Wrappin’ up like Shi Hurst
Shi and Becky Hurst
Umbarger, Texas
It’s 13 degrees and blowing 20 knots on the Texas High Plains. You don’t want to look like a sissy wearing your poly neck warmer. Enter Shi and Becky’s bandana option… Also, we’ve added more dates to the 2009 RiverEarth.com program series. Click here for program times and dates… And finally, click here to see mule Polly’s route from Canada toward Mexico…
13 degrees
Outside Happy, Texas
Mule Polly and I are traveling from Canada to Mexico looking for marine fossils.
It’s mid-January on the Texas High Plains. Mornings, Polly and I wake to temperatures in the teens. Then we hit the road. What’s a mule traveler do about that super-cooled Arctic wind howling down the gap between coverall and exposed neck?
Well, you could reach for one of those sissy neck warmers, those tube looking things that resemble the turtleneck part of a turtleneck sweater. Slip it over your head, snug it up around your neck and chin. Fine. Problem is, you’d just look every other snow bunny wearing a poly blend neck warmer made from recycled soda bottles.
Or you could do what Shi Hurst does.
He goes for the bandana.
Shi and Beck Hurst
Outside Umbarger, Texas
Shi and Becky Hurst ranch outside Umbarger, Texas. On a recent frigid morning, while I was treking up the road with Polly, they pulled alongside in their pickup and gave me a ranch-sized bandana. Now we’re not talking one of those hankerchief-sized red or blue bandanas. Nope, we’re talking a man-sized bandana. It was hand-cut from a bolt of black silk, the edges hemmed with a zig zag stitch on a sewing maching. And it was big. Corner to diagonal corner, it spanned the breadth of a man’s reach. That’s how cowboys keep warm in the Lone Star winter wind.
Bandana the breadth of a man’s reach.
In the following photo series, I’ll show you how to tie one of your own. You’ll need a giant bandana. If you don’t have one, just go down to the the fabric store and have them cut you a 2-foot square piece of light cloth. Hem the edges and you’re set to tie.
1) fold bandana
2)twirl bandana like a jumprope, turning it into a sausage
3)wrap around neck
4)tie first overhand knot
5)tie second overhand knot
6)Optional: have mule inspect your Texas neckware
You’re done. Free at last, to walk through that winter Texas wind, properly attired.
Thanks, Shi and Becky, for the Lone Star neck warmer.
Thanks, too, to Tony and Pamela Ricketts of radio station KFLP in Floydada, Texas, for helping get this post online.
To visit KFLP click here.
