We just successfully passed by another Friday the 13th without incident or bad luck. While I have a family heritage of superstition, I do try pretty hard to see life from another point of view. That perspective says: you make your own luck. Not to mention that when things go well, it may actually be the blessing of Grace. However, there are ways to ensure success, especially in training horses. The old saying “prior preparation prevents pee poor performance,” definitely has a place in the starting of colts. We call it “The five P’s”. Having seen a number of young horses with neck injuries which made them difficult to train, we’ve taken pains to always tie colts in such a way as to make it difficult for them to injure themselves, or to break free. Instead of attaching lead ropes to the ring on a nylon halter, we use thick ropes and tie a bowline knot around the colt’s neck ( seafarer’s term for a non-slip knot, so as not to choke the colt. Pronounced: BO- lun) then run it through the halter ring to attach to a suspended ring or a Blocker tie ring. By the way, if you don’t have a Blocker tie ring, look them up and give one a try. Make sure you read the directions! Additional safety is insured by tying to a ring suspended from an oak tree limb; that way there’s very little direct pull against a solid object to damage the colt’s neck.

Colts learn a lot of patience from those patient old oak trees!

Most folks know that the Rio Grande is the border between Texas and Mexico.  But did you know that the river originates high in the western part of the Colorado Rockies?  

Likewise, the Brazos River, which we live near, and which runs near Fort Worth, passes through Waco, Bryan,  Brenham, and Houston on its way to the Gulf of Mexico at Freeport, has its origin in Running Water Draw north of Clovis, New Mexico.

As a result of the prodigious lengths of these two rivers, there is often confusion in recipes concerning cooking times when they are shared from one chuck wagon cook to another, as they move up and down river. These two rivers start at some pretty hefty altitudes. Up in the mountains, there is considerably less atmospheric pressure. Water boils at a lower temperature, sometimes as low as 180°F instead of 212°F at sea level. Leavening, such as baking powder or yeasts, may produce light fluffy biscuits in small amounts in northern New Mexico, yet require almost double the amount in Laredo or Matagorda. I’ve heard some say that you can’t cook beans at altitude. Well, at 180°F I imagine it could certainly take longer than at 212°F!  

So when you read those bread recipes, especially the ones which claim to make light, fluffy, flaky biscuits, take into account where the author lives and adjust the baking powder or yeast to your own altitude. It may take some experimenting, but you’ll prevent a dough wreck!

Horse training and horse taming are really two very different art forms. These days here at our ranch we use a combination of “modern” round pen work and a method known in north America as “ponying” or in Mexico “padrino,” which means godfather. We keep the young horse coming along slowly with a lot of help to avoid allowing him to buck, because as my old mentor used to say

“They don’t learn nothing by bucking but how to buck!”

I was amused at a story I once heard about starting colts way south in Mexico.The scene was a dirt street in a small town, or pueblo. The buildings were so close on either side of this street that only at midday did the street receive sunlight. The two-year-old colt was brought out to the street by a rope around his neck. In the street, held by two or three charros, it was fitted with a hackamore, then saddled and cinched up. An older, steady stock horse then moved in front of the colt, and the mecate of the hackamore was dallied around the horn of the padrino’s saddle. Then a second older, seasoned horse moved in behind the colt, and the rider roped the colt’s left hind foot. He didn’t dally immediately but stayed in readiness to shut down any attempt to buck. The “jockey” mounted the colt, just as two other riders slid into place on either side of the colt, to steady him in his seat. At a signal from the lead charro, the whole apparatus took off at a gallop down the street and out into the monte (the brushy open desert). An hour later five horses plodded back into town, four seasoned veteran cow horses and one very tired, very sweaty, but now very tame two-year-old new recruit to the school of stock horse training.