. I don’t know why we were all riding that poor pony, it wasn’t like we didn’t have enough horses to go around, but Peppy was the most fun!
And here we are, another photo from 1992, a neighbor girl and I riding Kokomo and Peppy. I am dressed in white canvas tennis shoes, blue socks, purple tights, gray culottes, a white untucked shirt and a blue denim jacket. Void of a good explanation for this ensemble, I can only say that it is fortunate that Peppy didn’t run away with me wearing this outfit.
This was taken in 1996, and I am training our mare Belle. It looks like I have hiking boots on my feet, shorts, and a french braid in my hair. In spite of it all, Belle turned out to be the only mare my dad kept as a cow horse, she was that good. He still owns her, even through a 1300 mile move to Idaho and a different ranch, she is still his best mare and raises a good mule foal each year.
And finally, here I am a few weeks back, while riding at my parent’s place out in Idaho. This hat has seen better days, and I prefer to not wear any headgear at all, but my dad insisted because it was raining and hailing and we had a whole afternoon of cattle work ahead of us.
Truth be told, I would prefer to resemble a Cruel Girl jean model while I’m out working with horses, but it just isn’t logical to get dolled up to go out and get rained on and windblown. The part of the country life that appeals to me isn’t the clothing. No matter how crazy I look, I’m in it for the ride.
