Swamped Trails

Last June, I was in a mild panic, buying hay and feeding it out. That’s how quickly our 10-acre pasture was eaten up by grazing and burned up by the high temperatures and lack of rain. We loved the sun and warmth, but animals and […]

A Horse’s No Win Situation

That was the tough, take-away message from Dr. Rebecca Gimenez when asked about how to protect your horses in the event of a tornado. Close them in barns and you run the risk of harming them when the barn collapses. You may also stress them […]

Absence makes the heart grow Appreciative

May has been full of travel. It’s involved truck and horse trailer alright. But this time, the rig was filled with bookcases, lamps, clothes, and keepsakes instead of horses. 3,000 miles. From Iowa to Maine (empty), then back to Iowa (full) as we completed the […]

Memorial Day may be for horses, too

Barbara King is a member of a small group of articulate scientists discussing and contributing exciting research on non-human emotions. It’s a fascinating field and one that has, over the generations, weathered challenges of anthropomorphizing and, on the other end of the spectrum, outright dismissal. […]

Wear your heart on your sleeve

Or wrist. I recently discovered MudLOVE, this cool little company based in nearby Indiana. They make nifty ceramic bands with simple sayings. What’s more, they give a full 20 percent of all sales to help folks in Africa get clean water. NickerNews has the custom-made […]

Disaster Strikes. Do you have a plan?

I met up with friend Rebecca Gimenez a day after the lethal tornado plowed through Moore, Oklahoma. Dr. Gimenez, president of Technical Large Animal Emergency Rescue, has seen her share of disasters and has trained thousands how to save horses and other animals from peril. […]

Weight does matter

Together with the horse, we’re Olympians. Together, we’re scholarship athletes. We’re a legendary duo, crossing continents, scaling mountains, swimming rivers, and outsprinting nearly every other species on the planet. But somewhere along the line, it became OK to partner-up with our horses as overweight, out-of-shape […]

Win something for your pocket

CONGRATULATIONS to Kathy from Freeport, Maine. She won this month’s contest. Thanks for the great response! We’ll give away Redmond Rock next week and Eco Lips again soon! …It’s one thing most of us riders have with us all the time. We’re as […]

Puppy’s first trail test

Lessons continue for our Australian Shephard pup, Kip. Next phase of Ride Along Dog training? Hit the trails! [Read past Dog and Horses posts.] Since she’s not entirely savvy about traffic or strangers, I had to work out some safety-related logistics first: We picked […]

“Pick Me!” attitude

With the warmer weather arrival, we’ve been enthusiastically hitting the trails again. Floodwaters be darned. [see facebook photos] It was nice to discover the horses seemingly as eager for the foray as us humans. When I brought out Pep and Shea, Brooke and Jodi seemed […]