Ankeny Hill Farm

12 acres in Jefferson, Oregon. Grass fed beef, horse riding lessons and training, dairy goats, goat meat, chickens & exciting adventures!

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Your First Horseback Riding Lesson: What to Expect

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Your First Horseback Riding Lesson

You’ve decided to take the leap into the horse world and start taking riding lessons. Maybe you’ve been on a horse before, maybe this is your first time even touching a horse (or your child’s first time). Your first lesson, whether it be the very first time, or with a new trainer, can be intimidating and maybe even a little scary. You don’t know me, you don’t know my horses, so the first lesson is all about getting to know each other. I never expect anyone to get on the horse on the first lesson although most students are excited to. If you or your child are uncomfortable, there are plenty of things we can learn off the horse. I try to be very aware of the students comfort level, and though we do want to push past that comfort zone, I also do not want a student riding scared. Just as I would back off and take smaller steps with a nervous horse, I will do the same with my nervous students.

When You Arrive

I always have the lesson horse tied up and ready when you arrive. We’ll have introductions, sign the waiver/release form (I will have one ready, or you can print it here and bring it with you or email it to me) and then go and meet the horse you’ll be working with. We walk calmly to the horse and allow him/her to smell your hand and then I generally have the kids pet her on the neck. I work mostly with children ages 5-13, so I especially have to remind the younger ones not to run up to the horse as that can startle them. Horses are prey animals, and even the calmest horse can get scared if someone, especially someone they don’t know, is running toward them.

Here are some rules I go over first:

  1. Walk calmly up to the horses head so they can see you and allow her to smell you.
  2. Pet her on the neck or side. Some horses don’t like they’re face being pet right from the beginning by someone they don’t know.
  3. Always be quiet and gentle and don’t make unnecessary sudden movements
  4. Be aware of where your feet are as you walk around the horse to ensure you don’t accidentally get stepped on (Ouch!!)
  5. When walking around the horse, either walk far behind out of the kicking zone, or right close against their rear with your hand on the rump so the horse knows you are there. Going close against their rear ensures they can’t get too much momentum if they do kick. I always have the smaller kids walk far behind out of the kick zone and I may even hold their hand to make sure they stay safe.

Grooming, Leading, Riding

I will have the student then brush the horse and show them how to pick out the hooves. After that, we will work on learning to lead for about 10-15 min. After leading, I will show the student how to saddle and bridle the horse, then walk her for a couple minutes before finishing tightening the cinch and having the student mount up.

The first lessons may only have 10-15 minutes of riding time as ground work is imperative to getting horse and rider comfortable together. Learning how to handle the horse on the ground is the building blocks for riding.

The riding part of the lesson starts on the lunge line. This is where I have the horse on a long lead line going in a circle around me. Even if the student has ridden before, I always start on the lunge line to first assess the students skill level, second, to work on the riders balance without using the reins. Then in the case of my youngest students and those that are new to riding, we will stay on the lead each lesson until they are comfortable asking the horse to walk, stop and steer.

I absolutely love working with my students and watching them learn and grow. Working with horses is such a confidence builder as well as teaching patience, self discipline, self control, compassion and so much more!

Essential Horseback Riding Gear for Beginners

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If you are going to be taking riding lessons or just riding in general, I have created a list here to make it easy for you to see what horseback riding equipment you’ll need.

Note: I do have helmets for students to use if they aren’t ready to purchase one. The only thing you might need to purchase are riding boots if you don’t already have some.

Horses are a lot of fun and I love, love, love to ride. However, they are large animals that can easily hurt us by accident. Wearing the proper attire and learning how to work with your horse in a safe manner can dramatically decrease your chances of getting hurt and ensure that you can enjoy your time with your horse. Please note, that accidents happen no matter how prepared we are, but we can do several things to help protect ourselves better.

Riding Helmet ASTM/SEI Approved

First of all, it is legal in Oregon to ride horses without a helmet. However, we require all riders under 18 to wear proper protective head gear while riding on the premises for your safety and for liability purposes. Programs such as 4-H have required 4-H members participating in any 4-H equestrian activity to wear proper helmets. (see their rules below, these are what we go by). Many other equestrian activities require helmets as well.

Troxel is a very popular brand that I have personally used.

Ovation Deluxe Schooler A bit more expensive but very comfortable and high quality.

You can also find excellent used helmets on Facebook Marketplace or at local tack sales

Effective January 1, 1996, all Oregon 4-H members participating in any 4-H equestrian activity, regardless of riding seat, will wear the minimum performance standards imposed by the American Society of Testing Materials (ASTM) F1163 and includes certification and labeling required by the Safety Equipment Institute (SEI). Such headgear will be secured with the harness engaged and be properly fastened when mounted on an equine or in a vehicle (cart, buggy, etc.) being pulled by one or more equine.

Oregon State University Extension Service

Riding Boots

Riding boots are another very important part of your horseback riding equipment/attire. They serve a certain amount of protection for your toes in case your foot happens to get in the way of your horses hoof. But more importantly riding boots are designed to lessen the chance of your foot getting caught in the stirrup and being dragged in the event of a fall.

Horse riding boots should

  • Have a smooth sole with no break from heel to toe so that there is nothing to catch on the stirrup.
  • No less than 1/2 inch heel, which serves to keep your foot from sliding through the stirrup and getting caught.
  • Light tread, again so the boot can slide easily out of the stirrup in case of a fall.
  • Fit the stirrups you are using. Again, your foot can get caught if the boot is too big for the stirrup. It is recommended to have a 1/2 inch gap between the stirrup and the widest part of the foot.

My Riding Boot Recommendations

A great quality leather riding boot can be expensive, however there are some excellent budget friendly boots out there. If you are just starting out, especially if you are buying for your child, I would definitely start with a lower cost boot. If buying for a child, they are going to outgrow their boots in no time so it’s best to get something low cost, just make sure the boots fit properly and are comfortable. There’s not much worse than wearing uncomfortable boots!

I’ll start with some budget friendly boots below, some I have tried and some I haven’t. Then I’ll list my favorite higher end riding boots.

Laced, Zipper or Pull on?

When shopping for riding boots, you’re going to come across all 3. Generally western boots and dressage boots are pull on, but you’ll find a range in between. Paddock boots tend to be zipper or laced. I personally like laced boots because I like to be able to adjust the tightness. My legs are also thicker and many of the zipper and pull on boots tend to be geared toward thinner legs/ankles. Every zipper boot I’ve tried would not zip up lol. So it’s laces for me, but even if I had thinner legs, I’d probably still prefer laces since I can adjust the tightness and comfort level. It all depends on your preference.

DREAM PAIRS Children’s Western Boot

I haven’t tried this brand personally but they are very affordable and have great reviews. Plus, if they don’t fit right, you can always return them.

Dublin Foundation Ladies Laced Paddock boots
I just bought a pair of these for myself in December 2023 and as of writing this article I’ve had them 3 months. So far they have been excellent and I wear them regularly when I do lessons and when I’m riding. They are very inexpensive at just around $45-$60 on sale at several stores online, and so far have held up just fine and are comfortable.

Ariat Paddock Boot
I also have a pair of Ariat paddock boots. These are more expensive but they are leather and once broke in, they are very comfortable. I’ve had mine for about 7 years now and they are still going strong even with getting wet and muddy at times (I do clean and condition them sometimes, though probably not as often as I should).

Water Glassing Eggs with Pickling Lime

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Water Glassing Eggs

Today let’s talk about water glassing eggs. If you have your own chickens you’ve probably had the experience of an over abundance of eggs at some point followed by hardly any eggs (especially during winter). You’ve probably wondered how you can effectively preserve your abundance of eggs! I’ve had chickens for about 7 years now. I started out with a small flock, then grew it to about 300 at one point when I had my egg business. I now have a smaller flock again. (See why I quit the egg business)

Through all this, I wished I had a way to preserve fresh eggs to use when my hens were not laying as much. This past fall and winter, I actually had to go buy eggs at the store. I had downsized my flock a lot last year, down to about 50 hens and they all quit laying in the fall! I had zero eggs from them for about 6 months which hadn’t happened before. Yes there’s the theory that the government did something to the feed or that some big feed companies were skimping on the nutrition. It did make me wonder, but I tried changing feed a few times and adding some supplements but nothing seemed to help.

The Egg Conspiracy of 2022?

Here’s the thing… I normally had been changing out my flock every year so that I never had hens over 1.5 years old. They produce best between 6 months to around 1.5 so for an egg business, you want to keep higher production rates which means you bring in new chicks each year and get rid of the older ones once the newer ones start laying.

I didn’t change out my hens last year so they were pretty much all about 2 years old or older going into the fall. Plus I had cut my flock way down and production has always dropped a lot during the winter even when using lights.

Anyway, long story short, once the days started getting longer and warmer all of a sudden my girls started laying like crazy again. Im still using the feed I normally use so I don’t buy the whole feed conspiracy (not saying it wasn’t a possibility).

Lets Preserve All Those Eggs!

Now that I’m getting a ton of eggs again, I’ve decided to try a different way of preserving them. I’ve used the freezer method, but it’s just not the same as fresh whole eggs. Freezing takes a lot more work and I don’t like taking up space in the freezer if I don’t need to, along with having to thaw them.

I had heard about water glassing eggs a few years ago but for some reason I just didn’t try it out until now. It’s very simple to do and you can just set them in the pantry when done along with the rest of your canned goods. Apparently the pickling lime seals up the egg shell even more, basically making each egg air tight and able to last 12-18 months without going bad.

I will give a disclaimer. This is the first time I’ve water glassed eggs so I will be sure to give an update in a couple months when I use the first ones and then I’ll update you again in the winter so you can see the quality after a few months of being in the pickling lime.

Ingredients For Water Glassing Eggs

Pickling Lime

1/2 Gallon Mason Jars

Water

Fresh, clean eggs. Clean from the nest, not washed!

The Process of Water Glassing Eggs in Pickling Lime

You’ll want to collect your eggs and only use the ones that are clean. Do not wash them! Do not use eggs that have been refrigerated!

If you wash them, you will wash off the natural coating that is already there. They just need to be clean as in no poop or dirt. My cleanest eggs I find are the ones from the hens that always get out of the pasture and lay in the hay barn lol. I collected the cleanest ones and saved them on the counter until I had enough to use for water glassing. The dirty eggs I just leave on the counter and wash and use for cooking right away or put them in the fridge if I might not use them within a couple weeks or so.

Take your 1/2 gallon mason jar and set it on a kitchen scale and zero it out. Add one ounce of pickling lime, then pour 1 quart (4 cups) of water into the mason jar and stir. It will not dissolve all the way but that’s ok.

Next, start adding the fresh, clean eggs pointy side down (as much as possible). I used some tongs to set each egg gently down in the jar. A large pickle jar with a wider mouth would make this even easier! I’m going to use one of those next time! I’ve heard of people even using a 5 gallon bucket to water glass lots of eggs.

I was able to fit 13 or 14 eggs in each 1/2 gallon mason jar. Once all your eggs are added, just screw on the lid and set in a cool dark area of your pantry. In a box on the floor is a great place.

Now That We’ve Saved the Eggs…

When you use the eggs, you can just take what you need from the jar or container and close it back up with the leftover eggs in it. I’ve read that you need to wash the eggs thoroughly before using them as to get all the pickling lime off of them.

I will post updates on how my eggs are doing starting in a couple months so you can see the quality as they sit longer. From what I’ve read, the eggs are supposed to look and taste just like when they are fresh. I’m curious to see how they do being hard boiled as well.

Have you ever water glassed eggs? What’s your experience and do you have any tips? Leave a comment below!

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A New Chapter-Building An Equestrian Facility

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Hey there! Remember one of my first posts, when we first started our farm? Well, we are nearly 6 years into it since we moved here. Can you believe that? 6 years already! When we found this place, my plan/goal was to create a horse facility. I had one horse at the time, and I wanted to get back into giving riding lessons, plus work on furthering my own riding career specifically in natural horsemanship training and dressage.

Things haven’t quite gone exactly as I hoped and I’m not where I wanted to be by now. We’ve taken some detours trying to make money with the farm selling chicken eggs, grass fed beef and pastured organic whole chicken. Those things have helped some. It’s not a lot of money but it’s helped pay for a few things. Last year I was finally able to get my area for an arena cut out and sanded. We were also able to buy an old horse trailer that my dad has fixed up (it’s just waiting to get the floor put back in now).

3 summers ago I started giving some lessons to a friends children, but then broke my ankle late 2019 (not horse related) and had a long recovery period. Then with Covid shutdowns and quarantines I didn’t get to give any riding lessons in 2020. Last year, however, I got to add a couple more students over the spring through fall and I thoroughly enjoyed working with these kids! I feel like it’s baby steps, but things are moving in that direction.

The problem with only having an outdoor arena, especially here in Oregon, is that you really can’t do much riding during the rainy season. So pretty much October through April or May I have to shut down the riding lessons. That makes it difficult to gain and keep students. Plus I can’t really do any of my own riding for nearly half the year. I could haul somewhere to ride but we just got our horse trailer last year and it’s not quite finished being renovated yet. It is also very difficult to find a stable that will allow you to give lessons using their facilities. Not to mention they are going to charge quite a bit to basically rent the arena, and it costs money in gas to haul my horse there if the student is using my horse.

So this year we found out that we can refinance the mortgage and get enough cash out to at least pay for materials for a 60x120ft roof only arena. We received one quote on materials so far and I have to say, it was a bit of a shock. I realized that the price of lumber is still up right now but the material quote for just a roof only, no sides enclosed at all is $51,000. Yikes. We are able to get a little over that with the refinance, but we had some other things we were hoping to do with part of the money too like adding a master bedroom to our 2 bedroom house so that the 2 boys that are still in the house don’t have to share a room anymore and we can actually have a comfortable master bedroom. We have 3 boys and none of them have really ever had their own room except our oldest for a short time in our old house.

So, we will be able to get just enough money to buy the materials for the arena and then we have some friends/family that know what they are doing and can help build it, but we do need to make sure we have enough to pay for the help.

Why I’m Quitting The Chicken Egg Business

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So here we are. I gave it a good try with selling chicken eggs the last 3 years but it’s one of those things where you start thinking more and more about downsizing. Every day you go out to feed and you just keep thinking “this isn’t what I planned to do with this property”. You start to despise all the chicken poo everywhere and all the chickens that get out no matter what you do…just pooping on every surface…..Last year we were up to nearly 300 birds! I downsized at the end of the year cutting that number in half, but it’s still a lot.

Being a chicken farmer was never my intention when we moved here in 2016. I had other plans and goals in mind. (read this post Do what you have to do and this one Beginning a Dream) But those other plans couldn’t be realized yet because they cost a lot of money up front that we just couldn’t do yet (I’ll talk more about that in another post). Selling chicken eggs just kind of fell in my lap. I don’t regret getting into it. It makes us a little money when the hens are laying at 60% or more production. I learned a lot, and we gained a lot of wonderful customers that I am so glad I got to meet! (Thank you if you are reading this!!) Selling eggs helped get our name on the map and that’s always a good thing.

But right now? In January? They’ve decided to take a complete nose dive in laying even with my lights on. It’s to be expected at times, but now that I have even more customers than I had this time last year, it makes things even more stressful. I want to have eggs available and not have people waiting too long, but I have orders that probably won’t get filled 2 weeks or so out! Everyone has been understanding, but it is still a weight on my people pleasing mind.

The problem is, eggs don’t make you much money for how much time and money you have to put into it. Plus, if you don’t have a passion for raising chickens, you’re going to get burnt out. Chickens have never been my passion. I started selling eggs to make some extra cash. I enjoy chickens in moderation, but they are super messy, pooping on EVERYTHING, some of them getting out of their pens even if you clip their wings and have high fencing even though they have several acres of pasture to free range on.

Then you have molting times when they stop laying or drastically reduce for a little while, times that illness runs through the flock leaving many dead and costing money in medication and extra supplements. There’s mites and/or lice…. those are fun…again, more money to buy spray or dip to kill the little buggers. Chickens are also easy prey. Thankfully we haven’t had much of a problem with that here, but I’ve heard of many people around us having issues with foxes, raccoons, etc. I would have quit a lot sooner if we had predator issues because generally once a predator finds out you have chickens, they will keep coming back.

You need to buy bedding to keep their coops and nesting boxes clean. That alone is a lot of work and more money if you want to actually keep them clean regularly especially in the winter. You need to rotate the flock by bringing in new chicks and selling off the older hens to keep production up. There’s a lot to it!

Don’t get me wrong. A small flock is pretty easy to take care of, but as you get more and more, the mess and cost just multiplies at exponential rates!

I love clean animals. Ones that don’t like to poop in their stalls. Animals that have more solid poop that is easy to clean up. Animals that don’t spend most of their time in their enclosed stall/coop.

Do you know what animals fall into that category for the most part? Horses and goats. I have both. I’ve had horses nearly all my life and I’ve had goats for the past 3 years. Goats aren’t necessarily my passion either but I do love the 2 does that I have and I love goat milk! Goats have a lot of personality and if they have a good size pasture, they are pretty easy to take care of and they don’t make a mess of their stall too quickly.

Horses. Now horses are my passion. Horses are what I wanted this property for. We finally have the opportunity to move forward with my original dream and so I will be transitioning over to focus on that full time over the course of this year. I won’t stop selling eggs right away and probably not completely. I’ll still have excess eggs to sell at times even with a smaller flock, and I’ll be keeping the 11 ducks I have (I really do enjoy the ducks!) so there will still be duck eggs available. I will probably stop taking orders and definitely won’t be doing deliveries anymore. Any extra eggs available will be set out in the egg stand.

We will still be selling some beef shares each year too. We only butcher 2-4 steer per year so it’s not much but that is something we will continue to do. Cows are messy too by the way…. but mostly not too much work to take care of and you get more bang for your buck once they are butchered and you get lots of delicious beef to put in the freezer!

The cornish cross meat birds we’ve been selling the past 2 years I’m still on the fence whether to continue with those. It really depends on how many people want them. I’ll definitely continue to do some each year for ourselves and probably sell some of them but I don’t think I’ll be doing the quantity I’ve done previously.( By the way, we are taking pre orders for our 2022 Spring batch of pastured chicken right now.)

That’s all I’m going to divulge in this post, so If you would like to see what our big plans are, stay tuned!

Do What You Have to Do…

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Until you can do what you want to do….

Went for a walk in the field behind our property the other day. My youngest boy who is 12, is very into making Youtube videos so he wanted to do a trash finding video. I didn’t want him going out there alone plus he needed to use my phone for the video, so I reluctantly tagged along. Isn’t that just mom life? lol I never seem to have anything of my own that I’m not sharing with my kids or my husband. Maybe I say yes too often…I don’t know. But I do want to encourage his love for videography.

Anyway…I currently have so much on my mind and I feel like I have to make it all happen somehow. Anyone else have a million things you want to do and you can’t give up any one thing? (Not can’t, but don’t want to) sigh…

I feel the pressure to make extra money so we can get more done and keep the place up. The farm income is slowly growing, but we really need it to grow a little faster and there are things that need fixing. I decided a couple weeks ago to put in an application at Hobby Lobby. Now that all 3 boys are pretty much teens (my youngest is 12), I don’t feel so much like I need to be here to watch them. My youngest still home schools but i would only be working part time so we can still make that work. However, I worry about how I’ll do with everything else. The boys can help out but there are the egg sales, custom ornaments I need to get done, giving riding lessons on dry days, milking and other animal care, making meals and then once kids sports start back up again since they are taking the winter off. And then just the general concern of everyone’s well being in our home and everything that goes along with having 5 different personalities and ages under one roof.

Anyway… I really wish I didn’t need to get an outside job but I guess you do what you have to do for awhile.

Funny thing is, I keep thinking, you know what? Let’s say I start working part time away from home, for someone else. That’s probably 20-25 hours per week. What if I were to do that at home focusing on one or 2 things? I am always trying to do too many things at once and it’s really hard to get something going really well if I’m only spending a small amount of time and focus because I’m trying to spread myself too thin.

I also may need to go back in to surgery for my ankle that I broke in October 2019. It was doing really well until this summer and then I started having some new pain. Not horrible and I can still do my stuff, but it has started happening more often and it’s annoying. I’m thinking I may have to have the pins taken out or fixed or something. I had broken a couple pins early on during my recovery but the doctor said as long as it wasn’t bothering me, they’d just leave them alone. So, this month I go in for an xray and we’ll see if I need surgery.

If I do need surgery, then I’m not going to be able to have an outside job for awhile anyway. Oh well, I guess it’s in the Lord’s hands. I figure while I’m waiting for Hobby Lobby to call me, if they do, I’m going to push myself to focus on one or two areas of the farm and really try and grow. One of those areas I’ve decided is posting to Instagram every day for awhile and getting more content up here on the website.

Laser focus is what I need, but as a wife and mom, it can be so hard. I see others do it though so I know it can be done!