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by Cowgirl on December 1, 2017
I just got a new book in the mail, called “Cowgirl Lessons”, by Rae Rankin. It’s a sweetly rhyming storybook about a little girl’s adventures on her horse riding lesson day, and it’s illustrated by J-san with whimsical ponies and all the cowgirl details you could hope for in a children’s book. You get a […]
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by Cowgirl on October 24, 2016 · 2 comments
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.
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by Cowgirl on October 5, 2016
Well, just when everything is finally going good…the pony recovering from her tendon injury down at summer pasture with the two buckskins, and the older mares at home being used for weekly riding lessons…disaster strikes. Sunday we were at the farm after lunch, planning to work on rebuilding a fence, and so while we were there I went to let the mares out to graze. They ran out through the gate and into the grassy yard, and I noticed that Cricket went right to eating, but Daisy laid down and rolled. This seemed strange, and we usually watch them for abnormal rolling, which indicates stomach pain associated with colic. But I knew it couldn’t be colic, since they were just now being turned out on grass.
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by Cowgirl on June 30, 2016
This is me, at age one, riding my trusty horse. Wow…it’s been a long time since I’ve written here at CowgirlDiary! I love blogging, but sometimes it’s hard to keep with the theme here because I have not been doing much riding lately, and when there is little to no horse activity, it’s hard to find the inspiration to write. I do have several updates though, so here goes: We sent Cletus, our five year old buckskin gelding, out to South Dakota the first of May.
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by Cowgirl on April 21, 2016 · 2 comments
It’s always something. This time, it’s our twenty-three-year-old horse Red, who has developed severe allergies and has what is called “heaves” in horses, or COPD in humans. The symptoms are a deep cough, difficulty breathing so you see his sides “heave” in and out with each breath (hence, the name “heaves”), lack of appetite or interest in eating, which contributes to weight loss, and lethargy. It’s been less than six months since Red came to live with us, and he was such a lively, spooky, fat, healthy horse that it is really sad to see him in his current condition.
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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 […]
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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.
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by Cowgirl on February 16, 2016
I haven’t had the best luck with my horses this winter. I went out Monday morning (a week ago) to feed, and saw Penny standing out by the hay feeder alone. All the other horses were inside their run-in shed, as it was a cold morning with high winds and blowing snow. I didn’t think too much about it, until I got out of the pickup and heard her whinny. I thought to myself, “I have never heard Penny whinny before.”
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by Cowgirl on January 27, 2016 · 1 comment
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.
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by Cowgirl on November 2, 2015
Last week we had a special visit from my parents. They drove all the way from Idaho to Iowa pulling a gooseneck trailer with six horses in it, dropping off two at our place, staying overnight and spending the next day with us, then continuing on their way to two other siblings’ homes to deliver the rest of the horses. After 50 + years of ranching, my parents are finally retiring, selling their ranch and cattle, giving away most of their twenty-some horses and mules, and buying a house in town and a travel trailer to enjoy some southern winters and visits to grandkids.
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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!
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by Cowgirl on August 12, 2015
I love that old song my grandma used to sing, “Pack up all my care and woe, here I go, singin’ low…. Bye, Bye, Blackbird.” Well, in this case, it’s Bluebird we said goodbye to. If you recall, she’s the blue roan Hancock-bred mare that my sister gave me that we had shipped here from Idaho two Aprils ago. I finally decided to list her for sale this summer, and within a week I had several inquiries and one serious buyer.
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by Cowgirl on May 27, 2015
Spring is always a beautiful time of year. While the dandelions are still yellow, the tulips are blooming, and every tree’s leaf is that brand-new green color–that’s the prettiest time, when things are brand new. We’ve got a brand new baby in our family, and it’s made this spring very exciting and very busy! Jonathan, our fourth child, was born April 18th, a month early and unexpectedly and not without a scare (there were complications)….but we made it to May and he’s home and healthy and we’re both doing great now.
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by Cowgirl on March 24, 2015 · 3 comments
We are doing another fun giveaway here on CowgirlDiary.com! Up for grabs is a paperback copy of the first book in the Plaid Family Adventures Series, titled “The Runaway Horse”. These are delightfully fun books for young readers with stories about life on a Wisconsin farm. I was given a copy of “The Runaway Horse” by the author, to review and feature as a giveaway to one of my blog readers.
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by Cowgirl on December 9, 2014
You know what it’s like when you get a brand new pair of tennis shoes and you aren’t quite sure what to do with the old ones? They’re scuffed, dirty, holey, and in bad shape, but you just can’t quite throw them away. Those shoes have been with you for miles. And the new ones are so much nicer, but they don’t quite fit your feet like the old ones did. Inevitably, as soon as you throw your old ones away, you’re going to have a muddy day when you wish you had them back.
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by Cowgirl on August 26, 2014
We spent last Saturday, as we do most weekends, out at the farm. The horses are turned out to graze the green grass in the farmyard while my husband and I work in the garden and our kids play with the kittens and ride bikes and such. My brother in law and his wife had planned to go to the city for the day, so they left their three year old daughter and six month old baby with us. We were getting along well and having an enjoyable afternoon until I looked over at the group of horses and noticed Daisy just standing there, not eating. I immediately thought, “She’s colicking.” And I turned out to be right.
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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.
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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!
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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
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by Cowgirl on April 12, 2014
You can never have too many horses, right? My sister from Idaho called me the other day and offered me her beautiful blue roan mare. I didn’t know what to say, other than, “Please and thank you.” Other things went through my head, such as how will I get her here, it’s twelve hundred miles to Iowa from Idaho, and I already have four horses that I don’t work with as much as I should! But there was no way I could turn her down.
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