September 12, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
It had been a long, hot and dry summer grazing season and it was a relief when the yearling cattle I’dridden on all summer had been shipped. I was short of horses as I’d lost my top horse to lightningmidsummer and had sent the outside horses home that I’d been putting miles on. I still […]
September 5, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
It had been a busy spring and early summer. Foaling was over so it was breeding season for our mares and two studs. The outside mares added to the workload, plus it was a dry time and I was irrigating the hay ground and pastures on top of fencing projects, a big garden, and getting […]
August 25, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
My folks had a great working relationship and built a family and a ranch together over the years. Dadworked outside, Mom worked inside, except for her yard and big garden. It was an equitable arrangement that served them well. Mom would drive a feed pickup or drive the pickup pulling one of the hay wagons, […]
August 20, 2025
Jan Swan Wood
The realization that I’ve aged out on most of the work I used to do is bad enough, but watching the good horses I used to do it on is harder in a way. Seeing their once strong bodies get stiff, lame at times, and with more defined bone structure is difficult. My favorites have […]
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 […]