About

I never imagined I would become a barnwife

That I would own horses, definitely for sure. I’ve been horse crazy since I knew what a horse was. I’ve always known there would be a horse in my life at all times if I could help it.

But having horses at home is hard. It’s tons of work and there’s no vacation from it. 

For this reason, having my horse at home was never part of the plan I envisioned for my life. I always assumed I would work at another job in order to pay for my horse and its board. Then I would have a family. Then I didn’t know if I would even be able to ride at all. I’ve always wanted to focus on doing the best I can as a wife and mom as my top priority.

Yet now, here I am, living on a horse farm with four horses at home. Taking care of them and creating a beautiful, peaceful and productive place to grow for my family and the animals is my full-time job.

I placed my faith in God, willing to give up whatever I needed to in order to follow His plan for me. He led me here, and I’ve been able to keep my equestrian dreams. It is just different, harder, and richer than I expected.

My journey begins

My horse journey truly started when I was 10 years old. My parents gifted me an unstarted two-year-old Paint colt that they had acquired for free. I had almost no background in riding. For years I didn’t have access to adults who could mentor me. What I did have was parents who were patient and dedicated. They brought me to the barn whenever I wanted to go (almost every day) and helped however they could. I had books by John Lyons, Jane Savoie, and Sally Swift.

Needless to say, I made tons of mistakes and missteps. I taught my brave and good natured horse to fear water. I created a mental block about canter lead departures that persisted in my mind long after a competent coach had finally helped me fix the issue for the horse. The training went very slowly. 

The 4H horse show each year was how I measured our progress. We slowly improved our performance year after year and grew as a team. We also played a lot. Galloping over frozen fields after the crops were harvested was both of our favorite thing. We had tons of fun together no matter what we were doing. 

Finally, after seven years of hard work, we scored 70% on a Training Level dressage test. That was the proudest moment of my life. I still count it among my greatest achievements, although I hope it will soon be overshadowed by much greater achievements with The Bay.

Sadly, my colorful and fruitful relationship with my first horse ended when I went off to college and started another phase of life. He went to a local 4H leader and has had a long career of teaching kids to ride and taking them to their first shows.

Fast forward 13 years.

I’ve been leasing and borrowing rides wherever I can in the interval, and taking occasional lessons. I’m now married to the man of my dreams, and he is just finding out the full extent of my horse obsession. He’s also finding out how much horses and horse sports cost. Boarding a horse is out of the question right now (“we take care of our own stuff” is a phrase he lives by). But the Man of my Dreams is a generous and practical man. He finds us a beautiful little horse farm, and we move there. 

A new dream is born for me: to run my farm so that not only my horse can flourish here, but others can also have an affordable, personal place for their horse to live. A place where they are treated like family.

We named our farm Pino Ventoso, which is Spanish for Windy Pine. The Man of my Dreams is Dominican, and we wanted to use Spanish to bring a little taste of the faraway Caribbean home to Michigan.

A new time of learning

My previous work was in life sciences research, and I have a masters degree in Pharmaceutical Science. I take a rather methodical approach to everything I do, and I’m serious about learning.

In preparation for bringing horses home, I took university certificate courses on some of  the most  important aspects of horse husbandry. These included growing and feeding horse hay and equine nutrition.

I also connected with owners of larger boarding barns and learned all I could from them about how to manage having boarders. But most of the lessons about keeping horses at home and running a small boarding barn, I have learned as I went along.

Manure management, pasture management, budgeting, winter horse care: all these areas have offered their own challenges. Since I always want to do everything the very best I can, I dove in and made the mistakes and corrections that have led me to consider myself fairly knowledgable in all these areas.

The farm is hard work, and it’s a huge change from our old lifestyle, where we had  freedom to travel and relax all evening. 

The work is satisfying though, and anything related to horses is a joy for me.

Finally time for me to own a horse again

Similar to the Man of my Dreams, I am a practical person. I acknowledged that the cost of buying a horse already trained for my chosen sports (hunter jumper and dressage) was too much for me right now. I would have to adopt a green horse again. I planned to look at off-the-track Thoroughbreds as an alternative to more pricey warmbloods. 

Owning and training one of these would certainly be a much bigger challenge than my laid-back but ready for anything Paint Horse of years gone by. 

I began looking for the perfect fit. 

Almost immediately there arrived at a local rescue a leggy, doe-eyed bay from Kentucky. She was a favorite among rescue volunteers for her eagerness to please. She was sensitive yet level-headed and brave. It turned out she had never actually raced, but had failed training for an unknown reason.

I knew she was the one for me as soon as I saw her. I brought her home. 

The Bay was 3 years old when she came to me. Grateful to have a foundation of training to build on, I started by going back to the very basics of steering and stopping. Even with limited horse training experience and no formal instruction, I am confident in my ability to create a toolbox of fundamental behaviors that we can build on over the years.

As with my first horse, I am willing to take it slow. As we go along I’ll be able to enlist the help of expert friends and professionals when I need it.

I made a great choice in adopting The Bay. She is the perfect horse for me. Still, there are many challenges to face, and I’m sure I will make mistakes. But I know someday we will be the jumping and dressage team that I’ve been dreaming of since my days in 4H.

A barn full

In order to offset the cost of horse ownership, I take a few boarders and give beginner riding lessons. By inviting other people’s horses into our little farm, we achieve a few different goals:

One is income. I gave myself the goal of fully paying for The Bay and my own horse habit with the income from the farm. 

Importantly, boarded horses are friends for The Bay, so she has a herd. 

I love being able to provide access to a laid-back, affordable, personal place for people to board and ride their horses.  

And, boarders sometimes do the farm chores, so I can have a little break.

With the boarders, our herd includes 4 horses. I’ve become an expert in keeping 4 horses on our small farm. It has been an added challenge to stay within the very small budget dictated by the income from the boarders and lessons.

A growing family

Inside the house, the Man of my Dreams and I have a new baby. This adds a whole new level of complication to the work of the farm and training of The Bay.

In order to get barn chores done, I often need to get the baby to sleep in his car seat and bring him out to the barn. Then I hurry through the chores before he wakes up.

Sometimes I have to ride at night, by the light of the moon, after the baby has gone to sleep.

By no means do I have the interplay between motherhood and equestrianism figured out. But I’m so grateful to have my horse at home where I can continue riding (at least a little) even with a newborn.

Dedicated to constant growth

I am dedicated to constant growth. As an equestrian, barn owner, wife, mom and Christian.

One thing I do is place my faith in God. Even though my own plans for my life originally did not include a horse farm, I know I am where He placed me. He cares for me and my husband and child; even our animals. As long as I am careful to follow Him, He will keep guiding me to what’s best so I can do the best for my family, The Bay, and the other horses under my care.

Our farm is a place of constant learning, mistakes, corrections, love, fun, and peace. And I am so happy to be able to share it with you! I want to share the learning and mistakes, as well as the successes, and create a community where we can learn from each other about horse keeping, horse training, horsemanship, and training ourselves to be better for our horses.

I hope this blog is a place you can come for inspiration, help with your horse or farm, and happiness. Just like the barn.