by Cowgirl on November 15, 2016
I started giving horseback riding lessons to two little girls this past summer. With fall approaching, daylight savings time changing things up, and the temperatures dropping, we started feeling like our horse riding time might be nearing an end. So we decided with these warm fall days still lingering here in the Midwest, we would make the best of them! We went on a fun trail ride on a beautiful Saturday morning, and had a wonderful ride.
by Cowgirl on September 20, 2016
I was recently asked by a friend of mine if I would give horseback riding lessons to her two daughters. I have never taken riding lessons, and never given a formal riding lesson. But it sounded like fun to me, so I said “yes”. The girls are beginner riders, and I am a beginner teacher, but fortunately we have two older mares to learn with, and that makes it all possible. We will have our fourth lesson this week, and I have discovered that it is as fun for me as it is for the girls!
by Cowgirl on September 4, 2016
This is when you know you’re a true cowgirl, right? You go wedding dress shopping, and your only requirement is that the skirt be full enough for you to swing up into the saddle! My sister asked me to photograph their beautiful wedding in the mountains of Idaho. I had so much fun, and the western backdrop made the pictures effortlessly beautiful.
by Cowgirl on March 8, 2016
I wanted to post a collection of photos of my horse Rudy through the years, just to remember him by. He was the best horse in the world. I remember in high school I entered a writing contest and the title of my essay was “The Best Horse in the World”…I don’t remember everything I […]
by Cowgirl on September 30, 2015
We have reached another milestone in our horse life: we rode Cletus, our four year old buckskin gelding! If you remember, we bought him as a baby alongside his mother, Penny, in the fall of 2011. Last November, we sent him to the Rosebud Indian Reservation for a crash course in behaving under saddle….the trainer raved about him and said he was the best horse he’s ever trained. So then we brought him home and (due to me being pregnant and my husband being very busy) he stood around in our corral for almost another year. The good news is that we have been riding him this summer!
by Cowgirl on February 16, 2015
If you grew up around horses and were taught by a parent or riding instructor, the common sense advice in this article might seem a little unnecessary or redundant to you. But even as a kid growing up with horses, there were a few things I learned the hard way! It’s so much better to learn from other’s mistakes, read about it, and make a mental note to never let that actually happen to you or your horse. So I’m sharing some practical tips to avoid accidents and keep you and your horse safe.
by Cowgirl on January 4, 2015
I’m not big on New Year’s Resolutions. Personally, I would rather be honest with myself and not make any outlandish, pie-in-the-sky claims to change immediately or “from now on”. Why set myself up to fail? But I like having an idea, mulling on it, letting it grow, see where it leads, and eventually following through with it. And like a true procrastinator, why should I be in any hurry about it? If it doesn’t ever get followed through with, then it probably wasn’t that good of an idea after all. That being said, I do have a few dreams and wishes for the new year.
by Cowgirl on November 26, 2014
As mentioned in a previous post, we recently took our two untrained horses out to South Dakota for training. Due to me being pregnant with our fourth child, the training was going to be postponed for another nine months at least, and we really wanted to see these two colts started as soon as possible. So in October they made the trip out to Mission, SD, to spend at least a month with a horse training family.
by Cowgirl on September 30, 2014
The riding part of the Kip Fladland Training Clinic that I went to a few weeks ago seemed to go so much faster than the groundwork part. Maybe it was because I’m not used to that much walking, I don’t know, but I was sure tired out! The morning’s work was good for us, as I think it gave us a really good focus for the riding part to follow.
by Cowgirl on September 8, 2014
Fall is my favorite time of year to go horseback riding. I am partial to summer, since I was born in August (my mother has a theory that the season you were born in is the one you like best; for instance, I like being hot, and don’t mind sweating; I hate the cold, and winter is my least favorite season), but summer is often so busy with gardening, vacations, kids’ activities, and things that can only be done in summer. I just never have time to ride in the summer, and so when fall arrives it is such a relief.
Summertime is busy. I love summer, but there is just so much going on, so much garden work to do, so many kids’ activities, so many vacations….nope, I am not complaining! But here it is nearing the end of July, and I finally got my saddle out and dusted it off and discovered that my stirrups were still set long from the last time I rode it…which was back at the first of April when Penny bucked me off! We rode at the end of May in Idaho, but here a month and a half later, my own horses have not been ridden all summer. I am just now finally get back to it!
by Cowgirl on June 24, 2014
I was recently asked to write a guest post for Equitrekking.com about the best horseback riding trails in Iowa. They are conducting a 50 State Trail Riding Project, and needed a post for good horseback riding trails in Iowa; so they contacted me to see if they could have permission to reprint my post on the Pierce Creek Trails near Essex, Iowa. I told them “sure”, but that I could do a little better, and I set out on a mission to complete a descriptive guide to my favorite horse riding trails around the state.
by Cowgirl on June 20, 2014
We visited my parents in Idaho around the end of May. They live in a beautiful valley in the southeast part of the state where they raise beef cattle, Quarter Horses, and mules. We spent a week out there riding horses, hiking on mountain trails, enjoying their western scenery, and catching up on life among the Lewis family. I took two cameras, and when I got home there were over 700 photos on my memory cards! So this blog post is to share some of the sights I saw, most of them taken from the back of a horse.
by Cowgirl on May 30, 2014
We extended our stay in Idaho a couple extra days so that we wouldn’t miss their annual cattle drive where they take their cow and calf herd fifteen miles up into the mountains. It is an all-day event, starting early and ending late, and involves a lot of horseback riding and beautiful scenery. We didn’t want to miss it! All week my sister Karmen and I had been getting horses ready. Karmen put shoes on four horses so that their feet wouldn’t wear out on the rocky trail. I rode Donegal to give her a little refresher so she would be well-adjusted to being ridden again, as my dad was going to ride her on the drive and he is seventy years old and still recuperating from his accident that broke ribs last November. Karmen planned to ride her young mule Garnet, and I was going to take Stormy, the young mare I’d been riding all week.
by Cowgirl on May 28, 2014
I’m on vacation this week. No, not sunning on some beautiful beach somewhere like most people would think of, but in my opinion this is better—I’m visiting my family in Idaho and spending a great percentage of my time horseback. I usually refer to my folks’ place as a “working cattle ranch”, with emphasis on the “working!” I am not used to this much physical exertion, andevery muscle aches, my arms and neck are sunburned, and I am saddle sore. But this is my kind of vacation!
by Cowgirl on May 26, 2014
It’s not often I get to ride three different horses in one day—much less, ride new colts and just-started horses, which is one of my favorite things. I’m in Idaho, visiting my parents and sister, and besides enjoying family time over the Memorial Day weekend and following week, our goal was to put some rides on their colts. They have twenty head in their horse and mule herd, and they are so busy with irrigating their alfalfa fields, putting up hay, and caring for their cattle that training horses gets put off. So I am always anxious to get some horses started or do more riding when we visit
by Cowgirl on April 8, 2014
That old Kenny Rogers song came to mind today, as I was thinking over the happenings of my weekend. In terms of horses, you should never be too sure of a horse. Riding horses is always a gamble. There are no sure bets, and you can win or lose with a stroke of luck, good or bad. I always say, “That’s the way the cookie crumbled.” And there’s no predicting it, how events are going to go or what exactly is going to take place. I think the cards were stacked against me in the hand I was dealt on Saturday!
by Cowgirl on April 2, 2014
I got a phone call last weekend out of the blue. The guy had been searching online for horse trainers in the area and found an ad I had placed probably eight years ago (before I had kids) when I was looking to take in outside horses to train. He wondered if I could help him with two horses he was wanting trained, and me being the horse enthusiast I am, I said “Sure.” I had to follow that up with a lengthy explanation of how I am a mom of three, work full time, and almost never have the time to ride anymore–but I assured him that I could help him put some rides on these horses of his.
We recently stayed at a swanky hotel in St. Louis where my husband attended a business conference for his work. The kids and I went along just for fun, the thought of spending three days at an indoor-pool-equipped establishment being our main motivation—yes, the long winter is getting to us! While there, my husband got his cowboy boots shined at the shoe-shine station in the lobby. After seeing the transformation from scuffed to gleaming, our son wanted his little boots shined as well. While he sat and got them polished, one of the hotel managers struck up a conversation by asking our son if he had a horse to go with those boots….
by Cowgirl on January 14, 2014
You may have heard about the recent study sponsored by Harley Davidson that deducted that women who ride motorcycles are happier than women who don’t. The study was conducted by Kelton, and interviewed 1,013 adult female riders and 1,016 adult female non-riders. “The findings make it clear that riding a motorcycle greatly improves a woman’s feelings of overall self-worth.” I wonder what a similar study would find, if they interviewed women who ride horses rather than motorcycles?
