What You Should Know Before Getting a Horse

What You Should Know Before Getting a Horse

If you’re a horse lover, you may have dreamed about owning a horse. However, such animals are a lot more work than your average pet, thanks to their size and needs. Allow us to teach you a little bit about what you should know before getting a horse so that you can prepare accordingly and ensure your horse lives in comfort.

Basic Needs

Before you even consider buying a horse, you need to know the basics of caring for one and acquire the necessary equipment. A feeding trough, a reliable source of fresh water, and a place of shelter meet the basic needs of survival. However, if you want your horse to thrive, they need plenty of space to roam and graze. Furthermore, consider familiarizing yourself with horse health basics, like common diseases. Some common health conditions that horses often develop include arthritis, gastric ulcers, and desmitis.

Consider Leasing First

It’s possible to find sellers that allow you to fully or partially lease a horse instead of outright buying it. Rather than committing right away, this allows you time to get a feel for the horse and decide if it’s the right one for you. Or it can help you decide if you’re up to the challenge of owning one. Either way, this makes your decision to buy a lot less stressful since you’ll have experience with the horse first.

Have the Horse Vet Checked

The last thing you should know before getting a horse is that a veterinarian should look at the horse before you buy it. You wouldn’t want to buy a horse only to discover its suffering from a disease or health condition. A veterinarian won’t outright “pass” or “fail” a horse but will tell you their observations about your potential horse and if there are any warning signs that you should heed.

Why Boots Are So Important to the Military

Why Boots Are So Important to the Military

There are so many different applications of combat boots that it would be practically impossible for service members to go without them. These uniform items are essential to the life and well-being of any service member and should be treated as such. To give you a better idea of what we mean, here are some examples of why boots are so important to the military so that you can know more about the subject moving forward.

Comfortable and Breathable

The first item to check off the list of importance is the comfort that combat boots give to the wearer. Combat boots especially have come a long way from their old leather cohorts of the past that weren’t breathable and did not give feet much support. This resulted in multiple foot problems for many millions of service members. These days, with the use of Kevlar, reinforcement with polymers and memory foams, synthetic designs, and steel toes to protect the feet, combat boots have come a long way.

Adapt to Climate

Combat boots have been constantly evolving throughout the past few decades. There is more mesh and holes intentionally drilled at certain points of the boot for better ventilation, keeping the feet dry. This increases the boots’ adaptability in hotter, drier climates and much more humid areas. The exteriors aren’t always made of slick leather. Some are made with suede to keep the dust and dirt at bay. This also makes for more flexible wear.

Slip Resistant

All combat boots are slip-resistant. You never know what you might run into while on deployment, on a ship, on the ground, or in the sky. So you must have firm footing wherever you find yourself. This is important to remember when you’re searching for the right pair—know how to choose the best tactical boots for your daily wear.

People have always associated the military with its boot wear, and it makes sense that service members would wear boots for most of their operations. Hopefully, this has explained thoroughly why boots are so important to the military or at least created a foundation to understanding why they work so well for this government institution.

Tips for Preparing Your Home for a Winter Storm

Tips for Preparing Your Home for a Winter Storm

An approaching winter storm can incite chaos for many people, whether they rush to the store for supplies or keep their snowblowers on standby. Preparing yourself for what’s to come is essential. Fortunately, you can take extra steps to prepare your home for harsh winter weather—check out these tips for preparing your home for a winter storm.

Stock Up on Food and Water

Winter storms can make travel challenging, and in some cases, road closures and excess snow can make leaving your home impossible. Therefore, it’s critical to stock up on food and water before a winter storm hits. Make sure you have nonperishable foods as well as a case of water on hand. If you’re wondering what nonperishables to purchase, check out this list:

  • Rice
  • Instant soup mix
  • Canned vegetables and meat
  • Peanut butter and jelly
  • Breakfast cereal
  • Granola bars
  • Tea, coffee, or hot chocolate

Winterize Your Home

One of the best ways to protect your home from a storm is to winterize it. You can start this process in the fall or early winter. Check the windows and doors for drafts, and use weather-stripping to keep out the cold air. In addition, you can wrap exposed water pipes and trim any tree branches that hang over your home or car. Doing the latter will prevent the branches from falling under the weight of snow and damaging your roof or vehicle.

Consider Installing a Metal Roof

A preventative step you can take for winter storms is installing a metal roof. Metal roofing material can withstand harsh weather conditions and keep your house warm, and it won’t suffer damage from falling tree branches or excess snow. Winter roof installation is possible if you decide to seek out a metal roof now. Talk to roofing contractors and create a plan.

Have Access to Portable Power

The power can go out during winter storms or extremely cold weather. Therefore, it’s essential to have access to portable power. You can purchase a power station or portable generator as a temporary power solution. You can also purchase a camp stove, since if you have an electric stove, you won’t have access to it during a power outage. A camp stove uses butane fuel for power.

Winter storms can create chaos for many people. Whether you’re scrambling to buy supplies or preparing to undergo deep shoveling, preparing yourself for what’s to come is essential. We hope our tips for preparing your home for a winter storm were helpful to you.

Mistakes To Avoid When Caring for Your Horse This Winter

Mistakes To Avoid When Caring for Your Horse This Winter

Now that the days are becoming shorter and colder, it’s time to consider some tips to take care of your horse. These are some mistakes to avoid when caring for your horse this winter that will keep them happy and healthy all year long.

Lack of Fresh Food & Water

Like all mammals, horses need food and water to survive. Unfortunately, frigid temperatures can throw a wrench into their ordinary feeding schedule. You must ensure that your equine’s water is fresh and not frozen. If the water freezes over, your horse will become dehydrated, increasing the possibility of colic.

Additionally, you’ll need to increase your feeding regime with the dip in temperature. Horses require additional rations because they use more energy to fight the frosty weather. Hence, you’ll want to feed them protein-rich food that has a high fiber count to keep them full and warm.

Neglecting Exercise

It’s challenging to find the motivation to engage in physical activity when it’s dark and cold 16 hours a day. However, being stagnant affects your health negatively. The same philosophy can be said about horses, seeing as they need exercise all year long.

Feel free to put them out to pasture to get their blood pumping if it’s too cold to ride them yourself. A fit horse can handle the winter better than an out-of-shape one, which is why you can’t overlook this idea.

Stuck Indoors

Common sense tells you that sheltering from the cold, windy days helps protect your horse, right? Well, that’s not entirely accurate, seeing as horses react better to living in the elements. Of course, you must provide them with protection, such as a sheltered roof, to lounge under during the day.

However, they are better off roaming freely while the sun is still out. Once the sky turns dark, feel free to bring them in, but leave the barn door open to provide them with some quality airflow.

Using Too Many Blankets

Another common mistake is using too many blankets to cover your horse. Your intuition tells you to put layers upon layers on the horse to stave off the cold weather. However, if a horse has its natural winter coat, they don’t require extra blanketing. Too many layers may cause a horse to overheat and become dehydrated, leading to a cornucopia of health concerns.

Abandoning Hoof Care

When the roads become wet, icy, and slushy, a fresh set of tires helps you operate your vehicle better. Similarly, a horse can handle the conditions better when you take care of hooves. At the bare minimum, you should treat their hooves once every two months, no matter the season.

Lastly, one of the biggest mistakes to avoid when caring for your horse this winter is not taking care of yourself. If you can’t handle all the responsibilities required to care for them, your horse will suffer. Ergo, keeping yourself in peak condition allows you to help your horse follow suit.

Advice for Planning the Perfect Fly-Fishing Trip

Advice for Planning the Perfect Fly-Fishing Trip

Some of the best times you’ll ever have with a group of friends can be out on fishing trips. A few days cut off from the rest of the world, out in nature, cutting loose. What more could you ask for? With this simple advice for planning the perfect fly-fishing trip, you can make sure that this next vacation is the one you’ll reminisce about for years to come.

Go to a New Spot

Typically, when planning a trip with friends, someone in the group has a place they’ve been before that they want to share with the group. Then, someone else has a different spot in mind that they like. But, when you decide to splurge on a trip, consider going to a location no one’s been to before. You can catch different fish and explore new areas. When you go somewhere new, it’s an adventure.

Pick the Right Season

There are two worst times to be out fishing, tourist season and blow-out season. Waterways can get so crowded with anglers during the tourist season that there aren’t any quality spots. Everywhere will have a different tourist season depending on their weather and local fish population, so you’ll have to research potential destinations. The river blow-out season is between April to July. This is when rivers swell from all the melted snow, making them unfishable.

Therefore, you want to find those perfect sweet spots in the season where the waters are clear of mud, ice, and people. If you have a particular window in which the trip must happen, look at the best places to visit that time of the year, then pick

Also, if you’re up north for the winter, you’ll probably want to head south to find warmer waters. There are some great spots to go fly-fishing in Florida, such as Key West. These will have spectacular weather year-round. Minnesota might be great for ice fishing in January, but good luck fly-fishing.

Hire a Guide for Your First Day

Even if you’re an experienced caster, you need someone to show you around the local spots when heading to a new city. Otherwise, you’ll need to rely on the untrustworthy advice of online messages boards to steer you toward an excellent fishing hole. The experienced angler can also recommend bait shops to visit, and if you’re lucky, they’ll take you to actual local hideouts where you can catch the big ones.

With this advice for planning the perfect fly-fishing trip, you and your friends can have a unique new experience where you catch a bunch of fish.