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Big Horses Good Dogs And Straight Fences: Musings of Everyday Ranch Life
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Revolution on the Range: The Rise of a New Ranch in the American West
In the final decade of the twentieth century, the American West was at war. Battle lines had hardened, with environmentalists squarely on one side of the fence, and ranchers on the other. By the mid-1990s, debates over the region’s damaged land had devolved into political wrangling, bitter lawsuits, and even death-threats. Conventional wisdom told us those who wanted to work the land and those who wanted to protect it had fundamentally different—and irreconcilable—values. In Revolution on the Range, Courtney White challenges that truism, heralding stories from a new American West where cattle and conservation go hand in hand. He argues that ranchers and environmentalists have more in common than they’ve typically admitted: a love of wildlife, a deep respect for nature, and a strong allergic reaction to suburbanization. The real conflict has not been over ethics, but approaches. Today, a new brand of ranching is bridging the divide by mimicking nature while still turning a profit. Westerners are literally reinventing the ranch by confronting their own assumptions about nature, profitability, and each other. Ranchers are learning that new ideas can actually help preserve traditional lifestyles. Environmentalists are learning that protected landscapes aren’t always healthier than working ones. White, a self-proclaimed middle-class city boy, has learned there’s more to ranching than grit and cowboy boots. The author’s own transformation from conflict-oriented environmentalist to radical centrist mirrors the change sweeping the region. As ranchers and environmentalists find common cause, they’re discovering new ways to live on—and preserve—the land they both love. Revolution on the Range is the story of that journey, and a heartening vision of the new American West. .
Price: $14.00
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Dolph Briscoe: My Life in Texas Ranching and Politics
Dolph Briscoe, governor of Texas from 1973 until 1979, is the largest individual landowner and rancher in a state famous for its huge ranches He is one of the most respected businessmen in Texas, with a portfolio that includes banks, agribusinesses, cattle, and oil and gas properties. His philanthropy has provided much-needed support to a wide range of educational, medical, scientific, and cultural institutions. As a member of the state legislature in the decade following World War II, Briscoe was the author of major legislation that improved the daily lives of farmers and ranchers throughout Texas. As an activist leader of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, Briscoe played a significant role in the successful effort to eliminate the screwworm, an age-old scourge of the livestock industry. As a friend and associate of a number of major American political figures, he has been an eyewitness to history. And as a governor who assumed office following one of the most far-reaching corruption scandals in Texas history, Briscoe played a crucial role in restoring public confidence in the integrity of state government. Don Carleton, executive director of the Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, conducted a series of lengthy oral history interviews with Governor Briscoe over a period of eight years to produce this book. .
Price: $20.53
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New Roots for Agriculture (New Edition) (Farming and Ranching)
"The plowshare may well have destroyed more options for future generations than the sword," writes Wes Jackson in a review of practices that have brought U.S. agriculture to the edge of disaster. Tillage has hastened the erosion of irreplaceable topsoil everywhere and a technology based on fossil fuels has increased yields for short-term profits, leaving crops ever more vulnerable to diseases, pests, and droughts. Such, says Jackson, is "the failure of success." As high-technology agriculture becomes more wasteful and expensive, more farmers are being forced off the land or into bankruptcy. Jackson's major solution calls for the development of plant combinations that yield food while holding the soil and re-newing its nutrients without plowing or applying fossil-fuel-based fertilizers or pesticides. His new way of raising crops, by working with the soil's natural systems, would keep the world's bread-basket producing perpetually. .
Price: $14.41
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Loved Enough
Can a long-ago love be rekindled? When a flashflood carries Megan Landers to Evan Holloway's remote cowboy hideaway, they have one chance to find out. Meg Landers had crossed Evan Holloway's mind a time or two, but never had he expected a flashflood in the middle of nowhere to land her right back at his boots. She'd left him behind in the dust once and probably would again if she could find her way out of the treacherous wilderness without him. One look into her familiar green eyes, and darn if he wasn't going to turn staying "stranded" into an art form. When Megan left her family's ranch, she'd also left the memory of a certain skirt-chasing rodeo golden boy far behind. Her plan was an impromptu family visit before her career carried her across the globe. Instead she finds herself at Evan's hideaway in the bottom of Abduction Canyon. Trouble was, it would take more than the heated connection between them to convince her he wasn't the scoundrel she remembered. And that maybe, just maybe, he never had been..
Price: $5.99
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The Snow Pony
Three years of drought have reduced the Rileys' farm to a dirt patch and strained the family to the breaking point. Between their increasingly desperate finances, her father's short temper, and her best friend's move to boarding school in the city, Dusty's whole life seems to be unraveling. Her only consolation is her wild and beautiful horse, the Snow Pony. Dusty first sees the wild brumby up on the Plains, and from that first glimpse, she can think of little else. Months later, her father catches the horse and tries to break it in, but the Snow Pony will only accept one rider—Dusty. Together they seem unstoppable. But when sudden violence erupts during a trip up to the mountains, Dusty and her horse find themselves tested as never before. In her second novel, set in rural Australia's rugged terrain, author Alison Lester weaves together a colorful and compassionate story of family, courage, adventure, and a young girl's passion for her horse..
Price: $6.76
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Kings of Texas: The 150-Year Saga of an American Ranching Empire
Praise for KINGS OF TEXAS "Kings of Texas is a fresh and very welcome history of the great King Ranch. It's concise but thorough, crisply written, meticulous, and very readable. It should find a wide audience." -Larry McMurtry, author of Sin Killer and the Pulitzer Prize--winning Lonesome Dove "This book is about the King Ranch, but it is about much more than that. A compelling chronicle of war, peace, love, betrayal, birth, and death in the region where the Texas-Mexico border blurs in the haze of the Wild Horse Desert, it is also an intriguing detective story with links to the present-and a first-rate read." -H.W. Brands, author of The Age of Gold and the bestselling Pulitzer Prize finalist The First American.
Price: $6.98
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Ranch
With sophisticated and detailed art and a counting/finding game on each double-page spread, this picture book for young children displays various elements of a Texas cattle ranch. Enter the corral, the bunkhouse, and the cookshack, and join the circle of hungry cowboys at the chuck wagon, to see how each place looks and to learn what goes on there. And don't forget the animals—from the bright-eyed horned toads and comical roadrunners to majestic longhorns and breathtaking quarterhorses, a final birds-eye-view painting shows all the elements on the ranch. .
Price: $5.65
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