This Cowboy's Hat

I finally figured out why cowboys wear that scarf around their necks. I had thought it was to keep their necks warm, or just for decoration, like a woman wears a necklace. But most cowboys I know don't care about being warm. They're cold all the time. And they don't care about adorning their bodies. It's to keep the hay from blowing down their shirts!
I've come to realize every part of the cowboy's gear has a very definite purpose. Some serve two or three purposes at once. Like the cowboy hat. It not only keeps the head warm in winter and cool in summer, it serves as an umbrella, keeping rain and sun from beating down on a bare head.
Chaps are to keep the legs warm and to keep the brush from tearing holes in the pants as the cowboy rides through. Cowboy boots not only protect the feet, they also protect most of the lower leg. The heel on the boot keeps the foot from sliding on through the stirrup and remaining there in a wreck, resulting in a man being dragged by a horse.
Lariat ropes are not only for catching things, they can be used for encouraging or discouraging, as the case may be. They can be used to shoo a bull or horse along, and come in handy for killing rattlesnakes, if you know how to use one for that purpose. There is a trick to that.
I learned that trick when we lived in Goshen County, near the river and Old Fort Laramie. The snakes would come down out of their dens in the hills on our ranch in the spring, heading toward the river, so our yard would be full of them. Then, in the fall, they'd make another pass through.
There's two good ways to kill a rattler. The best is with a rifle--a .22 will do. If you hold the barrel of the rifle as far away from you as you can, and as near to the snake's head as you can, they follow the nose of the barrel. All you have to do is pull the trigger, and blam; it takes their heads right off nearly every time. If you're out on a horse without a rifle, but you do have a rope, you can take the knot end of your lariat and play out about ten feet, then whip it up over your shoulder and nearly always land a blow to the snake's head, again because the snake follows the rope with his head, trying to strike at it. The trick is not to jerk the rope back at you in an instant, because the snake may have attached itself to the rope. I've even seen the fangs of a rattler come back on the knot of the rope. Yep, they got caught when the snake struck and it yanked them right out.
And, be careful. If you happen to hit some other part of the snake's body, then you've got a real mad snake on the loose.