The Cowboy Perseverance Ranch The Barn Family

by Rob and Tanya Corzatt

Anyone that owns or takes care of a large number of livestock, whether they are horses, cows, hogs, etc., understands that time away from the farm is usually measured in hours, not days. Unlike our smaller pets, like dogs and cats, we aren’t able to drop our livestock off at a family member’s or friend’s place to be watched while we take some time away. As I write this, there are currently 24 horses and three cows here at the Cowboy Perseverance Ranch. Of those 24 horses, only six of them currently belong to me, Tanya, or our sons. So, in addition to our own horses, we routinely have 16 to 18 other horses that we are responsible for taking care of on a daily basis. Although, some of the horses are in lots with hay feeders and shelter, the majority are either stalled in the barn or have access to the barn in the evening if the weather is nasty. Therefore, someone needs to be here 365 days a year to make sure they are all cared for properly.

It is a time consuming task in the morning to feed all the horses and then get the barn ready for a day of training or riding lessons. It typically takes T and me at least an hour and a half every morning. We have done it together for so long, we don’t really even need to communicate with one another, we just do it. We have a routine that helps us cut down on the time required to get them in their stalls, fed and then back out into the lots, the arena, or the pastures. It is a slightly overwhelming task to take care of it alone. It becomes even more of a challenge if you are not used to doing it every day. That is one of the major reasons we are slow to plan frequent long getaways. In order for us to be able to do so, we have begun to rely on our Barn Family to help out our own family in taking care of all the animals.

Over the past few years that we have been writing articles for the Horsemen’s Corral magazine, we have often mentioned how our Barn Family has grown over the years. We have a dedicated bunch of horse crazy boarders and lesson students and their parents who have become very, very dear friends. Without their support, it would be very difficult for Tanya, me, or our sons to operate or take time away from the ranch. Although I hesitate to complain about it, because we are currently blessed to be able to get hay in abundance, putting up hay has to be my least favorite ‘job’ in the barn. We don’t have the space to store all the round or square bales we need on an annual basis. Consequently, we are getting hay on a fairly regular basis throughout the year. Despite the cold or heat and humidity, our Barn Family is there to help us with hauling and stacking the hay when we need it.

We have one family that routinely offers to help take care of the horses so Tanya and I can get away for a little bit. We recently took a five day getaway down to the Lake Norman area in North Carolina. A newer lesson student, who is also now a very close friend, and her husband have a second home/VRBO in the area so they can spend time with one of their daughters and her family. Unbeknownst to T and me, the family that was taking care of our horses had reached out to other members of the Barn Family and gave up a Sunday to do some overdue cleaning and organizing in the barn, hay loft and tack room. It quickly gets away from the two of us. Horse blankets and saddle pads were washed and hung to dry, the feed storage area was cleaned. Dust and cobwebs were swept up. We had two metal racks installed in the tack room to hang saddle pads from (I can scratch that off my to do list now). Buckets were cleaned and several new lead ropes were founding hanging by the stalls. T and I got home from our trip on Monday afternoon while our friends were still here taking care of the evening feeding. We instantly noticed that our tack room appeared quite clean and organized and that someone had built and mounted two racks to store saddle pads (a job that has been on our to do list for a while). When we saw all the clean horse blankets hanging from the rafters, we knew something was up. T couldn’t hold back her tears when our friends told us who all had come to help with the cleanup on Sunday. For the record, I think I must have just gotten some dust in my eyes!

Over the long Independence Day weekend, we had an opportunity to give back to the family that is always there to help us out with hay and feeding. They had reserved a skid steer to drive fence posts for two pastures they planned to fence. Unfortunately, the dad hurt his back a few weeks before and wasn’t sure how much he was going to physically be able to do. T and I had already planned on helping them out, but with our friend down we recruited others from the Barn Family to help. Building fence is not a leisurely activity. It is physically demanding and tiring, even though the skid steer drove in all the posts. Despite the heavy rain, heat and humidity, we had enough help to get all the posts driven, string wire fence up around both pastures, and hang an entire roll of electric rope up around one of them in three days. The family never expected to be able to do any more than get the posts set in that same three day period!

I know just about everybody that comes into the barn on a regular basis, and I just assumed most everybody knew everybody else. I was a bit surprised when one of the guys that came to help introduced himself to the others. I was touched that one of our friends was willing to give up a day to help others that he hadn’t even met! I was also reminded how blessed we are to have these people in our lives. That’s typical of our Barn Family. We are there for each other when they need help. Tanya and I can both sincerely say that we love our Barn Family dearly.

The Bible has several scriptures dealing with the love we are to show others, but my favorite is in John 13:34-35 of the NIV Bible. “(34) A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you