Prophet Hill Farm

06/20/2026

My old, blind horse still loves me. 💕

06/18/2026

06/16/2026

Today. . .after so much time has already passed. . .it is finally hitting me like a freight train. Missing all my beautiful, wonderful lesson horses and ponies, and their amazing students. 💔

06/15/2026

People often look at a blind horse and see only what was lost.

They see the cloudy eye.

They see the uncertainty.

They see the challenges.

But they rarely see the courage.

Every morning, this horse wakes up in a world it cannot fully see. There are no clear paths, no distant horizons, no warning signs. Every sound matters. Every scent becomes a guide. Every familiar voice becomes a source of comfort.

Yet despite all of that, horses like this continue to trust.

And that may be the most beautiful thing about them.

Imagine placing your faith in a world you cannot clearly see.

Imagine depending on others and still finding the strength to greet each day with calmness instead of fear.

That is what this horse does.

Every single day.

Many people think strength looks like power, speed, or dominance.

But true strength often looks very different.

Sometimes it looks like standing quietly in a stall, facing a challenge that would break many hearts, and choosing not to give up.

A blind horse does not dream about what was taken away.

It learns to live with what remains.

It learns the sound of footsteps.

It learns the touch of a caring hand.

It learns that kindness can become a map.

And little by little, fear is replaced by trust.

What moves me most is that horses never feel sorry for themselves.

They do not spend their lives asking, “Why me?”

They simply adapt.

They keep going.

They continue loving the people who care for them.

They continue searching for comfort, friendship, and connection.

In many ways, they teach us a lesson that humans often forget.

Life is not always about seeing every step ahead.

Sometimes it is about having the courage to take the next step anyway.

This horse may not see the faces of the people who love him.

But he feels their presence.

He recognizes their voices.

He knows their touch.

And perhaps that is a reminder for all of us.

The most important things in life were never meant to be seen with our eyes.

They are felt with the heart.

Trust.

Loyalty.

Compassion.

Love.

And looking at this horse, I cannot help but think that he sees those things more clearly than most of us ever will.

(picture of my blind gelding, Quinn 💙 text poached from The Forest Vuyko page)

06/13/2026

Horses Don't Measure Sacrifice 😒

One of the hardest things about horse ownership is accepting that your horse doesn't know how much you care.

They don't know how many hours you work to afford them.

They don't know how much money you've spent trying to help them.

They don't know about the holidays you've skipped, the sacrifices you've made, the sleepless nights you've spent worrying, or the countless hours you've devoted to researching, learning, and trying to do the very best by them.

And that's hard.😕

Because those sacrifices are real.

Most horse owners don't simply own horses. They build their lives around them.

So when a horse is anxious, difficult, reactive, unwilling, or struggling despite all that effort, it's easy to find yourself thinking:

*"Surely they should know I'm trying."*

But horses don't measure sacrifice.

They don't evaluate effort.

They don't judge intention.

They respond to how they feel.

As herd dynamic expert Kerry Thomas says:

> "A horse wants harmony with their environment and contentment with their peers."

So when a horse isn't coping, the question isn't whether they know how much you care.

The question is whether they feel secure in their environment (that includes both their internal and external environments) and content in their relationships, including the one they have with you.

My friend and collaborator Isabelle Chandler and I often talk about another confronting idea.

We don't spend much time wondering whether horses love us.

The truth is, we don't know what love means to a horse.

What we do know is that horses can learn to trust us.

And trust leaves evidence.

You see it in a horse that approaches willingly. A horse that tries when things are difficult. A horse that looks to you when they're uncertain. A horse that finds confidence and security in your presence.

To us - that is the best. ❤

They may never know how much you've sacrificed for them.

But they can learn to trust you.

And perhaps that's enough.

Because the meaning we find in horses was never really about being loved back in the way humans love. It comes from sharing our lives with them. From learning, growing, caring, trying, and becoming better because they are in our world.

Horses connect us to something bigger than ourselves. To nature. To the seasons. To the earth beneath our feet. To responsibility, humility, and wonder.

For me, horses make me feel alive.

And if, through all our efforts, we can help a horse feel safe enough to trust us, then perhaps that is one of the most meaningful relationships we can hope to build.

Collectable Advice 231/365. Hit SHARE or SAVE. Please no copy and pasting.🙏

06/10/2026

❤ God gave us horses for a reason...

06/08/2026

wow, I could have written most of this myself 🥰

I want to talk a little bit today about loving everything about horses and at the same time, being tired. Just bone weary from a thing the experts call ‘caregiver fatigue’.

I’m right there with you. And it’s a curious thing because this uncomplaining level of care that we vow to do for our horses—or other pets or even, people—is noble and good. We are happy to dole out the meds, hand walk the miles to recovery, reset the ground poles, cold hose the wounds, change the bandages. We are.

But we are also day by day, running on empty.

So, this is an essay, an assembling of my thoughts and facts. It is not a cry for help or a request for free advice. I am not asking for permission to do the right thing. I have been here before; many, many times before. Yet, here we are.

Yesterday, as I was wrapping up my chores, which for many years, consisted of nothing but feeding or changing pastures for the good of the grass, I realized with a start that I’d not had time to ride. In fact, I’d not had time to ride for several days in a row, which is absolutely in opposition to what I’m trying to do with the young and upcoming horses in my life.

The healthy ones end up waiting, while the chronically ill or lame get all the attention. Again and again, like a broken record.

The uncomfortable truth comes when I begin to realize that there is a way out of this drain of energy—and let’s be very frank, financial resources, too. I’ve reached the stage where I’m looking at horses I love fiercely and thinking, we need to stop the bus.

I’m writing this, not because I want someone to convince me otherwise, or tell me to keep my chin up. I’m not canvassing for money, or sympathy. I’m just telling it like it is. One needy horse easily becomes two. A horse who was brought into one’s life for easy riding, then turns out to be struggling with even that.

“Walk only, from now on,” the vet decrees and I instantly, she becomes a ‘retiree’, which is a euphemistic label for a horse who never really had a career, to begin with.

A beloved teenaged mare who has ranched hard for her living is now back with us old folks, while we try to figure out why she’s no longer moving soundly. I add her to the three who are already on a daily cocktail of Previcox and 4-CYTE, not to mention the molasses cookies that make the doling out of such meds palatable and easy.

Last trip to the feed store, these treats were $34 a bag. Bandages and sterile pads for the young mare ran to $200 per week, all winter. The old-timers' meds went on the credit card, $750 for the summer. My aged, high-mileage working horses have been on some sort of maintenance for the past several years.

"They are safe and beautifully schooled. They are so worth it!" we say. "You don't get something for nothing."

My husband, who is hardened by life and yet, harbours a heart of gooey, sticky toffee pudding, tells me to give them all their chance. "They'll come around," he tells me, because until now, they always have.

I look to another corner of the corrals. Ah, here are the remains of a massive wire cut that happened nine months ago. While this young pony is miraculously moving soundly, the injury itself is still requiring care. Tissues are still weeping, the scar needs tending carefully because it wants to build up into something ugly. That is, unless I keep on keeping on with the TLC.

And so, I do.

Two geldings are what we'd call ‘serviceably sound’ if they are on a gentle program of osteopathy, in-hand exercises and easy riding, along with said meds. One requires orthotics in the form of European shoes that are $340 every six weeks. He is safe and fun but can no longer be used as a schoolmaster lesson horse, which admittedly helped pay his ongoing expenses.

Another came home after a high-mileage life, a lovely kind horse who turned out to have rapidly-worsening arthritis in her knees. She is both beautiful to look at and to handle, but has been on pain meds since last year. She has helped out as a lesson horse a handful of times but this, too, is becoming too much for her ageing body.

Recently, I took on a lovely pony who had formerly been in my life. I remember, with a flush of pleasure, how he first blossomed in my hands, those years ago.

I was overjoyed to have him return home to me, as per his late owner’s wishes but—and this is a huge but—he is very unwell. What was mentioned in passing as ‘seasonal allergies’ is, in fact, advanced-stage COPD, which is now termed equine asthma. Here I am, bandying about all the acronyms and correct terminology, when I had no idea that this was where I'd next be focusing all my new learning.

Just to live comfortably, this fellow is requiring steroids administered by way of a nebulizer, along with feed additives and herbs to support his breathing. His roughage is being steamed and if I’ve no time for that, is soaked thoroughly, before each feeding. Another hour each day is being portioned off to love on this dear pony but I wonder, for how long can he and I continue?

Especially, as I add him to all the others who have gradually shifted to chronic patient status in my life. How long can we go on?

This becomes the question asked by me and every single equine caregiver out there. It is a question of monetary drain, even more so than the emotional and physical one. Since the pandemic, just the basic cost of living has become so high. Nothing is getting cheaper.

We wake up each morning, making our coffee amidst countertops covered with prescription meds and syringes lined up beside the sink. I don’t even remember what my kitchen looked like without having all these bottles and hanging bags, oral dispensing tubes and quartered pills in a canister, parked in a tidy row just to give me the feeling of being in some sort of control.

Kitchen-turned-dispensary. Another day gone without training horses to live interesting and helpful lives, something I think most domesticated horses (and dogs and people) actually want. I know that there is a heartsick feeling, whenever I look over my horses and see only this lingering unwellness, without hope of change.

When I see more horses requiring chronic care, rather than looking to the younger horses who are hungry for an education, it saddens me.

So, one starts every day feeling sad about her horses and trust me, I have absolutely no idea how this situation came to pass, other than simply one dear horse at a time. Online, well-meant posts tell me how to ride a better transition, or a more effective corner, or how to straighten my horse and engage the inside hind leg...

Oh, I wish.

I know what I’d tell any friend who was going through the same. I would say that she had given it a good go, that years and years of medications and vet visits, osteopath appointments with hours of hauling and diesel costing what it does, can begin to bite into one’s financial stability.

And yet, I would remind her that such horses are with her ‘til the end, that they are not to be passed on to other hands to who-knows-what sort of final chapter. That always, the buck stops here.

But it will soon be high summer here in Alberta, with green grass up to the stirrups and bird song piping from the trees. The horses and I have made it through ‘another on the northern range’, as the old song goes. My husband reminds me, "Then, we’ll see."

I look over these beloved horses, whose every move and curve of their necks and backs I know by heart. Every slow blink, even the timbre of their whinnies. I know every single one.

She who nickers so quietly when I approach, that I can only tell by the flutter of her nostrils. The other who parks beside me, just so, that I can easily scratch between his front legs. The one who wants her forelock pulled and smoothed, over and over again, like a fretful child. The one who stands beside me as long as possible to visit and keep company and yet, has stayed too proud to ever enjoy the touch of the human hand.

I'm talking out loud and thinking of maybe six of my nine horses. Six of nine, to whom I should probably be bidding goodbye. It's almost beyond comprehension. How did this happen, one by one? How did they all grow old at the same time?

They are loved, more than ever and yet, they are making my heart heavy. I know what the answer is and that hard days are soon coming. I know that I have gone above and beyond and that I don’t need to feel guilty, for they would not want that for me, these horses who have only ever brought their people joy.

But this, too, is horsemanship. If any of this feels familiar to you, I just want you to know that you are not alone.

06/08/2026

Connection isn’t something you place in the front.

It develops when the horse is balanced, relaxed, and truly connected from back to front.

When the balance improves, the frame will change by itself.

Trying to create the frame first only leads to tension and loss of connection.

Always start with balance from back to front, the frame will follow.