{"id":18501,"date":"2022-08-24T00:50:21","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T00:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=18501"},"modified":"2022-08-23T19:51:59","modified_gmt":"2022-08-23T19:51:59","slug":"blessing-of-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2022\/08\/24\/blessing-of-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Blessing Of Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Bryce Angell – The outdoors has always been a large part of my life. My father was an outfitter and guide for 35 years and I was there to shoe and care for the horses and help him do the cooking. We took many great trips into the Yellowstone area. Even now that I\u2019m older, we still ride into the Tetons, Yellowstone and surrounding areas. My poems are mostly of personal experience. I am now retired and enjoying life to the fullest. I plan to do more riding and writing.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We chose a dried-up creek bed, lit a fire, and fried our lunch. Each cowboy moved in by the heat. Dang sure a hungry bunch.<\/p>\n

We gobbled down the usual, brown sugar sizzled Spam. And a box of Town House Crackers smothered with strawberry jam.<\/p>\n

The frosty mountain air still held a cold and nasty bite. So we tossed more sagebrush on the flame and watched the shrubs ignite.<\/p>\n

The smoke from arid sagebrush had us moving \u2018round the fire. One cowboy sat right through the smoke. His words would soon inspire.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cThe Good Lord\u2019s blessed me, been a cowboy all my life. I\u2019ve got five kids, a favorite dog and best of all my wife.<\/p>\n

\u201cAin\u2019t sayin\u2019 life is easy, \u2018cuz it\u2019s usually dang hard work. And sometimes life can throw a curve that\u2019ll drive you plumb berserk.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cI\u2019ve had some broken bones from a well-intended hoof.\u201d His gnarled and twisted fingers were a picture of the proof.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cMy heart\u2019s been broken, which I thought would never mend. But time has healed the pain and helped me be a better man.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then he said, \u201cI\u2019ve worked all day and never gave much thought to how much we\u2019ve been given, well deserved or even not.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut today I look across this burning sagebrush, smoky fire. I see that we\u2019ve been blessed with those whose friendship we aspire.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach friend has his own talent that contributes to this group. We even have a cowboy who gets rid of all the poop.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, today I\u2019ll thank the Lord for all you cowboy friends of mine. Just know that we\u2019re a special group of men who\u2019ve grown up fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when he\u2019d finished speaking not a cowboy said a word. We all were contemplating \u2018cuz our souls had just been stirred.<\/p>\n

We finished up our Spam and then we headed down the trail. Each cowboy witnessed God\u2019s great land, that day in more detail.<\/p>\n

At night we all gave thanks, too many blessings to keep score. Yes, we\u2019re all a bunch of cowboy friends. How could we ask for more?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We chose a dried-up creek bed, lit a fire, and fried our lunch. Each cowboy moved in by the heat. Dang sure a hungry bunch. We gobbled down the usual, brown sugar sizzled Spam. And a box of Town House Crackers smothered with strawberry jam. The frosty mountain air still held a cold and nasty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18501","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-cowboy-poetry","7":"category-commentary"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18501"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18503,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18501\/revisions\/18503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}