December 19, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
My brother Dave was home for Christmas from Texas. He loved the outdoors, especially in the winter when he could hunt fox and coyotes on the ranch. He had gotten a set of cross country skis and was learning how to use them. I had been out gathering the sheep into the winter corral in […]
December 14, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
My high school years were spent going to school and doing the riding on the ranch, since I was the last kid at home. In the winter, my Dad was gone about every week day buying cattle, so it was my job to do chores and any riding necessary when I got home from school. […]
December 6, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
When I moved to northeastern New Mexico to a ranch job, I thought I was in a veritable winter paradise. It might get down to the upper 30s at night, but the days were sunny and usually up around 50 degrees. I’d never wintered anywhere but northwestern South Dakota, and left there to head south […]
November 27, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
Dad used to tell me stories about my Great Grandmother Swan. By all accounts, including his, she was a tough lady who had survived some hard circumstances and made a good life in eastern Colorado, having emigrated there from Scotland, via England and Canada, in the very early 1900s. She adapted to ranch life as […]
November 21, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
Nearly everything that was done on one ranch I worked on was somewhat slaunchwise and sometimes ridiculous. That actually described the owner to a T. We’ll call him Frank. I lived about 30 miles from the ranch as there was no housing there for me, so I slept in a little house in town and […]
November 19, 2022
Ruth Nicolaus
When Rickie Engesser competes at her first National Finals Breakaway Roping this December, she’ll be aboard an unlikely horse. Lavaca Sting, “Rollo,” a twenty-year-old gelding, will be her mount for the biggest breakaway stage in pro rodeo. Rickie, who lives in Martin, S.D., never intended for Rollo to be her main mount. While in college […]
November 17, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
I get a kick out of a horse with a humorous personality. They keep life interesting and keeps one on their toes. I had one named Kelly that had the most creative mind and cleverness I ever knew. I got him as a long three year old and put him down at almost 29 years. […]
November 15, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
He was an average sized, plain bay gelding and when I hired on to the New Mexico ranch, was in another guy’s string of horses. I soon discovered that there were three kinds of cowboys on that ranch: Real Ones, Wanna Bes, and Never Be. This bay horse Charlie was in a Never Be’s string. […]
November 7, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
We had spent early morning gathering the cows and their big, soggy calves. Handling them quietly to reduce shrink, we had them in the corrals in preparation for hauling the calves to the sale barn that day. It was my Dad, brother Bob, and me doing the cow work that day. Keeping the calves quiet […]
October 27, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
I was working that fall and winter for a ranch about 25 miles from where I lived. My horses were kept at the ranch, but there was no accomodations for me, so I had a little house in town. Not ideal, but it worked. My dear friend Uncle Paul, who wasn’t my uncle but I’d […]