I live on a 13-acre farm with a few more than 20 horses in Bourbon County. I absolutely love living on a farm. It is peaceful and beautiful in every way.

The farm that I reside on is far away from any town or city, so my family and I don’t have to worry about anyone breaking into our house. It gives me a sense of safety that I didn’t have when I lived in the city.

Although there are a lot of pros to living on a farm, there are still a few cons.

A pro is that I learned how to drive when I was 11, and my brother learned when he was 9. This is because you are allowed to drive at any age on private property, when living on a farm being able to drive is a big help. I can drive tractors and four-wheelers.

I also know how to do multiple things on tractors like rake hay, role hay, bush hog (mowing with a tractor), etc. These are all very helpful skills to know for the life I live and I was happily able to learn how to do it all at a young age.

Living on a farm comes with a lot of chores. On my farm, we have 24 horses, two pigs, two goats, six chickens, and five dogs. Sometimes, we have more when they start having babies.

With this comes mucking a lot of stalls, having to make sure all of them have food and water, keeping the frills properly mowed, keeping the animals properly groomed, making sure all of the facilities work, and more. It can be tiring.

We own Gypsy Vanners, which are beautiful horses with lots of feathering, long mains, and tails.

Over the course of the past couple of weeks, the mares have started foaling. We currently have three foals on the farm and are still expecting more.

What we do with our horses is we breed the mares, sell their foals, and train our stallions. Most of our mares come trained to ride and drive. Riding is when they are trained to have someone ride them. Driving is when they can pull a wagon full of people.

Horses aren’t just fun; they also bring responsibility.  I have to make sure that the horses have food and water and can’t get hold of anything that could harm them. If you keep them outside in a field, you have to make sure that there aren’t any broken fences.