There are a hundred million different ways to train a horse. Natural horsemanship - the idea of working along with the horse's basic instinct, working together (so to speak) to come to a mutual agreement about what you want both of you to do. Sort of. Other ideas point to using a crop and whip to coerce the horse to do what you want, not cruelly, but making the horse understand who is in charge. Another philosophy I found via google involves spending a lot of time nuzzling your horse on the neck. I failed to find anything in the instructions that spoke to loading the horse on a trailer, or crossing streams, but at least I now know the proper way of nuzzling a horse.

The point is, horse training is complicated. It is also one of those skills that I have exactly 0 days of experience with. I ride, not too well, not too terribly. I'm the least horse savvy of the family. So naturally, when I buy a horse, I look for one that's already trained. Enter the newest member of the ranch:



She is an 11 year old mustang. What on earth possessed me to buy a mustang, I may never know, but for better or for worse, here she is.

She's scared of the world. Broke and partly trained, as much as I could get really for the price I was willing to pay, amazingly beautiful with a sweet temperament when it occurs to her. She doesn't kick or bite meanly (she finger nibbles which is a habit we'll have to break). She rears a bit if she gets super mad. She'll be a bit of a work before I have a ranch buddy that can tromp through the pastures with me and chase sheep, but el jefe promises to help me and in the meantime I have a lot of books and online websites to confuse me. And you can rub her nose, which is really the most important part of a horse.