Articles keep being published about rural living people and their general refusal to conform to society rules regarding Covid 19. Well, I see your Rona Risk and I raise you our lifestyle and our livelihoods.

Plenty of us have close calls every year, closer calls than any Rona. We drive hundreds of miles, at 80 mph, just to a job site and back. We get on young horses that are actually reincarnated WWII kamikaze pilots and go “cruise around” the warmup pen at a roping or a rodeo, “because he’s gotta learn someway”. We walk across grain bins, climb windmill towers, we run heavy equipment without formal training, and we loophole CDL licensing laws when we’re 16 years old.

We carry firearms on our personage that may or may not be registered, and all of us have looked in the mirror and asked what would happen if ourselves or someone else was under violent threat. We run through border towns and walk on foot through hot zones the Border Patrol is working, because the pipeline is under construction and that’s our job. There’s us that go out in -50 because the livestock needs fed, and we who go out in +115 because the livestock need fed. We sit out on a drilling pad alone for 16 hours to watch the flare and take care of the pumps.

We don’t give a thought to hauling loads of horses or cattle cross country alone, we just get in the truck and go. Have you ever watched a crop dusting plane????? Those guys are insane. We strap up and dangle from helicopters to repair the power lines in Corpus Christi Bay, because it’s too wet for ground equipment. We hunt bears in the Rocky Mountains, with bows and arrows, for fun.

We like our rattlesnake roundups and our Brahman cow roundups (same things really), and we have the odd cousin that raises alligators. The point is, all of us out here already take risks every day. Whether it’s driving 40 miles across ice and snow highway to the grocery store, or just walking out to the barn to doctor that mean bitch cow’s calf again. Dealing with race horses and stallions of any flavor should be considered and extreme sport. Some people then actually train those things to jump 12 foot water jumps...

We’ve seen those risks, looked them in the eye, sometimes been shaken and shocked when they’ve touched us and our own. But we’ve stood back up, acknowledged those risks, and decided to keep living our life to the best of our ability.

Living life to the best of our ability does not mean this suspended living stuff that is being demanded by people of other walks of life. I mean, “Have you really actually lived until you’ve almost been killed by an angry bovine, while your friends catcalled you?”

Yes, we know that Covid-19 is real. We know it’s dangerous, but we’re headed outside now, and we signed all disclaimers decades ago. Like I said, we see your Rona, and we raise you our lifestyle and our livelihoods.

Feel free to share