The Horsemanship Years
I didn’t plan on becoming a horseman. I didn’t even plan on becoming a guy who owned a pair of decent boots. Horses slipped into my life sideways. First through my wife, Ranae, then through a half-acre lot with a fence held together by hope and rust, and eventually through a line of horses who taught me far more than I ever taught them.
The horse walked in. My life followed.
The horse walked in. My life followed.
I wrote most of this story without meaning to. Back in 2005, I kept a casual blog called Over-the-Counter. It was a place to talk about life, the store (we owned and operated a health food store in downtown Bakersfield), neighbors, and whatever wandered through my day. Mixed into all of that were posts about our horses. I didn’t realize it then, but those entries were trail markers. They showed the awkward learning, the small breakthroughs, the scares, the mistakes, the rides that stuck with me, and the way horses managed to rearrange my life without asking permission.
Why These Stories Still Matter
This series gathers those moments and puts them into something you can read without digging through twenty-year-old archives. It’s the story of how I went from “helping Ranae with her horse” to becoming someone who studied, trained, questioned, and tried to understand these animals. It’s the story of Vandy, Dusty, Charlie, Tex, Jessie, Scratch, and the long stretch of dirt roads, alfalfa fields, and mistakes between them.
I’m not trying to teach horsemanship here. I’m sharing how I learned it: slowly, imperfectly, and with more enthusiasm than skill. If you’ve ever been pulled into something bigger than you expected, or you’re starting your own journey into horses, maybe you’ll see a little of your own story in mine.
The chapters that follow tell the story one year, one horse, and one lesson at a time.