Martin Quarter Horses

04/22/2026

This morning I added a saddle to a Facebook site called Cutting & Cow Horse Saddles Only. I reconditioned the saddle at the request of a good friend of mine. This lady is all of about 110 pounds and I think that 100 pounds of it is heart. She and her husband are good folks, and I wanted to direct people to that site if they're interested at all in bidding. I'll put part of the description here, but specs for the saddle will be on the site.
Thank you and have a truly great day.
Tim Piland Ranch Cutter
Before I get into the details of this saddle, I need to mention that I am listing it for a lady who moved here with her husband several years ago from the area in Nebraska that has experienced huge fires lately. When she asked me to clean up and recondition her saddle for her, she told me that she was going to sell it and donate the money to the Nebraska Sandhills Rancher Fire Relief in support of the folks in Nebraska who have recently lost so much. So besides this being a nice quality saddle from a well known maker, the proceeds are going to a very worthwhile cause.
This saddle carries Tim Piland’s mark and is serial no. C04025, built in May 2003. It is in good condition for a saddle its age and has one of those nice seats that sits just right. There have been some punchy add-ons as seen in the pictures which add to the character of the saddle. It was built for a man in Abiline, TX who later moved to Nebraska.
I’ve thoroughly cleaned the saddle, applied Neatfoot oil to the rigging and stirrup leathers, and treated all exterior surfaces with Ray Holes Saddle Butter. I didn’t touch the rawhide horn wrap as it was in good condition. It has a mohair cinch, a new latigo, and the billets are in good condition. At the top of the stirrup leathers where the holes start, both sides need to be restitched as the threads are worn through a bit. It’s ready to use on the ranch or go to the cutting pen.

02/20/2026

Thanks Lisa Caddell, much worth repeating…

01/17/2026

Simple etiquette. Always be polite. Say please and thank you. Pull your weight. Go the extra mile. Unless told otherwise, be the last one to quit. Don’t ask questions. If it’s important, the boss will tell you.
This works everywhere, not just on the range.

04/18/2025

Some good stuff

The Year is 1935. America is suffocating under the iron grip of the Great Depression. Jobs are ghosts, hunger is a constant, and hope? Hope is a rare thing. But deep in the Appalachian hills, a different kind of wealth is being delivered—not in coins, not in bread, but in words.

They call them the Book Women—a fierce band of librarians with grit in their bones and reins in their hands. These weren’t city-dwelling bookkeepers. These were warriors on horseback, riding 100 to 200 miles a week through knee-deep mud, driving rain, and bitter snow. Their cargo? Not gold. Not grain. But stories—tales of adventure, survival, and dreams too big to be crushed by poverty.

They rode for the kids perched on crumbling porches, waiting for a tattered copy of Tom Sawyer. For the coal miners’ wives swapping recipes scribbled in the margins of cookbooks. For the old farmers tracing weather charts in worn almanacs, daring to dream of a better harvest.

Women like Mary Carson—a coal miner’s daughter who rode her mule, Old Joe, through flood-swollen rivers, hoisting her saddlebags high to keep the books dry. Who clung to Joe’s mane as a flash flood tried to take them both, whispering, “We’ve got deliveries to make.”

By 1943, the war effort swallowed the funding, and the program faded. But in its time, these horse-riding librarians delivered over 100,000 books to nearly 100,000 people. They didn’t just carry stories. They carried fire—the kind that lights the way through the darkest nights.

So let history remember this: while the Great Depression tried to break America’s spirit, the Book Women rode through the storm and proved that words are power, knowledge is freedom, and stories can save us all.

07/06/2024

Loretta, Jessi, and Gracie

06/12/2024

Never a dull moment living here at the corner of Crash and Burn. Two Mexican painters headed home from work tangled with man in a pickup pulling a jet ski trailer. Everybody loses. The men in the SUV were shaken up a bit. The young man on passenger side got bruised up by the airbag then spilled out on the road, judging by the road rash spot on his side.

I heard the crash and started running. My neighbor Justin was on the way and calling 911 already. We gave the people all a quick check and no serious injuries. The young man in the SUV was laying in the gravel didn’t look too comfortable, so I grabbed an old blanket from the house and got him off the ground a bit.

The first few firemen from Platteville included two men who were very fluent in Spanish. They asked if either of the men wanted to go to the hospital. The answer was was a quick no. I understood. No complications, even if they didn’t feel well. The firemen convinced the men to come over to the back of the ambulance for a better examination. When Justin and I left, all was under control. All involved were up and moving and the mess was being cleaned up. I hope everyone has a better tomorrow.

I hope all y’all ended your day better than that. Good night and have a great tomorrow 🌙

05/08/2024

Good stuff

05/07/2024

Doesn’t everyone do things like this? 🤷🏻

02/12/2024

Deb Parman, here you go.

12/22/2023

Thanks Tessie and Barrel Horse World News.

What America Needs to Learn from Rodeo

America is divided. The cities don’t understand those of us in the country. And watching the news is like non-stop opinion reporting. Our country has never been so fractured. America needs a reset button.

Where do we go to find common ground, or common sense?

Maybe one answer to America’s problem lies in the study of the rodeo culture, the cowboys and cowgirls and the spirit that prevails among those that love the sport of rodeo and love America.

Rodeo is truly America’s sport. It’s a sport derived from the skills that were needed to settle the west. Those skills that were honed and refined because it meant survival. And to this day many of the skills used in rodeo are still used in modern ranch life but seem to be lost to a growing segment of society. What other sport hones the very skills that helped build our country?

So what does the typical rodeo competitor look like? Largely the Rodeo Athlete will come from a ranch or farm background. Their work ethic is instilled from doing chores and having the responsibility of caring for livestock.

They are patriotic. They are proud, and within them lies that “maverick” spirit which feeds the desire to rodeo. Both the men and women who compete are equally independent and unwilling to quit when the chips are down.

So how does rodeo survive in the super high speed, high tech world where everything is a click away? It survives because it’s real. It’s fair and unbiased.

Rodeo rough stock can’t tell the color of the riders skin and neither can the electric eye.
Rodeo demographics reflect rural heritage but rodeo is not racist. In fact it’s harshly unbiased. Rope the calf, stay on the bull, or ride the horse and you become a professional by how well you do it.

Fred Whitefield won 8 PRCA World Championships and 3 NFR aggregate titles. Barrel Racer Kassidy Dennison was the first Navajo Woman to qualify for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. NFR Calf Roper Cory Solomon and other black rodeo athletes compete and win. Not because they receive special entitlements but because they out perform a lot of other athletes.

The majority of Cowboys and Cowgirls were not aware that BLM stood for Black Lives Matter a year ago. In the rodeo world “BLM” has always been the Bureau of Land Management…and home to thousands of mustangs. Different cultures see things differently, not because they are wrong, but because they are different.

Since when did being different become a bad thing in America?

You’ll also find that rodeo plays by the rules even if the rules may not seem equitable and sane. Rodeo doesn’t riot when they don’t get their own way. Rodeo doesn’t hold their hand out and ask for money they didn’t earn. In fact, in rodeo, you don’t get a prize for showing up. If you don’t pull a check you don’t get paid.

Rodeo isn’t “woke”. Reality is - most cowboys are “broke”. There are no salary contracts in rodeo. Not even for the top performers. Rodeo contestants pay their own fees.

Imagine a professional sport franchise with no retirement plan, no salaries and no health benefits.

There are no lobbyists in Washington D.C. fighting for rodeo. In fact there are many fighting against rodeo. And the big networks don’t fight for the chance to carry rodeo programming.

So we thank you Cowboy Channel for being our network!

The lesson that America can learn should be obvious. The rodeo world survives because they fight and work hard. They always stand, not kneel, for the Flag of the United States or for the flag of the country they call home.
Because they are loyal.
And rodeo is grateful.

They pray to God. Not just a “God” but the God…the creator of the universe and the creator of the animals we care for and treasure so deeply.

And last, but not least…rodeo forgives. Because we all know we have faults and at the end of the day we settle our differences and move on. Just as our creator forgives us. That’s how rodeo handles differences.

It is old school. Old culture.

A culture that America needs to treasure, not mock. It is our American Western Heritage and we find ourselves fighting to preserve it. If we don’t continue to fight for the values that got us here, we will lose the America that allows us all to be different but respectful to each other.

Even animals respect each other. If we lose respect for being different, we have become less than animals. And it will be a very different world indeed.

G. Matte
Just a fan. And proud American.