Articles

I finally got a chance to test drive the new horse last night. We have been in the process of building new pens for our feeder calves through the summer, and all of the portable panels for my round pen were being used to complete the half-finished pen. So last weekend we finished up that…

When we purchased our new horses a few weeks ago, we knew we would have some work to do to get the foal registered and the papers edited to show our ownership of the mare.  Whenever you're buying a horse, it's important to understand the registration process and what the requirements are for registering a…

When we went to pick up the new horses last week, we took my mare Daisy along. Not as a travelling buddy, but because there was a horse sale going on in a town along the same route, and we decided to consign Daisy in it and just see what might happen. We have talked…

"Did you mean to leave this out here?" asked my husband, as I was pitching hay into the horse's feeder. I looked up to see him holding what appeared to be a black mud crusted length of coiled rope. "What is it?" I asked. "The new halter." Sure enough it was the brand new bright…

News flash! We have new horses! We saw a classified ad, made a phone call, took a road trip in the rain, wrote a check, went back with the horse trailer, and look what we got: a sweet little buckskin mare and her four month old stud colt! This should come as no surprise if you…

I always enjoy reading horse training articles and stories about amazing horsemen. I am always inspired by the things they have learned from the thousands of horses they've handled, and thrilled when they share their knowledge with us. Here are some horse quotes from some of the best horse trainers in the world. "It’s really…

I share horse advice on the Yahoo! Answers website once in awhile, and the question I see listed in the Horse Section more than any other is: How do I convince my parents to let me have a horse of my own? While I hope this post doesn't evolve into a rant, I do want…

In my quest to provide good advice to my readers, one of my most often incurred questions is how to overcome your fear of riding. While there are millions of people who love horses, a surprisingly large percentage of those people are actually afraid of them. Some are afraid because of a frightening experience in…

When I was a kid, my sisters and I would go out at dusk and ride horses in the summertime. It was usually too hot during the day to enjoy riding, and though we often rode anyway because the ranch work required us to, the evening rides were always the fun ones. We would ride…

When I was a kid, my favorite days were the long summer ones when we spent the day horseback. There was always something to do around the ranch...either moving cattle to a different pasture, checking the wells to make sure there was adequate water, or riding colts always prevented boredom from overtaking us. But I…

This might be one of the more obvious posts on this blog, leaving some of my readers wondering about my credibility as a cowgirl, if I have to explain something so elementary. But one of my goals with my writing is to provide a resource for beginner horse lovers, and we all start at the…

Growing up, the horses that my Dad rode were always the best ones we had. They say wet saddle blankets make a good horse, and that was surely the case with Spider. Of Dad's string of riding horses, Spider was one of the best. He was a big rangy gray gelding with size and strength…

It's been a great July so far! I've been spending a lot of time in my garden lately. It's the time of year when the young plants are trying to bear, and the weeds are often getting the better of things. This is when I usually lose control of it and give up, just wading…

Since Cowgirl Diary has a facebook page that I regularly search for and comment at, I happened to find another really cool cowgirl website that I wanted to share with my readers. It was when I typed in "cowgirl" in the facebook search bar that Cowgirl Finesse popped up as one of the options. So…

In light of the Father's Day weekend, I thought I'd share a couple of stories about the father of my kids, affectionately referred to on this blog as Cowboy Dad.  While my husband would never claim to be a cowboy, I call him that because I think he has some old fashioned characteristics that remind…

I have always been a non-confrontational person. And believe it or not, it carries over to how I deal with horses, too. It's not that horses scare me or that I'm afraid to push my luck or take chances around them. I grew up with horses and I've never been seriously hurt by a horse,…

We scheduled our trip west this spring so that we would time it right to go along on the big cattle drive up Pass Creek to summer grazing in the mountains. This morning began as every morning does on my parents' ranch: (my husband would interject, "Slowly!" here---ha ha!) with a big breakfast, a Bible…

I was at my folks' house last weekend, and was looking through some boxes of old photos, and came upon a letter I had written them many years ago when I was a lonely school teacher just out of college, with only horses to keep me from feeling homesick. Reading through it gave me a…

My mom used to sing this song to us when we were little, and I loved this version by Catherine Raney, from the movie Flicka. I wanted to show you the horse photos that I took last week on my parents' ranch in Idaho, and thought this song would best accompany them while you browse…

Today is the last day of our blog giveaway, and I'd like to announce that our winner is Bethanyy! As a faithful reader of CowgirlDiary.com, she wins a $25 gift code to use on HorseAndWildlifeGifts.com, a really neat website that sells all kinds of equestrian-related merchandise and decor. The giveaway was in celebration of this…