August 2, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
Attitudes sometimes need adjusted in all species. Horses are no exception. I’d raised a mare who had many good qualities and was very people friendly. Her mother had been an outstanding using horse andthis young mare was on track to be the same. Her mother had also been the boss mare on the place. Not […]
July 23, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
In the 1920s my grandad, Bill, was what would be described as an all around type of cowboy andrancher. He was a tough bronc rider, due to the fact that the horses he traded for were usually outlawtypes. He could ride horses that other men couldn’t work in harness, plus he could work them in […]
July 9, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
We were working on a ranch in Nebraska where part of our job was to get a small group of young horses started riding in preparation for a horse sale late summer. The youngsters had been raised there and the unstarted ones were two and three years old. There were a couple of four year […]
June 26, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
My son started him for a friend when Boston was three years old. He was still a stud. My friend saidthat when he made his first mistake she’d geld him. He started like a dream and it appeared like he readahead in the school book between rides, as everything was so easy for him to […]
June 12, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
Little cowboys tend to think they’re big enough to do big cowboy things pretty early in life. My sonColin was sure no exception. At three he thought he was big enough to help rope and doctor yearlingcattle and was pretty put out with me because I didn’t agree. When he was five he asked if […]
June 9, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
My Dad told me a “last day of school” story that I sure got a kick out of. Being a ranch boy, he usuallyhad riding to do either on the way to or on the way home from school, so a saddle horse was his usualmode of transportation. On this fine May day, he had […]
May 27, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
When I finished high school, I sold my cows and left home, as had my older siblings. I sure missed having my cows but that was how it had to be. When I got engaged and my soon to be husband and I had a ranch job on the agenda, I bought some little dairy […]
May 19, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
Last week I was at my son and daughter-in-law’s place for a visit and to pair out some cows from the big lot. They were going to be horseback and I was to be afoot leading the little granddaughter on her horse.Getting horses brushed off, saddled and the adjustments made to stirrups used by growing […]
May 7, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
Several decades ago I was performing at a poetry and music gathering in southeastern Wyoming. Awoman approached me who was probably nearly 70 at the time. She asked me if I had any kinfolk by thename of Swan from eastern Colorado. I told her that my family was from there and had moved to SouthDakota […]
April 28, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
The teenage years are fraught with anxiety for most kids, and mine were no exception. My folks had finally decided to let me have a date with a boy who had been asking, so, I was on edge despite the boybeing a longtime friend. My folks had to be gone, so I had a lot […]