@jamesdecker2006.bsky.social
Just a small town mayor with blue hair. #StamfordTexas propagandist. #Westof98 essayist/podcaster. Rural agitator. Alleged Methodist. Westof98.Substack.com
Read it here: westof98.substack.com/p/essays-fro...
04.07.2025 13:11 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Happy Independence Day! For 95 years, July 4 in #StamfordTexas has centered around preserving and perpetuating our western heritage. The 95th annual Texas Cowboy Reunion is underway, and at #Westof98, I’m sharing an essay that I wrote about the history and legacy of this event.
04.07.2025 13:10 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
A Sabbath Poem by Wendell Berry
—This one goes out to everybody who fought for our public lands and let their voices be heard by those in power
Rather than just gripe, I wrote a letter to my elected officials about our responsibility for public lands and a better solution to provide more housing in our nation.
You can read it and download the letter at #Westof98: westof98.substack.com/p/public-lan...
There is before the United States Congress a proposal to sell public lands to help solve our national housing crisis. I am bothered by this proposal.
27.06.2025 19:22 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Read more at #Westof98:
westof98.substack.com/p/essays-fro...
Today, on June 19, 2025, we celebrate Juneteenth as a national holiday. We celebrate in an America that is flawed but always struggling forward. By pushing onward, we acknowledge that freedom is a continuous journey worth pursuing every single day!
19.06.2025 17:18 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Got asked to fill in and teach the adult Sunday school class at church today.
It was a direct quote from the great Old Testament scholar Ellen Davis in this book, but I definitely used the line, “adultery is for Hosea a favorite metaphor for economic irresponsibility.”
There’s also a surprisingly large number of people in America who do not understand why a person might want to change their hair color and they NEED you to know that they DO NOT understand. As I recently discovered when dyeing my hair a bold new color for the first time.
@cait.bluesky.social
Read about it, and a proclamation from 1868 that I chose for the reading, at #Westof98:
westof98.substack.com/p/essays-fro...
I am uncomfortable with the word “celebrate” when Memorial Day is involved. This week, we marked the holiday by “honoring” our local war dead at our second annual Decoration Day ceremony.
29.05.2025 12:30 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
Ag policies matter to everyone. When your entire community relies on agriculture to succeed, it's different. @mrbimpact.bsky.social talked with w/ @jamesdecker2006.bsky.social, Mayor of Stamford, TX, about his letter of ideas and action items to improve America's ag industry to @USDA @SecRollins.
13.05.2025 19:19 — 👍 2 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0Haven’t fully invested yet, but checking it all out. Good to see you, buddy!
21.05.2025 16:37 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0
For Mental Health Awareness Month, I explore the meaning of the scene and the importance of channeling romantic heroism in meaningful ways.
Read it at #Westof98: westof98.substack.com/p/essays-fro...
It’s one of the most iconic scenes in cinema. John Wayne, as Ethan Edwards, rescues his niece from captivity and then stands alone in the doorway, set apart from the family.
It’s also deeply tragic. He’s lost his spirit of family and community.
This must be a new Adobe update because it just started on me too. It was doing it on 5 page PDFs.
14.05.2025 01:09 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
@mrbimpact.bsky.social is joined by West of 98 James M. Decker for a wide-ranging conversation, including his letter to @USDA @SecRollins. Listen wherever you get your podcasts & subscribe. https://tinyurl.com/mr47pca4
08.05.2025 15:02 — 👍 2 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 1The only guarantee here is that the Dems won’t make him work for anything. They’ll be stern and somber on cable news though.
11.05.2025 15:11 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Read more at #Westof98: westof98.substack.com/p/essays-fro...
09.05.2025 12:49 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Mary Magdalene first thought the resurrected Jesus as a gardener. Was it a mistake? I’m not sure that it was.
For the entire history of man, God has called us to tend and keep his creation. And so perhaps the gardener imagery is a reminder of how we should live our lives.
Read more at #Westof98: westof98.substack.com/p/essays-fro...
02.05.2025 13:56 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A few weeks ago, the long-closed Cliff House restaurant was demolished in #StamfordTexas. It ends one era while beginning a new one, but the memories remain. It caused me to revisit one of my most popular essays, the story of The Table.
You know the one.
Scenes from the hedgerow: Alberta spruce, hazelnut, Douglas fir, arborvitae
27.04.2025 19:29 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
Look at the height of much of the pasture. Well over a foot tall in many areas.
Livestock will convert this inedible carbon into nutritious food.
By timing the grazing correctly, we will maximize carbon sequestration by keeping the pasture in the exponential growth phase.
Last year's mowed-down cover crops serving as mulch for the green shoots of overseeded pasture mix.
27.04.2025 19:27 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
A layer of organic garden paper covered with a thick layer of wood chips works very well at giving the chestnuts a small area free of competition, while also serving as mulch to lock in moisture.
27.04.2025 19:26 — 👍 1 🔁 1 💬 1 📌 0
Converting industrial cropland into regenerative chestnut silvopasture, spring 2025 update:
~35 chestnuts planted, ~300 trees and shrubs planted in the western hedgerow, overseeded multiple times with pasture mix and cover crops
My plans are measured in centuries.
It’s also my personal grappling with our responsibilities of stewardship for God’s Creation.
Check it out at #Westof98: westof98.substack.com/p/essays-fro...
I cannot abide a “climate change”discourse which views rural people as an obstacle, grazing livestock as our foremost problem, and technocratic boondoggles as the solution for it all.
Yesterday for #EarthDay, I reprised some of my past thoughts on that very topic.
A champion of agroforestry, J. Russell Smith argued for the restoration of forests as key to sustainable agriculture in his seminal work Tree Crops. #ecosystems
daily.jstor.org/he-spoke-for...?
