J & M Ranch LLC

03/17/2026

Here in Maine it doesn't quite look it yet...but the beginning of Spring is upon us!

The Farmer's Almanac states:
The first day of spring 2026 is on Friday, March 20, 2026, at 10:46 a.m. EDT. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, this is marked by the arrival of the spring equinox (otherwise known as the “First Point of Aries”).

Traditionally, we celebrate the first day of spring on March 21, but astronomers and calendar manufacturers alike now say that the spring season starts on March 20 in all time zones in North America. Yet spring equinox marks the official start of the spring season.

02/05/2026

The discussion of clarity begins when you start with the right question

Listen up !
Spurs aren’t about being rough and they sure as hell aren’t about hurting horses. They’re about clarity. Same as a bit. Same as a rein. Same as a leg cue. Used right, spurs don’t add pressure. They reduce it.

Horses don’t get mad at pressure. They get mad at pressure that’s sloppy, constant, and confusing. Spurs clean that up. Instead of squeezing, bumping, and nagging every step, a spur lets you make one clear ask and get off the horse the instant it tries. That release is the lesson. That’s how horses learn.

Riding without that precision is like trying to paint the Mona Lisa wearing oven mitts. You can smear paint on the canvas all day, but you won’t get detail, balance, or refinement. Spurs are the fine brush. They let a rider be exact instead of loud and sloppy

Spurs matter because they teach responsibility. Without them, riders end up babysitting, holding pressure, and doing the horse’s thinking for them. With spurs, the cue is brief and clear. The horse learns to stay where it’s put, hold its job, and carry its own weight mentally and physically. That builds confidence, not fear.

They separate cues. Inside means inside. Outside means outside. Forward doesn’t mean sideways. Collection doesn’t mean speed. Spurs allow that conversation to stay clean without a rider flailing, leaning, or getting out of position. A quieter rider makes a calmer horse.

They matter for safety. A horse that responds to a light, clear cue is safer than one that needs to be asked five times. When things go sideways, clarity beats strength every time. Spurs let you communicate fast without panic or chaos.

Spurs don’t replace timing, feel, or release. They expose whether you’ve got them. In good hands, they make riding softer and horses braver. In poor hands, they show holes in education. That’s not a tool problem. That’s a horsemanship problem.

Spurs aren’t there to make horses afraid. They’re there to make the message clear and the rider accountable. When a horse understands leg pressure, a spur refines that language and removes the need for constant contact.

Used right, spurs are fair.
They’re honest.
They’re necessary.
They don’t create resistance.
They create understanding.

Mic drop 🎤

Written by kissing horse ranch


Wrangler

01/30/2026

Thankful for where it started

01/26/2026

Highly recommend, these HMI courses have made a huge difference for our farm.

Ready to grow your skills, your land, and your impact!
Our next round of Holistic Management programs is starting soon at HMI. Whether you’re building soil health, strengthening your business, or creating more balance in your life and work, these courses give you the tools to manage for the whole.

Join a community of producers, educators, and land stewards who are shaping a more resilient future—one decision at a time.

Seats are limited. Enrollment opens now. https://ow.ly/FRAn50Y0NG5

12/08/2025

09/15/2025

❤️ our heaven on 🌏

09/03/2025

Mainers: be on the lookout for the silver stripe in, or along, your woods near your fields and back yards!




https://extension.psu.edu/japanese-stiltgrass

https://www.invasivespeciesinfo.gov/terrestrial/plants/japanese-stiltgrass

https://www.themainewire.com/2025/09/maine-warns-of-spread-of-invasive-plant-with-potential-to-destroy-habitats-degrade-soil-and-increase-wildfire-risk/

The Maine Department of Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry (ACF) issued an urgent warning on Thursday about the invasive Japanese Stiltgrass spreading across the state, which has the potential to destroy forests, degrade soil, and increase wildfire risks. [RELATED: New Invasive Tick Species fro...

09/01/2025

Couldn't ask for a more perfect day to bring in this year's hay!
🌞🚜🌞

08/19/2025

08/12/2025

Learning to ride correctly happens in steps. In early beginner lessons we teach the students to use the reins to point the horse in the direction of a turn. Ultimately, this is incorrect but students at first must become comfortable and learn balance. Using only the reins to make a turn unbalances a horse by shifting their weight to the front or forehand, so this is temporary.

To keep a horse balanced is a turn, back to front or longitudinally, we must bend the horse from the middle. Some might point out that the horse's spine has little or no flex in the center, but that doesn't matter. Ultimately, we want to put the horse into a bend from head to tail in order to turn them in a balanced manner. But there is more. We must also maintain side to side or lateral balance in a turn's bend.

The left image shows how a rider is maintaining lateral balance in a bend. The yellow line shows the horse's angle of balance in the turn. The orange line shows the same for the rider. The rider is leaning in less than 5 degrees off vertical, which is the maximum acceptable rider lean in any direction. Leaning beyond 5 degrees in any direction can substantially interfere with a horse's ability to balance.

The inside leg pressure (red horizontal arrow) gives the horse a specific center of the bend similar to how a compass point defines the center of a circle or arc. I recommend using inside leg calf pressure at first to define this center, but some horses require more, so we add in heel pressure when needed.

The outside leg (downward red arrow) pressure helps the rider to stay more vertical, thus aiding the horse's lateral balance. As a rider advances, they will use their outside seat bone when counterbalancing their horse's lean into a turn.

We can project that if the rider was more vertical (greater pressure in the outside stirrup or outside seat bone pressure), the orange and yellow lines would intersect lower, just above the rider's belly button, and thus create a lower center of shared balance. This would be more correct with the rider's center closer to the horse's center of balance for increased unity.

Here ends the discussion of lateral balance in a turn.
The right image shows how to maintain optimal longitudinal or back to front balance in a bend. The principle at work is called "between the aids". Note that the graphic image is a representation. In reality the reins would not be spread apart as shown but rather held closer together near the withers.

The reins in the graphics are spread so as not to confuse the diagram's lines. The important point is that the rein pressure works against the leg pressure in both "inside leg to outside rein" and "outside leg to inside rein". The opposing red arrows on the red lines of these between the aids applications shows the "between" in "between the aids".

It is a long way from the first lesson with pointing the horse's head using the reins to turn a horse, to this more complex lateral and longitudinal use of the aids to help the horse maintain optimal balance in a turn. We learn these applications of the aids in steps beginning with "inside leg to outside rein".

In steps we learn to counterbalance the horse's lateral balance using the outside leg or seat bone downward pressure. We learn to hold the horse between the inside leg to the outside rein. And we learn to hold the horse between the outside leg to inside rein to hold the horse's hind in the bend. These are the three general steps of the whole effort to support a horse's balance in a simple bend or turn.

When we consider the horse's motion during all this, the applications of these three sets of aid applications becomes quite dynamic with the use of our two legs, two hands, seat bones and weight placement, all working together to adjust the horse's balance while in motion.

This might be intellectually complicated, but when we develop "feel" for combined horse and rider balance, this integrated process of applying the aids to achieve shared with our horse balance becomes very integrated in an intuitive process devoid of much thought.

06/25/2025

Awareness is step #1

The collage of many pictures might be a bit much, but each one makes an important point. I grew up in the frozen northeastern US where people put sandbags or cement blocks in the back of their pickup trucks for better traction in the snow. That same principle applies to horses when they jump. Jumping horses can use all the help they can get when they jump, including having the rider's weight over and close to their center of balance as they take off.

The last thing a horse needs as they prepare to jump is to have their rider leap suddenly up onto their neck, way ahead of their center of balance. It's like throwing those sandbags through the truck's back window onto the front seat just as the truck starts to drive up a slippery frozen hill.

The red dots indicate the centers of balance of a typical horse and human. The skeletal drawing shows how when riding we want to merge our center of balance with the horse's. As we sit deeper our center drops, and as the horse engages, their center rises. This is how we join in establishing unity of shared balance and movement with our horse.

The US Cavalry rider is helping his horse by keeping his center of balance close to his horse's. The rider at middle left with their butt over the pommel is disrupting their horse's balance in the jump.

The evolution of the crest release in Hunter Seat Equitation to the point now that riders are placing their weight so far up on their horse's, with their butts over the pommel, is an example of how humans impose their desire for style on horses while they ignore what horses need. The up-on-the-neck jumping position is also dangerous.

Understanding how the biomechanics of how horses and riders merge their centers of balance in unity, or fail to accomplish this, is necessary to increase a riders skill level. This knowledge allows a rider to see past trendy styles so they can help their horse work more effectively. This understanding also keeps a rider safe.