October 26, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
It was time to wean two of our colts. They were both well able to carry on fine without their mamas, so one morning Colin and I caught the two mares, left their colts in the corral with an old babysitter mare, saddled the fine ladies and loaded up to go to my folks place […]
September 22, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
In my writings, I’ve mentioned the buckskin mare, Penny, who helped raise me. She and I were foaled on the same year, her in June, me in November, so we literally grew up together. She was orphaned before she was old enough to wean, so was raised around the corrals and was an absolute pet. […]
August 11, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
The first ride on a colt is always a pretty important day. How that goes can set the colt up for his whole saddle horse career. My son Colin was not quite 13 and had started some colts at some clinics I’d invited a respected horseman to put on. He’d learned a lot and had […]
July 30, 2022
Jan Swan Wood
Her name was Sage. A 30 pound dynamo of Australian Shepherd/Border Collie/Kelpie origins, she was a bob tailed, gray murl demon. She was a useful stock dog, nice companion and entertaining in a way I’d never encountered in a stock dog. She was over 30 years ahead of her time in her favorite trick, but […]
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. […]
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 […]
January 31, 2022
Ruth Nicolaus
One of the first Miss Rodeo Americas rode a special horse. Dallas Hunt George, the 1957 Miss Rodeo America from Lincoln, Neb., owned a special quarter horse, Wyoming Badger. The gray horse known as Badger was purchased for her by her granddad, Guy Hunt, who she knew as Gramp, when she was sixteen years old. […]
September 29, 2021
Ruth Nicolaus
An iconic horse passed away on August 13 of this year. Frenchmans Guy, the palomino stud owned by Bill and Deb Myers of St. Onge, S.D. died at the age of 34. The horse changed the rodeo world and the Myers’ world as well. Sired by Sun Frost and out of the Laughing Boy mare […]
September 28, 2021
Jolyn Young
The cowboy world has produced many colorful phrases that folks might use and not realize their Western ties. “Ride for the brand,” “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” and “you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink” are common phrases used by country and city people alike. Here […]
May 18, 2021
Jenn Zeller
I dropped everything on Wednesday May 5th, to take our 18 year old ranch stallion, Poco Tivio Pep (Chachi) to the vet. He couldn’t breathe. Fluid was running from his nose like water from a spout. By Tuesday evening, it was obvious he struggled to breath and realized we might be dealing with heaves. After […]