I think that manners are necessary for all living things. Consider the Honey Bee. An average bee hive has 30,000 to 50,000 bees all living in the same house. Most all of the population is made up of worker bees that spend their time pollinating flowers and gathering nectar and pollen. Now can you imagine without manners how all these bees are going to get in and out of the hive through a very small opening many times a day with wings that flap up and down 12,000 to 15,000 times per minute. These bees must have words like sorry, please, excuse me and all the other kindnesses that allow this congregation to live literally on top of each other and still manage to get all the honey and pollen stored away, some to eat now and the rest saved for winter while keeping their house clean and keeping their Queen Bee happy. I think the same could be said about ants but at a slower pace. 

            So it only makes sense to me that all living things have manners for survival. Our horses and cattle have them. Only we call it a “pecking order” and to watch horses kick, squeal and bite each other and then a little while later nibble on each other’s neck and main so gently are all recorded in their book of manners.

           So what about our manners when we all try to get on to the freeway at the same time. It’s called “road rage” and for the Cowboy who has a friend from town riding along with him. As he gets off his horse to open a wire gate, the friend goes through then just keeps riding leaving our poor cowboy whose horse wants to catch up with the other horse a sometimes difficult task getting on especially if some of the spring in his step age has taken.

     This leaves me to tell the most dangerous case of bad manners and it’s the way we take care of the land that Mother Nature has entrusted us with. Maybe I’m totally out of touch with reality when I read that our world population, just passed eight billion people all needing to be fed but not nearly as much as we waste and consume each day, a roof over their heads and clean water to drink. So maybe the way we’re presently raising the food for our family of eight billion is okay, but I don’t think it’s sustainable for the long haul. The way we’re doing things right now, violates several rules I try to abide by. First, I am aware that a practice that speeds up the rain that falls on the ranch soil has to be reversed and slowed. Second, I acknowledge and then I must physically try to cure bad for the land decisions where I find them. Third we must at least question the use of the many herbicides, pesticides and commercial fertilizers that are offered to farmers and ranchers today and say to ourselves can it be remotely possible that there might be a better way to grow crops and graze livestock that have not been discovered yet, so we can mend our cultural and grazing practices and if there is will we use them? 

          I believe it will be a case of very bad manners if we just ride through the open gate to knowledge and fail to be inquisitive enough to ask the question “could there be a better way?” 

                              See Ya, 

                                Jack