Western riding

Whether riding Western or English, success depends on the relationship you build with your horse. Confidence and trust work both ways, and I'm learning that the more patient and gentle I am with my horse, the more willing he is to learn and work for me. Lots of time goes toward building a foundation though extensive groundwork and arena riding practice, along with trail rides to introduce novel situations.

I enjoy creating historically authentic costumes or outfits, doing leatherwork projects, such as making holsters and costume accessories, dressing up my guns with new grips or "weathering" a gun to make it look well-used, building gun carts, fabricating ammo boxes, altering and enhancing horse tack.

I love Western history, but some of the people who populated the Old West have grown larger than life over time. History, legend, conjecture, and pure imagination come together to help create our unique American mythology, a story subject to critical evaluation and revision, or a subject for literture, music, art, and cinema. "Print the legend," the newspaper editor said in John Ford's movie "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance."