Howdy, I’m Em! I’m a “part-time Idaho cowgirl” who’s been in a saddle for about 30 years. After leaving my corporate job in healthcare and higher education, I now own and work a small horse ranch tucked away on the western edge of the Rockies that we call “Six Horse Ranch” and a creative agency called Free Rein Creative.

A view from my goat pasture of the upper foothills.

Most days you’ll find me riding in the mountains, caring for my 20+ farm animals, and working on creative projects for various businesses. I’ve spent a lifetime learning from animals, the land, solitude, two masters degrees worth of higher education and the long, unedited stretches of time that only exist outside.

The Cowgirl Chronicle is where I write it all down.

Stories from ranch life. Horses that taught me the life lessons I still depend on. The beauty of early mornings spent doing barn chores. Perspectives that don’t always “match” the ranching and farming lifestyle I live. And the half-thought-out ramblings that come from a life lived largely outdoors and slightly off script.

Nothing here is overly polished. It’s not meant to be. Just real life, seen from my saddle and my curious mind.

If you’re here for perfect answers, you’re in the wrong place…

If you’re here for honest stories, good horses, and a little bit of chaos held together by grit and ADHD-fueled optimism—you’re in the right one.

A hand-drawn outline I did of me on my mustang, Winnie.

More About Me

In July of 2025, I started publishing my journal entries and ramblings here, creating the Cowgirl Chronicle, almost a year later I’m just now writing this entry…so I suppose it’s high time I actually introduce myself!

Outside of introducing the basics of my ranch, my business, and my cowgirl-ness I would describe myself as a generally curious, bold, and often bull-headed gal. I married my childhood friend and wonderful husband, Andrew, in 2018 but have been together for 12 years. Together, we care for the animals; including horses, goats, dogs, and cats. Almost everyone is a rescue, or general castaway who ended up finding their way to us.

We have no kids, and for now and potentially forever, love it that way.

The other important side of me is my endless creativity. Fueled by un-bridled ADHD, I am constantly seeking ways to express myself through art and connection. I started publicly sharing my stories on social media under the name @emofthemountains in December of 2024, creating videos that share my ranching and horse occurrences. I’m honored that, that community has grown. But I also draw, collage, and generally seek joy from artistry. I now share my work on Substack, Pinterest, and my own website.

A digital drawing by my of the famous Western Jackalope.

My History with Horses

My family moved to Idaho when I was just 6. My dad’s job brought the family out west, having been born in Massachusetts. I have many fond memories of those few years back east; often centered around my first-ever pony, Rosie. But I also remember images of blueberry patches and winters spent in our farmhouse around the woodburning stove.

It was the late 90’s so free-range parenting and barefooted kids were acceptable. My brother, A.J. (Albert Jackson) and our dog K.D. (standing for nothing, that’s just how I thought to spell “Katie” at age 4 and it stuck) would take our wooden toboggan and pull ourselves behind Rosie in the thick New England snow and run wild and unsupervised in the summers to visit “the bum tree”—a particular pine in the middle of the woods that bent over forming a perfectly round, well, bum.

“It was the late 90’s so free-range parenting and barefooted kids were acceptable.” Me catching frogs in the New England woods, 2000

Once the cross-country move was made, my mom quickly located the cheapest, most remote horse ranch imaginable to satisfy my already-formed horse obsession. For $25 a lesson, I could ride a sweet elderly Arabian mare named Shadow without restriction. The ranch was located just a few ridges over from where Six Horse now sits; but at the time, the 800 acres of open-range foothills felt like the most magical, and secret, place on earth. The herd of 30 or so horses roamed the acreage freely, meaning the first half of any day riding was spent trying to locate your horse amongst the hills.

Un-restricted $25 horse lessons eventually turned into my mom leasing Shadow under a 50/50 split with another family (close friends to this day!) for $50 a month, and Shadow would stay our shared horse for a number of years until old age eventually claimed her.

I would go on to lease another horse, Trugan, a goofy, often dopey, paint gelding, who, 20 years later, I now have again (he recently moved to Six Horse at 29 years old to retire).

These years at the foothills ranch not only confirmed my horsey-ness, but began my comfort and craving of solitude. From ages 6-10, I spent nearly every weekend at the ranch, roaming the hills looking for my horses, riding through sandy draws, black-rocked canyons and old covered-wagon ruts; often alone. Or at most, with a trusty ranch dog joining the adventure for the day, or the random collection of people who would congregate at a remote horse ranch.

Following the owner’s divorce, the foothills ranch shuttered, and Trugan and I moved between various other boarding facilities until his owner finally had to move far enough away that my leasing him was no longer feasible.

Trugan at Six Horse, now age 30, he’s living out his golden years with me!

If I Could Halter Her, I Could Have Her.

Looking back, it’s surprising this reality didn’t cause an unforgettable heartbreak…but the honest truth is a I don’t even remember the parting. Maybe it’s overshadowed with knowing we’ve eventually found each other again, or maybe just overshadowed by the introduction of my next horse, Moxie; because it was Moxie who would become what is known in the horse-world as my heart horse.

An often once-in-a-lifetime connection, your heart horse feels like an unexplainable bond that goes beyond this world. For me with Moxie, it felt more spiritual than physical connection. She simple was a part of me, and I her.

Moxie picked me to be her owner, and I mean that literally.

As a recently Trugan-less 12 year old, I was cleaning stalls at the boarding facility my mom’s horse, Fudge, had been residing at. I was assigned a row of stalls to muck in exchange for ten bucks a day and proceeded on doing so. I do remember the exact moment I met Mox, but how could I not?

Moxie was a stunning, tall pinto with chocolate brown markings, and one sky-blue eye. Her mane and tail looked more Gypsy Vanner than anything (which is to say, she had a lot of hair) but we would later found out she was a gated Tennessee walker cross.

Proudly showing off my first camera-phone with a picture of Moxie, 2012

I remember her standing in a corner of her stall and looking at me with soft blinking eyes. I was transfixed by the damn prettiest horse I ever saw, and chattered at her happily while I cleaned. I remember her soft piggy-pink nose nuzzling me to say hello in return, and telling my mom later that day that “If I ever got to pick, that would be my dream horse”.

Well…

Luck would have it, it turned out, Moxie was known for being a hot-headed unruly horse with a biting problem…like I said, LUCK!

Luck because, as a naive kid, I had happened to befriend a horse who had scared the piss out of anyone else who tried to work with her, to the point that her owner had recently abandoned her at the barn. The barn owner had yet to be successful to halter her, let alone re-home her.

He caught wind of my brief, non-life-ending interaction with her, and contacted my mom to ask if I could attempt to halter her. As a follow-up, he offered if I could halter her, I could have her.

I was sold. And bless my mom, so was she.

I would go on to own Mox for 12 years. My first horse I ever really owned. From 12-24, Mox saw me through all of my school-aged years. Through learning to drive, college, grad school, then getting married. She was always there.

We rode endlessly and un-restricted. I never did get involved with the “sport” of horses back then, it was only for the love of horses and being in nature.

Then, just one year before we would buy Six Horse, I lost Mox to an accident. She was kicked by a fellow pasture-mate and the mutual luck we shared ended there. She had snapped her leg, something a horse can’t come back from.

Putting Moxie down caused a physical shift in my soul.

I never left her side, insisting on holding her head and cradling her eyes shut to not be afraid until the very end.

I would never trade that moment for the world, I’m convinced it was a moment meant to be, but it left a dark touch on my heart I still can’t do justice explaining. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. More than living with chronic illness, the loss of other loved ones, the end of other chapters, this moment changed my life forever.

“I would never trade that moment for the world…” Me and Moxie, 2017

The Wild Mustang

Finding myself in a similar situation to my Trugan-less 12 year old self, 24 year old Emily returned to what I know how to do best; cleaning stalls. My mom’s horse remained at the barn we had lost Mox at, so after a few weeks of reckoning with a deep depression that left me bed-bound for days, I left my isolation and darkness for the stalls.

It was here that I first met Winnie.

At the time, Win went by a different name and was a small, scrubby, mustang pony with overgrown feet and deep knots in her mane we call “witches braids”.

But her eyes were the softest chocolate brown and her nose was the same piggy-pink as Moxie’s. She was just over a year, no taller than a Shetland pony, and immediately eager for attention. She was in rough shape, but still a beautiful strawberry red roan with a white blaze and socks. And she had recently been abandoned at the farm.

An evening spent at the barn with a young Winnie, 2021

To no fault of her own, her former owner had left her, along with the abandoning of his entire young family. Something I will never be able to wrap my head around, but am none the less, eternally grateful for.

The barn owner offered me the pick of a number of horses that had been abandoned or collected, but I immediately knew Winnie was mine.

She needed me. But really, I needed her.

Six Horse Ranch

As mentioned, one year later, Andrew and I purchased Six Horse. That “in-between year” was deeply transformational in many ways: we would buy and then quickly sell our first home, I would leave the job I thought I’d never leave, I’d end up with two additional horses of our own, Sundance and Chaps, and drive an hour to visit the horses at the barn every day.

That year, I rarely missed a horse day. If I did, I would call in a favor from family, friends, or ranch hands to turn my horses out and feed them their supplements for me. I had simply become obsessed with horses through my grief.

And that grief lead me to Six Horse.

A Spring morning at the recently purchased and not yet named Six Horse, 2022

It had become a calling, a constant voice in my head that I was not on the right path. The home we had purchased, while sitting on a half acre and originally had seemed so spacious, felt suffocating. My job, that I had considered my dream job for years, felt soul crushing.

I was in the middle of a re-awakening. A realization that had sparked with losing Mox, and festered deeper with each horse I collected thereafter.

My truth laid in ranching. I could feel the call of the land deeper with every breath I drew from my home in the suburbs.

So, just 18 months after purchasing the home, and just 2 weeks after Andrew accepted a job in Utah…we purchased the ranch.

Our ranch is just under 6 acres and features a primary pasture for grazing the horses, along with 4 other smaller pastures for goats and horse rotations that we’ve since installed. We have a red tin barn with 5 box stalls and one stall we converted to a larger run. We’ve also converted most of the “yard” to additional grazing space, and while we’re surrounded by high-mountain desert, the property features well over 100 trees; most of them mature, thriving, and requiring constant upkeep.

Our house is an early 2000’s patchwork of half a dozen previous owners, with one large great room we’ve re-arranged to center around an electric fireplace. We love art and keep things on a western and ranching theme; with lots of the works coming from my previous 4 generations of cowboy family members.

The first two years living here were deeply difficult, and deeply rewarding.

Andrew commuted from Utah to home on the weekends (5+ hours each way). I managed the property by myself during the week, often relying on the help of my old-timer farmer neighbors, who are now some of my closest friends, and parents, who would have to drive an hour each way any time I needed their help.

It was two years of releasing all control to the universe, getting comfortable asking for help, hitting re-set on my own career, and functionally living independently for the fist substantial time in my adult life (I don’t really think college counts, does it?)

Winnie and Spirit, aka “Squish” their first Spring on our pasture, 2022

We call the property “Six Horse” for two reasons: 1) in honor of the six original horses who made the move here with us and 2) because we happened to find a gorgeous hand-crafted metal grand-entry gate at the local auction that perfectly fit our driveway and that gate has the portrait of six horses on it….need I say more?

How we financially managed to make this purchase work at ages 25 and 28 is a story itself. One day, I’ll have to share more. Hopefully, sooner than this one came to be…but I won’t make any promises.

The Cowgirl Chronicle | How it all began | Stories from a part-time Idaho cowgirl