Alert all your horse-loving and book-reading friends! CowgirlDiary.com is giving away a new book, just released this month! It is The Tale of the Dancing Slaughter Horse by Victoria Shade, and is a memoir written about her life growing up with horses and learning dressage, finally getting a horse of her own, and finding out that her biggest dreams were never out of reach. If you love reading horse stories, you will really enjoy this book.
by Cowgirl on February 20, 2016
When Rudy had to be put down, I saved a strand of his tail hair to have something made to remember him by. The week after his death, I did an internet search for hand-braided horse hair bracelets, and sifted through a few different companies and artists who make them. I found the website for TailSpinBracelets.com and from the photos of all the beautiful horse hair items they make, I knew this was where I wanted to order my bracelet from.
I lost my horse Rudy on the 3rd of January. He was almost twenty-eight years old, and ever since he came to live with us in October, I have worried about him. I knew he wasn’t going to live forever, but I had hoped for a few more years, especially now that we were reunited. I had mentally prepared myself for being with him during his last days, but it’s still such a sad reality that even the very best ones die.
by Cowgirl on May 6, 2014
Branding smoke….a fragrance that isn’t likely to be bottled and marketed by Dior or AirWick anytime soon, but nontheless a smell that evokes strong memories, pulling me into a reminiscent state of mind. I started helping brand calves when I was five years old, back when getting to go along for daily ranch work alongside my dad and siblings was what I lived for. Considering that a normal five year old would probably recoil at the sight of what goes on at a branding, I admit my abnormality of looking forward to branding days when I was a kid.
Riding horses is dangerous. So is operating an automobile. So I’m not saying we shouldn’t engage in either activity, but I’d like to point out that when you are around a horse, virtually anything can happen. I’ve seen good horses in bad wrecks, great riders get broken up, and not-very-cautious riders get away with doing some stupid things around horses and get away with it. What we all should keep in mind is that there is great risk involved in riding horses and training horses, and a smart rider will do what he can to protect himself and his horse.
by Cowgirl on May 25, 2013
When I was a teenager, this time of year was so exciting. School was ended and we were free to ride horses all day, which was pretty much all that was on my agenda. While Dad finished up the spring planting, we kids would be putting cattle out to pasture and checking on the late-calvers daily. There was so much to do on horseback!
It is my pleasure to offer another great horse story to my readers by way of a book giveaway! This book is uniquely written in the voice of the horse himself, named Pie, an old brown cowhorse. It’s very interesting to look at the world through the eyes of a horse, and this book lays out this individual horse’s life with vivid descriptions and unforgettable scenarios. I loved meeting each of the horses presented in this story; they were described so well I felt like part of their herd.
When I was sixteen years old, my dad bought me a beautiful black colt to train. That colt took all of my focus, my affection, my time, and attention, and I was devastated a few months later when he got badly hurt and had to be put down. I remember making a promise to him, in those last painful moments, saying I would never forget him, and that I would keep his memory alive forever. It was the most difficult part of my teenage years, giving up on that colt.
We’re still trying to come up with a name for our mare. We have kicked around ideas, but no matter what one person suggests, someone else has an aversion to that particular name, or they have a suggestion that they think would work better. I’m beginning to think that I just don’t have the imagination I used to have when I was younger. Coming up with horse names was a cinch when I was a little girl.
by Cowgirl on April 25, 2012
Last weekend we took our cows out west where I grew up. From here, it’s a four hour ride in a car…a six hour ride for a cattle pot and truck and trailer with seven people packed into the crew cab. Saturday was one long hectic day. But it was one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long time, because to me it meant going home.
I have a horse story to share that my oldest sister Kandra has written, telling about her very first horse, Apache. If you’ve read very many of my own horse memories, you’ll remember that my sister is the one who influenced my siblings and I to love horses, and I wanted to know the details of how she came to own her first horse, because it happened when I was just a toddler, and I don’t remember it so well. I have always felt a strong gratefulness to the man who gave her the horse, as his generosity set off a wave of fondness for horses that encompassed my whole world, and changed all of our lives. It is Kandra’s favorite horse memory, and this is how her story goes….
by Cowgirl on February 20, 2012
I am a writer, and one of my favorite things to do is to tell a good story. I have often said that getting a horse is like getting a brand new notebook. You open it up, and it’s blank….just waiting to be filled in with adventures, experiences, knowledge, sentiment, good memories, colorful adjectives, and whatever else comes your way. So it is when you get a horse….I went for a ride with Cowboy Dad yesterday. We had talked about trailering out to some trails or something, since we had a whole afternoon and warm sunny weather.
by Cowgirl on December 24, 2011
I absolutely love Christmas. It’s my favorite holiday, and all of the excitement and anticipation that comes with the shopping, giving, and receiving is what makes it fun. Growing up kind of makes that excitement fade, until you have kids of your own, and then you get it all back watching them exclaim over their gifts. If you’re like me, you just can’t quit thinking about what might be in that package under the tree with your name on it. I’m everlastingly curious but too principled to peek. So this time of year always gets me giddy with excitement!
Snow is coming! The kids are excited with the prospects of sipping hot cocoa, listening to Christmas music, and watching the heavens swirl their magical crystals into sparkling drifts over our front steps. I’m not looking forward to doing chores in subzero temperatures, no matter how pretty the snow is. When the water tanks freeze over and I can’t peel the layers of frost-covered hay off of my big round bales to feed my horses, winter isn’t fun anymore. If only we could enjoy the snow without it being so cold…..
I am happy to announce a new giveaway here on CowgirlDiary.com! This is a brand new horse book, just released yesterday, November 1, 2011. I got the chance to read it beforehand, and was pleasantly surprised by it. An avid reader of horse-related literature, I expected a rather indulgent account of far-fetched fluff. What I found instead, is that the author lets you into her world and honestly portrays the true realities of horse ownership. I found my own horse experiences mirrored in the thoughts and feelings of the writer, and by the time the last page was turned, I felt that I knew her so well I had found a kindred spirit.
by Cowgirl on August 23, 2011
When I was a kid, my sisters and I would go out at dusk and ride horses in the summertime. It was usually too hot during the day to enjoy riding, and though we often rode anyway because the ranch work required us to, the evening rides were always the fun ones. We would ride […]
by Cowgirl on July 30, 2011
When I was a kid, my favorite days were the long summer ones when we spent the day horseback. There was always something to do around the ranch…either moving cattle to a different pasture, checking the wells to make sure there was adequate water, or riding colts always prevented boredom from overtaking us. But I can think of some stories when we just had too much time on our hands.
Growing up, the horses that my Dad rode were always the best ones we had. They say wet saddle blankets make a good horse, and that was surely the case with Spider. Of Dad’s string of riding horses, Spider was one of the best. He was a big rangy gray gelding with size and strength and beauty being his best qualities.
by Cowgirl on June 3, 2011
I was at my folks’ house last weekend, and was looking through some boxes of old photos, and came upon a letter I had written them many years ago when I was a lonely school teacher just out of college, with only horses to keep me from feeling homesick. Reading through it gave me a mix of feelings—happy to remember the fun day on horseback, sad to think that I ended up buying and losing this mare in a horrible accident, and very glad that I had written it all down in a letter so I could treasure the memories more completely.
It was one year ago today that I started this horse blog, and it’s been a wonderful adventure to share my horse experiences with all of you. Bringing so many old memories to life has been richly rewarding, and I love thinking back on the horses I knew as a kid. As a big thank you to all of my readers, I am holding my very first Cowgirl Diary Giveaway right here on this blog post!
