For Your Consideration: Pet Trusts

6:18 pm

1 Comment

If we are lucky, we will have many pets who bless and enrich our lives for many years.

Unfortunately, we are going to grieve for them many, many times throughout our lives since their life spans are so much shorter than ours. However, if we persist in pet ownership, at some point, our pets are bound to outlive us.

We have all seen emailed pleas for pet rehoming for suddenly homeless and loveless pets who have lost their owners, since it is human nature not to want to recognize the inevitability of our own passing. Culturally, we seem […]

Equine Coronavirus

5:41 pm

4 Comments

Equine Care, Guest Author, Guest Author Farmgirl

Equine Coronavirus – A Black Swan Event

When I first heard of the concept of a Black Swan event, I was more than intrigued. Curious enough in fact, that I read the New York Times bestseller: The Black Swan, the Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007, Random House, 300 pages and notes, etc). This very complicated treatise was based upon the story of the black swan: basically people were convinced that all swans were white. When a black swan was first discovered, it literally, in today’s vernacular, rocked their world.

This shock […]

Being a Foster Parent

5:46 pm

4 Comments

Guest Author Farmgirl, Misc.

When watching friends foster pets in the past, be it horses, dogs or cats, I always knew that was one thing I would NEVER do.

I couldn’t understand how you could have an animal you have cared for, be taken from you. My pets have a home for life with me; I couldn’t imagine having to give them away.

Well, just like Sean Connery learned when accepting the role to reprise his James Bond character in ‘Never Say Never Again‘, I can no longer, ever, say never. Devon and Bubba both came into my life a […]

Finding the Perfect Paddock Fencing

11:54 pm

2 Comments

Guest Author Farmgirl, Products

Mission: Impossible?

If you have read my blog on finding the perfect horse fencing, https://equinefacilitydesign.com/2012/07, you’ll remember that I successfully found the perfect perimeter/pasture fencing as part of my overall horse farm plan for my facility.

While I am exceptionally happy with it for my pastures, I wanted something different for my paddocks. So my next fencing dilemma was to search for the perfect paddock fence. And like Don Quixote’s ongoing quest of tilting at windmills, I once again began my search; would I find a solution? Poor Don only had […]

TEA-CHER, T.E.A.C.H.E.R., TEA-CHER

3:37 pm

0 Comments

Guest Author Farmgirl, Misc.

“No one can teach riding as well as a horse.” CS Lewis

It’s time to tell Treasure’s story. If you read my blog entitled Analogies and the Wizard of Oz, (https://equinefacilitydesign.com/blog/post/Analogies-and-The-Wizard-of-Oz.aspx), I allude to Helen Keller when describing Treasure:

Treasure, what can I say about Treasure? The horse of every little girls dream – golden palomino, flaxen mane and tail, the color of straw. Yep, Treasure was my Scarecrow, a gorgeous animal and the smallest horse in the barn with the biggest […]

Magazine Review: Equestrian Quarterly – Celebrating Country Life

2:04 am

1 Comment

Facility Planning & Design, Guest Author Farmgirl, Misc.

Magazine Review: Equestrian Quarterly

Do you ever find yourself thinking you signed up for the “Town and Country” life, but ended up with Green Acres (and speaking for myself, with a little Minnie Pearl vibe) instead? Do you imagine yourself with shiny, perfectly groomed, well bred steeds in the fanciest of stables but when you walk out to the barn you find sweaty, dirty and frankly backyard bred (albeit beloved) mutts living in what could hardly be referred to as a ‘stable‘? And like me, do you think of yourself as leading a Ralph […]

Hay Fever Season

7:25 am

0 Comments

Guest Author Farmgirl, Misc.

This time of year I get hay fever.

Oh, not the coughing and sneezing kind. More like the delirious “I’ve got to get my hay in” kind of feverish rant that always hits me right around June 1, like winter is coming imminently and I need to store up for a long, hard one.

It is an interesting phenomenon how close I feel to farming this time of year. I am not a farmer. Oh, I have a few acres I refer to as my farm. But I have no delusions that I am one. Regardless, I […]

Arena Grooming

2:07 am

0 Comments

Guest Author Farmgirl, Misc.

One of the benefits of blogging for an equine architecture firm, besides having access to an architect for my barn and home (Equine Facility Design does both), is the access it also provides to new products they know about (and I don’t).

Such was the case recently when I was introduced to Chuck Baker of Eco-Terr Distributing Inc. who has created the Thunder-Groom arena groomer, a beautiful piece of design and innovation engineered to take arena grooming into the 21st century.

I already have an arena grooming device that I call a harrow, and that […]