I’m the kind of person who loves planning and whether it’s for studying or riding, I always like to have a written plan on paper or I start to feel unorganized and unproductive. When I plan the following week on Sunday evening, all I have to do next is just follow the plan and that way, I won’t have to worry about getting everything done. This mostly applies for studying, because my deadline is the day of the exam and I know exactly what I have to learn before that date.…

Life Hacks we can learn from horses

by Linda Finstad

Acknowledging horses as great teachers is nothing new.

Anyone who learned to ride on a pony will eagerly relay all the life lessons they learned from that experience.  Lessons in patience, determination, how to fall and roll and humility.…

Life Hacks for Riding Schools

Stand out from the crowd by adding extra services and promotions for your clients.

Its as easy as looking through your phone book.

• Ask your local tack store to give your clients a discount  - I am sure if you were sending all your new riders their way to get kitted out they would be more than…

One Old Cow Girl

Linda Peterson was a former guest on my podcast - Straight From the Horse's Mouth Radio Show - http://www.straightfromthehorsesmouthradioshow.com/057. Linda is a real Canadian Cow Girl who lives a happy,…

If you own a grey horse, then you know how grey horses seem to be mud and dirt magnets. Unfortunately it’s impossible to hide dirt in a grey coat, so you will need to be talented in your grooming to have your grey horse looking great. These tips can help you in the challenge to keep your grey horse clean.…

I have a confession to make.....

I was feeding my horses, checking on the water, and generally mooching around the field, hanging out with them,  when suddenly my phone rang.   It was my long standing close friend and 'adopted' big brother Paul, one of the best Music Perrformance Coaches in the business.  I was delighted as it seemed such a long time since we had chatted.  Whilst we were chatting I found myself confessing something and it kind of came from…

Good morning, now then I promised that I would share some more tips about self belief, so here is tip number two for you.

Self belief is feeling good enough; its the feeling that you can handle whatever life, or your horse throws at you? Its about having a healthy appreciation and acknowledgement (we often forget this bit), of your abilities and talents. Its not about anything superficial.

Its about being OK with you, and OK with where you are at with your…

When things go wrong in our horse work, our horsemanship, our riding.....we begin to blame ourselves; but we also take it further.  Sometimes we can blame ourselves so much when things go wrong that we stop trying, we stop searching for an answer, we stop attempting to move forward and begin to move backwards.

This does not just affect our relationship with our horses, it starts to creep into other areas of our lives, how we see ourselves, our social interactions, our careers…

Here's the second part meaning another 5 of the ten life lessons I've learned from horses so far.

1. You are allowed to make mistakes. Have you ever felt reproach in a horse‘s glance? I haven‘t. Not because my project horse isn‘t fed up with me from time to time. I make mistakes, am unfair (though not on purpose), am not in control of my…

We have a decently healthy herd here at Infinity Farm. We are eight species strong- mostly horses, but our fair share of ruminants as well.  Sometimes you can pick up a sick vibe in the herd before you can figure out which animal it is. It’s almost like sensing it out of the corner of your eye. This week it was a llama.

Her real name is Belle Starr, but she is a big boned girl and it’s hard to not refer to her as the Belly Llama. She had a bit of a digestive upset that I was able to…

Henk writes:

The stall next to me wasn’t empty for long. A day or two after the Spanish horses left for their new home in Nova Scotia (see November 9th post), Louis, our Canadian horse, appeared next door. He likes to live outside in the big pasture, so I hadn’t seen him for a while. He was looking exceptionally grumpy.

“Merde,” I heard him curse under his breath. He was avoiding me, trying to get to the far  side of his stall, but every time he put his…

Henk the Friesian horse writes:

OnTRA (the Ontario Therapeutic Riding Association) is asking its member centres to nominate outstanding riders, volunteers, and of course HORSES for special recognition. So naturally I expected Lil to nominate me. You don't get much more outstanding, after all. With my tall, dark and handsome looks, my charming personality, my aristocratic breeding... It should be a no-brainer.

But for some reason she thinks that working only a handful…

Henk writes:

It's show season! For us, that means getting our manes french-braided and doing everything from dressage tests to trail classes to leading patterns, all the while being filmed on video. The videos are then uploaded to Para-Equestrian Canada where our riders compete on video against riders from across the country, all of them with some kind of disability.

What a cool idea. We horses get to show off to people we've never even met, and the riders love it,…

Henk writes:

It's impossible to overstate the importance of a well-trained human to the happiness of a horse's life. As with anything, you can cut corners and start with an untrained human -- or even try to reform a spoiled one -- but unless you're an expert, it's a risky thing to do.

Cry if you want, but you'll learn to sit that…

http://www.stonegatefarm.ca

Henk writes:

I've been working in therapeutic riding lessons for the past couple of weeks because Sunny, the tiny Standardbred with the delicate physique has hurt himself again. His owner (who lends him to my human, Lil, for lessons), calls it Recurring Sunny Summer Lameness (RSSL), because he likes to maim himself each summer and spend at…

If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you’re there?   When working with coaching clients, I always ask them to set a goal for their sessions.  It’s important for both of us to know what to focus on;…

Kick Start a Healthy Life – 10 Tips you can Start Today

By Lindsey Forkun BScN, PHN

1)      Eat more…