Since the day I chose my profession and started my career, I have been asked the same two questions; 1) What do you do for a living? 2) When are you coming home? My answers to these questions have become routine, mostly because they are usually posed by friends or acquaintances that do not have an understanding of or background in the agricultural world. I’m here to enlighten those people and entertain the ones who are involved. Truly explaining these answers to a concrete native is no easy feat, and lets be honest most people tune out once the answer becomes longer than three sentences. You still with me? Fabulous, Howdy! Welcome to my blog, I am The Equine Midwife. My goal is to bring to light what it’s like to live the ranch life in a fun, upbeat, and entertaining manner. Bear with me, keeping it PG at times will be tough and I can’t make any promises. Ranching or working with livestock animals does not come without it’s fair share of tough times, That being said, let’s have some fun!

Question numero uno, What do you do for a living? Layman’s terms, I am the barn and breeding manager for a ranch that breeds and trains performance horses. Think of me as a landlord for equine athletes in an olympic village and, like the monicker, a midwife for the lovely ladies who bring these athletes into the world. The position of barn manager is not everyones cup of tea, your cell phone becomes a part of your body, fashion tends to go out the door, days off (what are those?), and you are the go-to for pretty much everything. So why do it, you ask? Because through all of the craziness my passion for horses and giving them the best start in life makes it all worth while. I’ve always had a special connection with them, an understanding, that is unparalleled. Getting to be there when they are born is one of the greatest things I will ever experience, and will without a doubt cherish until my last days.

I know what you are thinking, Did you always know you wanted to do this? The answer is simple, no. To truly answer we must go back to the beginning. We all have wild dreams when we are young. I wanted to be a vet first and foremost, then a helicopter pilot for the fire department, then a fashion designers, a writer, a photographer… the list goes on. I dreamed big. At the tender age of eighteen I steered my path towards being a pastry chef, sweets are kind of my thing. In the past I’ve explained that being a pastry chef, especially a woman pastry chef, is pretty cut throat and I just didn’t feel I fit the mold or was cookie-cutter enough? the puns go on. People usually agreed with me when I explained it this way, so I thought it was an acceptable reason to discontinue my pursuit. I call bull on that now, I could have been a pastry chef, I really enjoyed it. Cooking, baking especially, had always been a passion but at eighteen I didn’t know any better and was still impressionable. Don’t worry I didn’t give it up completely, the holidays are mad baking times in my kitchen.

The real answer for quitting culinary school? I wish I could say it was a well thought out process but it wasn’t. I was sitting in Culinary Calculations, staring out the door at the ocean, (my school was across the street from the beach, gasp! what?! I know), obviously paying attention to class, I started to think about how I hadn’t been on a horse or around my horses in months. It made me sad, not the kind of “oh I feel upset” kind of sad, it was a sadness that hit deep down, that pulled at my heart telling me to do something about it. I had a movie-script worthy moment, I finished my Culinary Calculations class (because I was still new at the whole college thing) went home, called my mom. I told her, “I don’t think this is what I want to do anymore, I want to go to school for Animal Science”, all the while sweating my skin off because telling your parents something like that at that age feels like telling them you wrecked the car. That was my classic-clique-teenage-crisis moment. In the course of a forty minute class I changed my life forever.

I moved to San Luis Obispo, went to Cal Poly, received my Bachelors of Science in Animal Science. Proceeded to have a string of jobs and experiences that landed me here, where I’m constantly surrounded by the animal that soothes my soul.

Question number two, When are you coming home? I currently reside in Northern California, a few hours from any beach and about forty-five minutes from snow. That’s California for you folks. Home is about six hours south, in Southern California. But no matter the distance it’s always been a complicated question to answer. It’s not just family that asks me this question, friends and even people I barely know will throw this one around at the holidays especially. If I worked a classic nine to fiver then my answer would be like most of yours, ‘I’ll be home for the holidays’. Here’s the hard reality, when you work with animals and they are your source of income there isn’t much room for unnecessary expenses. When an animal gets sick, it’s not going to be at three o’clock in the afternoon, it’s going to be at three o’clock on Christmas morning. Not ideal timing for calling a vet out, you’ll be looking at emergency fees on top of what is sure to be a costly bill. So who gets pinned with the task of getting that animal better to the best of their ability? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not Santa. It’s the farmer, the owner, the trainer, the attending employee, or in this case it’s me. If you have the means and skills to get that animal better without the vet you’ve just saved yourself from having to sell another animal or dig into your savings just to make it through to the next month. It’s no joke when people call horses “wallet vacuums”, also one of my favorite phrases I learned form my mother. So back to the question, I have no idea! Coming home is a sort of mythical quest that may happen or it may not. It’s not a burden, I love what I do, I choose to do this. I imagine this is what a doctor feels like when he’s helped a patient in that thirty-sixth hour of being on call.

So where does that leave us? Oh right! Let’s get to the good stuff. This blog is centered around horses, adorable foals, ranch life, and my experiences. Here’s my first official FOAL WATCH REPORT:

The good news, I don’t have to be up all night long staring at the mares willing them to give birth. Those days are long gone, thank the heavens above! As fun as is it to stay up all night watching video monitors of foaling stalls or walking around checking mares every twenty minutes, just to have them foal the second you walk away, I like my sleep. I’ve made it to the big leagues where alert systems are used. I’ll explain but FIRST, if you have a problem with words like penis and vagina, maybe give yourself five minutes to say them to yourself, get over it, and come back. We don’t have time for such snickering. I’ll wait.

You good? Great, lets continue. We use a nifty device called Foalert (my computer is convinced that’s not a real word, eat it spell check!) which is stitched onto and across the vulva of the mare. Now I know how this sounds, ‘My stars! You stitch her vagina shut??’ no, good LORD…no! There are three sutures placed, two to hold the alarm in place and one that comes from the opposite side of the vulva and attaches to a string that is attached to a battery pin on the Foalert. When she goes into labor and those adorable mile long legs start to emerge, those stitches stretch apart and pull that battery pin out of the Foalert, triggering the system to call my cell phone directly. How terrific is that? Ring, ring…Hello? THERES A BABY COMING GET TO THE BARN! Boom!

I can’t wait until I have my own children, calling my family in the middle of the night, ‘THERES A BABY COMING GET TO THE BARN!’ just to throw them off a bit. They love me.

Here’s a photo of a Foalert, I told you I couldn’t promise anything, so heres your chance to get over it:

Our first mare is due any day now, she’s holding out. The other day one of our ranch hands told me “the baby? it’s coming on the full moon”, I told him “No, I want that baby now!” and for heaven sake the full moon is a good ten days away. What are you waiting for mare? I’ll tell you what, if she drops on the full moon I will be a forever believer in lunar phases and their effects on broodmares, and wanting some serious explanations from our ranch hand/ voodoo doctor.

For now I wait for my obnoxious ringtone to go off and for foal number one to hit the ground. I sign off with a thank you for joining me on this adventure. There are so many good times, excellent photos (the funny and the gross), and memories to be shared.

–The Equine Midwife