At Black Beauty Ranch, titles like “caregiver” and “maintenance technician” don’t do the people who hold them justice, and they don’t capture the dozens of unique tasks the team carries out every day: figuring out how to get pine sap off a goat’s horn (rub it with peanut oil), learning how to “drag”...
This list is provided as a resource for horse owners and is for informational purposes only. Please contact specific vendors for more information on their services. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of all listings. This list is not exhaustive and is subject to change over time. The...
In 1749, Pennsylvania put a bounty on Eastern gray squirrels—threepence per scalp. Their crime? Eating too much corn. It wasn’t the first time humans waged war on the bushy-tailed rodents: Massachusetts had already offered fourpence. A century later, cities along the Eastern seaboard began releasing...
It seemed like a good idea at the time: Buy a house with a two-acre property, let our energetic herding dog have the run of the place and spend blissful summer days digging side by side in the dirt with her. And it was blissful, watching Mattie carve out her napping spots behind the ferns and tall...
Every morning, the teams at Black Beauty Ranch spread out across 1,400 acres to care for the nearly 650 animals who call the sanctuary home. It’s not an easy task. The sanctuary is home to around 40 species, meaning caregivers need a high level of knowledge about all sorts of animals. Insights into...
It was a rude awakening: Just as my thoughts drifted into a pre-sleep jumble, a skunk pounced onto my nighttime reading. Not just any skunk, but a giant one flashing her black-and-white tail in a series of pungent leaps. Back and forth she went, bed to floor to bed, before my eyes caught up with my...
Many Marches ago, as I mindlessly contorted myself to pull a deep-rooted weed from the garden patch, my thoughts turned longingly to the smell of fresh basil that would eventually grace what I saw as a still-barren vegetable graveyard. This spot was not so lifeless as it appeared, I would soon learn...
My husband and I were contemplating whether to hike the 3-mile trail in Utah’s Zion National Park that September day. I’d read that this trail was our best chance to spot bighorn sheep, but after a week of exploring the five national parks in the state, our bodies were tired—and it was already late...
The distant view from Kelly Brenner’s Seattle living room was enviable, a testament to the engineering marvels of modern human habitat. But much closer to home were sights even more spectacular than the Space Needle rising hundreds of feet in front of the Olympic Mountains. Against the backdrop of...