June 26, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
In the late 1920s and into the 1930s, my grandparents were struggling to hang onto a ranch on the eastern Colorado plains. The recession and Dirty 30s were hard times for most and folks had to dig in to survive. There was just hardly a dime to be found and folks bartered for most things. […]
June 23, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
Old Tony was a fine gentleman I worked with on a ranch in New Mexico in the early 1980s. I don’t know how old he was, but the ranch owner said he hadn’t changed since he was a boy and Al was a Korean veteran. Tony was a man of pure Spanish blood. His family […]
June 19, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
Most people’s first jobs are when they are in high school, perhaps to save money for a car or college. My first job was when I was 12 years old. I can remember it like it was yesterday. I was at a 4-H rodeo when a good friend of my Dad’s, Darrell, approached me and […]
June 15, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
Back when we were raising horses, we had two proven saddle horse mares who had both foaled stud colts one year, and they were as opposite as can be, but became best buddies out in the pasture. The Thoroughbred colt, LeRoy, was all legs, big, gangly and full of mischief. Spider was a Quarter Horse […]
June 12, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
It was an early summer and I had been hired to ride on the cattle on a big summer range next to my folks ranch. I did the riding on both places as I was in high school. The pasture I was checking steers in was rolling prairie with some deep draws and hills with […]
May 25, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
It had been a nice wet spring and calving was on full blast. I needed to go get a cow in who was taking too long to calve, so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and ride the old kid horse. Kid horses need to have an adult ride them occasionally and […]
May 23, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
One chore on the ranch that I didn’t enjoy much came in the last weeks before lambing started. Since we range lambed, we didn’t shear until on the brink of it starting on about May 15, as those ewes could get mighty chilly once sheared. So, when it rained, their fleeces got really heavy, and […]
May 10, 2022
Ruth Nicolaus
The 2021 Women’s Pro Rodeo Breakaway Horse of the Year winner was never intended to rodeo. No Wimpy Turns, “Onna,” started life as a reining horse. But when her rider couldn’t get her to lope slow circles, her career changed. Shelby Boisjoli, the 2021 reserve world champion breakaway roper, bought the mare three years ago, […]
April 27, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
Late in my high school years, I was short of horses for my summer herd cattle job. A friend said he had a little red roan gelding for sale that was tough as boiled owl, honest and could really walk. I always liked a fast walking horse, so I was interested. I took the horse […]
April 16, 2022
Ruth Nicolaus
PRCA trick rider Bethany Iles has a new horse, a very special one. Cowboy, a nine-year-old palomino, just came into his own last year. The Okahoma-based cowgirl had a trustworthy trick riding horse, a palomino named Vanilla. But with her and her partner Rider Kiesner’s busy rodeo schedule, she needed another mount. So in the […]