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I had a reader contact me through my blog awhile back. She said that she and her family had acquired two yearling horses, and were having a little trouble getting them gentled down. When they were caught, they behaved pretty well, but catching them was a whole other story. I wrote her a personal email…

I stepped outside this morning At nearly half past eight. The sun had not yet awakened, Though the morning hours were late. I stood upon the doorstep And wondered at the sight Of the million, trillion snowflakes That had fallen in the night. I shuffled to the horse barn, Snow almost blocked the trail. The…

If you haven't read the first part of this cowgirl story that I wrote last spring, you might want to, in order to gain a full appreciation of the story I am about to tell you. It involves Blacky Lawless, our black angus bull, who holds no respect for human, horse, or handgun. He is…

Horses are funny animals. If I had a chance to sit out there in the corral all day and watch them, I would. I have five horses right now, and they are each so different, it is so interesting to see how they act and respond to each other. I believe in animal behaviouralist's technical…

Selling a horse in a tough economy can be a difficult thing to accomplish. And selling a horse in the middle of a harsh winter in snow country can be downright impossible. I've been helping my folks advertise a few of their Quarter Horses for sale in Idaho, and have found some tips and ideas…

These colder winter days make everything harder. My barn chores take twice as long; I have to dress up in heavy warm clothes that I hate, scarf, hat, gloves, and snow boots; the hay is harder to unwrap from the bale, the wind whips all the particles back into your face as you pitch it,…

Certifiably crazy, that's me. It's the dead of winter, a foot of snow on the ground, I've got tank heaters running up an electric bill, just two round bales left before we have to buy more, and five horses out there eating. And I want to buy another horse. Don't tell my family. They already…

Over Christmas we drove out to visit my parents in Idaho and got together with all of my other six siblings for a couple of days. It is always a gamble whether or not the roads will allow travel during the winter holidays, and we were welcomed by deep snow and slow moving traffic, but…

These days leading up to Christmas are crazy. I feel like a kid on a merry go round that's going too fast for comfort...or maybe like the frantic engineer on a train that is on unfamiliar track downhill and the brakes have failed...or more exactly, what I really feel is that all-too-familiar adrenaline that kept…

I read a lot of horse magazines, and they're always full of good ideas for my horses. Growing up on a horse ranch, you would think a girl would know pretty much everything about horse care simply from association. But if there's anything I've learned, it's that things are constantly changing and there's always something…

When I was a kid, we had a paint horse we called Peppy. He was a half brother to both Kokomo and Apache, but he had inherited much more of the Shetland attitude than the other two. He was a naughty pony. My oldest sister, Kandra, trained him, and as I recall he behaved very…

The prettiest horse on my parent's ranch in Idaho is a 2 year old buckskin AQHA filly named Docs Honeycomb. She is the 2008 baby out of a bay mare, Steel Hickory, by their buckskin stallion Docs Cold Cash. I remember the first time I saw Honeycomb, she was just a few days old. Born…

I was visiting with my dad the other day about horse stories from my childhood. I don't remember some of the earliest things of course, so my dad was filling me in on some history of horses I remembered but didn't know a lot about. It is so interesting to hear another viewpoint on things…

I went to the cattle auction last Saturday. This isn't a quality auction, it's a ramshackle type of barn in our podunk county where the local farmers hang out on the weekend to watch stuff sell. You'll see everything go through the ring---chickens, eggs, piglets, goats, sheep, and occasionally a horse, before the cattle start…

My folks have a really nice Quarter Horse mare named Steel Hickory, whom they bought as a three year old and have gotten some of their best foals from. But for some reason, she hasn't had a foal the last two years, and she has spent the whole time living fat and happy on their…

I made myself a mecate the other night. No, it's not some sort of South American recipe---it's the rein and lead combination you see a lot of buckaroos and vaqueros use with a bosal or a regular bridle. The mecate dates back to the time of the Conquistadors, and is pronounced "may-kah'-tay". They are commonly…

The old Dan Seals song came to my mind as we zoomed across the Nebraska prairie and made our way through Wyoming last week, "Headin' west...another town, another place. Headin' west...with the sunshine on my face." It always feels good to be on the road with a couple days of vacation ahead of you and…

When I was sixteen, I wanted to learn to ride English. Growing up on a cattle ranch in the midwest was not condusive to getting a refined education in horseback riding. I learned the hard way---my sisters threw me up in the saddle and I did my best to stay on. But I did a…

We spent the last two days as scavengers. We gathered up all of the buckets, barrels, and shovels we could find and headed out through the cornfields to find gold. Golden corn that is, left from the spillage that commonly takes place when a combine auger doesn't quite line up with a grain truck during…

There's something to be said for watching horses graze. I've never been one to keep a pasture ornament in my backyard merely for the satisfaction of having one, because I love riding horses and working with them. But there is so much enjoyment to be gained from simply being around a horse. If you can…