Posts Tagged ‘ranch life’

Saddle Horse Warthog

October 28, 2025
Jan Swan Wood

Back in our steady day working days, my then husband and I had two royally bred mares who were just phenomenal saddle horses. His was a bay Thoroughbred called Holly and mine was a bay roan, speed bred Quarter Horse called Lily. They were tough, reliable, honest mares that were a true pleasure to do […]

A Bond Between a Boy and a Horse

September 18, 2025
Jan Swan Wood

We’d gotten a call to go help at a branding the next day, so my boy Colin went out in the pasture to catch his horse to have her in for an early start. His horse was turned out with the broodmares on thehayfield by the house, so he headed out across the hayfield with […]

Crippling Kelly, Blind Fox and Cows

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 […]

Born Broke Horse

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 […]

Marital Strife and Working Cattle

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, […]

A Lifetime of Being a Good Horse

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 […]

Tough but not that Tough

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 […]

The Outlaw, “Silver Mane”

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 […]

Bad Start on a Good Colt

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 […]

A Horse Who Makes Few Mistakes

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 […]