Here is a little background for you. I have been a life-long horse lover. I can’t even remember learning to ride and I can’t imagine life without horses! Have done it all. Started life riding western, then bareback and finally hunt seat! Have raised horses, trained horses, shown horses and taught riding. Except for a 5-year interlude in Europe as a teenager I have lived in the Southwest all my life including Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and currently Arizona. I also have been actively pursuing living a greener lifestyle for most of my adulthood. About 10 or 12 years ago I started focusing on becoming a greener horse person. I registered the domain name ecohorsekeeping.com  with the intention of having a website devoted to sustainable, environmentally friendly horsekeeping. I also had a longer-term view of having a physical location, such as a boarding stable, where we could provide hands-on demonstrations of eco horsekeeping. Life, (actually the real estate crash since I was a Realtor at the time!), however, got in the way and I never got the website up and running much less the boarding stable. Funny how the necessity of keeping the money coming in so that I could keep my horses fed kept interfering with my having the time to work on my website! What has changed during this time? According to the horses not much, they are still eating!  But, in this summer of 2018, the urgency to act has intensified to the point where I feel compelled to do something. As I sit here writing there are 90 fires burning in the western states, even cities are being evacuated, many high-temperature records have been broken, the east coast is under water and there is a drought in the middle states. No time left for procrastination! I feel that it is imperative that we all, horse owners or not, immediately start doing what we can to reduce the negative impact that we are having on the only home that we have, earth! Unfortunately, most of us horse owners might be aware of what is going on and even feel some guilt at times but we haven’t really made any significant moves to do too much about it. Sometimes this is a result of feeling that one person can’t make a difference. Sometimes people just don’t know what to do or where to start. While all horse owners are going to share many of the same obstacles along the road towards a greener barn, and we will include those, we westerners have our unique ones and together we will figure out how to get over, around or through them.

My goal with this site is to create a community where we can share information, links, encouragement, and support as we all try to develop a more sustainable path as horse owners. If you are a long-time horse owner then you are probably going to already be aware of or practicing some of the things that I may recommend. You are probably even going to know things that I don’t and I hope that you will share your knowledge. However, as I learned years ago when I was teaching riding, there are always new faces showing up daily! Some may just be absolute newbies, some may be getting back into riding after years away and some may be making the step from boarding their horse to keeping it at home. Whoever you are, beginner or long-time horse owner we want to give you all the tools you need to get started right in eco horsekeeping and to then continue down the sustainability trail.

 

Why the West and Southwest? I have narrowed my focus to the more arid areas of the West and Southwest because over the years I noticed that most of the horse-related eco-information being provided was directed towards horse owners who lived where too much water was the problem, not too little, where horses graze in green pastures instead of standing under a metal shade in a dry lot, etc! Our norm is dealing with the risk of our dessicated (except during the rainy season) manure piles and arena footings taking flite every time the wind blows (almost daily!), having turnouts or pastures for “recreational grazing” only and so forth. The scarcity of water is our defining issue! Striving for sustainability for us and our horses is a  serious subject and task that we are taking on but I am convinced that we can tackle it while retaining our sense of humor and turning the challenges into a friendly competition with the earth being the prize! So, lets all climb on, gather our reins and show what we can do!

Full transparency here! Most of the people online today that are trying to inform you, make you laugh, teach you, etc are not independently wealthy. They need to have incomes just like everyone else. A regular blog can be a full-time job and if enough people want to read it then it should, optimistically, produce an equivalent income.  As I mentioned above, making a living to keep me and my horses fed is what kept me from doing this until now. That necessity has not gone away, I am still feeding the same 6, mostly rescued, (2 in their 30’s now) horses but the internet has changed. Nowadays people are actually able to generate income from their websites and blogs. This can come in the form of advertising on their sites! Yes, I know we all hate the advertising on web pages that we visit but if you think about it, your favorite magazine is full of ads. That is what enables it to keep publishing! Netflix doesn’t have ads but it charges you to look! In other words, advertising is what enables the “free stuff” on the internet. Some ads can be for affiliates that pay a commission to the website owner for any sales from click-thru customers. Think Amazon for one but lots of other companies also have affiliate programs. Other revenue streams for a blog or website can come from paid subscriptions to newsletters and voluntary donations. On Eco Horsekeeping I may also provide links to various other websites that either have info that I want to share or have a product that I think you might be interested in purchasing. Some of these may be affiliates and some not. Those that are I will identify but will absolutely not base any recommendations based on that status. I refuse to monetize my integrity! As I go along I will be looking for ideas and products to share with you that I hope will make our transition to sustainable horsekeeping easier, faster and more fun. I am hoping that the content offered by Eco Horsekeeping, as well as that added by its community, will be interesting, enjoyable and informative enough that it will become a go-to resource. Therefore, please, check it out and if you find it worthwhile then give us a “like”, if you found yourself to be motivated enough to follow through on some of our suggestions then share, and if you can help support us by purchasing items (only things you really need please!) from our advertisers that would be great! My horses and I will all appreciate it.