The Roundup: Summer Issues
Drinking ice cold beer in a horse trough might solve all your problems.
Howdy folks,
It’s June, which means in a few short weeks, the evening light begins to leave as summer takes hold of the country.
I’ve always been a summer sorta girl. I love the strange tan lines of adventure, grown dark while running wild through hills, drinking cold beer on rivers, kicking my feet up and floating the day away on a lake. I spent summers freewheeling as a kid, always in trouble, with a broken arm and bruised legs, sitting in the tops of Ohio’s giant deciduous trees where no one could see me. A hunter in training, I’d count how many people passed below me before anyone noticed. Most of the time, no one did.
Every summer, that feeling rises in my chest. As an adult, it feels like anxiety, but my inner child recognizes it as excitement. Montana summers are short. Spring barely hits in May. Right now, snow is still thick in the peaks near my home. And my calendar is already filling up.
I spent the weekend cleaning things up around the Mini Ranch with my mother. We fixed my decimated arena fence in 88 degree weather. I turned to her and asked if she wanted to drink a beer in the horse troughs. We were both sunburnt by that point, and tired, and she said no, they were dirty, and I called her a name.
A few minutes later, we were blasting nineties country, laughing our asses off, and drinking ice cold beer as my big golden mustang gulped a big long drink from the occupied troughs with a snort and side-eye.
I’ve decided I’m going to have fun this summer, whether it’s in the crook of a tree or in pockets of high alpine. We’ve got three weeks to turn out a Summer Issue, and I’ll tell you it’s hot on our heels. Kestrel and I can panic, or we can party.
We’re collectively choosing the latter. I hope you’ll join us in the horse trough, with a cold beer, and the Summer Issue in your hands. It’s available for pre-order, and we’re excited to ship it on July 1st.
Don’t forget your sunscreen —
Nicole Qualtieri, Editor-in-Chief
Introducing Four-Legged: Nicole’s New Weekly Column
I’ve been kicking around the idea about an animal-centered column for a really long time. Since I was a kid, I’ve been a bit of an obsessive. I dig deep into training ideas, neuroscience, podcasts, books, and videos that will teach me anything at all to help me better connect and work with my four-leggeds at home.
Currently, I have two horses, a mule, Kestrel’s donkey, a border collie, a Boykin Spaniel, and a feral cat in my crew of companion animals. I’m going to share things I’m learning alongside them, what I’m digging into, book and training media I’ve found helpful, and articles that share ideas from professionals — which I definitively am not.
I am, though, an amateur animal training junkie. I often get it wrong a million times before I get it right. And I’ve been wanting to write about it for a long time. So, when you see Four-Legged pop up in your feed, know that it’s me, getting nerdy as a nerd can be about developing stronger connections with the animals we call friends and family.
Keep an eye out for the intro post tomorrow!
American Prairie’s Bison Draw is OPEN
We’re deeply grateful to American Prairie for supporting our work at The Westrn. I recently applied to hunt bison on the reserve for the first time. The process is SUPER simple, and I was thrilled that it offers harvest opportunities for people in Montana and beyond.
This fall, American Prairie will award 24 harvest opportunities to maintain the bison herd’s numbers. Specific drawings are open to local area residents, Indigenous communities, Montana residents, and worldwide applicants. The draw is free to enter, and you pay a harvest fee of $300 if they pull your name. (Indigenous harvest fees are waived!) Learn more about rules and regulations here.
Bonus! American Prairie is offering The Westrn readers a 10% discount on lodging! Use the code WESTRN at their checkout. Stay in yurts, cabins, or campgrounds and you’ll have access to one of my personal favorite landscapes in the American West.
Print Copies of Inaugural Issue Still Available for $15; Summer Pre-Orders are only $10
We’ve updated our online store! You can now pre-order for Summer, Fall, and a special Holiday Gift Wrap Issue that will ship in early December. We’re also shipping out the Spring Issue on demand. A single copy is currently $15 including shipping and handling, but we’re giving you 20% off.
If you’re interested in subscribing, know that annual subscribers of our Substack receive four issues of our quarterly outdoor newspaper in a 12-month period for just $50 per year.
As always, contact us if you haven’t received your print copy: editor@thewestrn.com
A Few Other Discounts You Shouldn’t Miss
Our good friend Ed Roberson is offering 20% off anything with the code WESTRN in the Mountain & Prairie store through the end of July! Think gear with Teddy Roosevelt quotes, badass artist collabs, and t-shirts you’d actually WANT to wear. (Plus, keep an eye out for a new collab between TW and M&P in the Summer Issue!)
Nicole covered Marsh Wear’s awesome summer-coded apparel in the Spring Issue of the The Westrn, and she reached out to see if they’d offer a discount — they did! Get 20% off their affordable summer apparel using code WESTRN20. We recommend Marsh Wear’s quarter zips and sunshirts — which are both under $60 even at full price.
It’s backpacking season! Bring a copy of The Westrn’s newsprint magazine into Gastro Gnome in Bozeman, and get 10% off gourmet backpacking meals that will keep you happy and full on the trail.
ICYMI: Our Latest & Greatest
It’s hard to stay on top of emails, so we want to make sure you get what you signed up for.
Trail Magic — Sometimes, the best parts of our parents show up in the places we love most. In this story, the most dynamic side of Kestrel’s mother turns up on trail, after trail, after trail.
Brad Brooks Just Wanted to Tell Stories — Brad Brooks didn’t mean to create an ultralight hunting gear brand, but he did it anyway. Meet Brad and learn how Argali came to be.
The Ethical Art of the ‘Kill Permit’ — Contributor Matt Cunningham is helping manage deer at his local airport by hunting them out of season, in the name of public safety. But having permission to break hunting’s guidelines for fair chase becomes more complicated than he expected.