As a life long rider and actress/radio host, this is one of the *best* docs I’ve seen in a long time. Well done!!! May God grant me the health to ride as long as she does and the graciousness to teach as well!
Pam Stone
I am 51 years old, a songwriter, writer and rider. Seven months ago I had a double lung transplant. One of the first questions I asked the surgeons before signing on for this, was, “Will I be able to ride again?” The operation was a success. I am back in the saddle. I wrote about the months waiting for the transplant. And then I wrote about my best friend and horse breeder in California, for whom, on my birthday, she send me a kind, compassionate and beautiful black Morgan gelding.
I am riding again. I am breathing and riding and where I was once tethered to an oxygen tank I am now tacking my horse, showering him and riding four times a week. You can see some video at youtube.com/MelodyPierson or read about this lovely gift from Susie Solomon and other stories at chabad.org.
Well, I hope someone somewhere can be inspired and know there can be beautiful days ahead even when it is barely too much to draw a single breath. Thank you for this documentary. I thought I would share my story with you, too.
Best, Melody Pierson
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
I was awestruck by the film and felt an unusual sense of peace knowing that someone was finally documenting the “American Cowgirl” and especially in such a beautiful and professional manner.
Thank you.
Kathy Fahey
Jupiter, FL
Jamie,
Your pictures and film are truly a tribute to women. I always say, women empower women. Thank you for bringing a smile to my face this morning. My 84 year old Mom watched the video last night and a tear came to her eye, as she said “Now I understand what you have with your horses”. Please keep me on your list, I am honored. And again, women truly do empower women. I am including a picture of my new horse Euphoria, barn name is Fiona. I have only had her 2 weeks, she is my dream horse……..Funny isn’t it, I thought you might enjoy seeing her.
Warm Regards,
Ellen Weaver
Hi Jamie - What beautiful work!
About a year ago, at age 72, I finally got the horse ranch I’d dreamed of since childhood - two acres a little east of Oklahoma City. I grew up with horses, with my earliest memories the smell and feel of them. I married a “city boy” with no understanding of the dream, so it was on hold for too long. Through somewhat miraculous events, I am now at home at last - with two horses and a little donkey, loving every moment with them and savoring every ride.
Renaissance Painter arrived on the first day of spring, and has become my dear friend and partner, the first horse of my own since I was a child. He was a cow horse, and I lived my adult life in the city, longing for a place for a horse. When I saw him for the first time, I knew he had been waiting for me. Our acreage was purchased just for Renn, and he is my heart’s delight. Every day our connection grows and our spirits entwine deeper. When I awake, he’s outside my window, waiting. The unity I crave as a horsewoman is with me in moments of brilliance, moments that take my breath away. And the moments are growing into minutes, and now, into hours. In the autumn of my life I found him - stealer and healer of my heart.
Thanks for the beautiful gallery; I especially liked the photos of Connie.
Happy Trails,
Ruella Yates
Jones, OK
I got a donkey as a companion for my lonely gelding, never knowing that she would steal my heart. This portrait of Jenny in the morning light captures her strong, sweet spirit. She came to us from a herd of 120 donkeys northwest of Oklahoma City. When I entered the pen of donkeys for sale, she gently but firmly locked eyes with me; I looked no further, and took her home. She was received with explosive joy by a lonely horse delighted to have an equine friend. Jenny took over as a “security guard”, causing the coyotes, snakes, and other assorted varmints to back off. How can one little spirit accomplish this and still have her depth of sweetness?
Ruella Yates
Jones, OK
Kira was seized by the police department, along with her herd of 44 starving, abused Arabians. I went to the rescue organization offering to foster a horse, not knowing what to expect. In shock at what I saw, I focused on the gate to the overflow pen, saying a small prayer that the horse who needed me would come to me. Among the frightened, starving mares was Kira, who immediately locked her eyes with mine, walked confidently to me, and made me her own. When she became available for adoption, it was legal, and neither of our lives has been the same. She’s safe forever, growing sleek and joyful - partly from good food, but mostly from love. And now I know I needed her as much as she needed me.
Ruella Yates
Jones, OK
A tip of the Stetson to you Jamie!
I just watched your film. I am the author of The Cowgirl’s Cookbook published by Globe Pequot this last May. It is doing very well, in part, I believe, because people like you - and me - are bringing the Cowgirl back to the forefront where she belongs. I give a talk now and then on “The Girls of the Golden West” to dudes at a ranch here in Sisters - they are awed by the stories of women who rode broncs out to the whistle before women had the vote. I had the honor of helping to induct Bertha Blancett into the Pendleton (Oregon) Hall of Fame as well as the National Cowgirl Hall of Fame. If there is anything I can do to help you along - please, you only have to ask.
My best regards Cowgirl!
Jill Stanford
Sisters, OR
Loved the film clip! It was sent to me on my horse list. I hope I am still going at that age. I wonder how many more years I can ride. If you are anywhere near Long Island, NY stop on by!
Thanks,
Gail Destefano
Nesconset, NY
Dear Miss Williams,
I have just browsed your images on the American Cowgirl site; to me they are moments, pieces of essences staring back at me, asking me what do you see? They challenge me to look deeper than the photo and find the soul behind it.
I have some moments, some photos of my own. My pictures reveal a nature I think that you understand. They are images of a woman’s dream.
The first is of a young woman standing by a solitary heifer, she is smiling. It is a beginning for both she and the animal, a sort of marriage that is not fully conveyed in this image, not yet. There is only a happy, carefree air about this picture, all brightness and green grass.
Many years later she is standing amongst a herd, her face concentrating on the count, sweat trickling down her bronzed face, a young cow is standing near, a shadow of the past.
And then there are the moments in between.
I see this woman standing waist deep in the swollen creek, trying to restring the wire that has washed out. I gaze at her and I can see that she knows the snakes are stirred up but there is a look of determination about her that says to me that this concern is irrelevant.
In the distance there is an image of a women far away in the pasture, her back to me, the winter wind, pushing against her thin body as the moon shines above her. She carries a bucket of water from the creek, where she has chopped the ice, and where she will chop it again in the morning. Before her is a mama cow lying half paralyzed from bearing a calf too big for her and what I cannot know is that a few hours earlier and a few hours earlier than that, the woman had struggled to turn the cow over on her other side. I cannot know how she accomplished this. The woman probably does not know herself. She just did it. The woman feeds the calf his bottle containing nourishment she has milked from his mother as the cow lies moaning, trying unsuccessfully to get up. She speaks to them both telling them to fight. I do not know that the coyotes are howling close by and the wild pigs are rutting around in the brush behind her. What I see is a woman with her head bowed against the elements bent to one side with the weight of the water staggering on toward a moment in her life. As she always is.
Amongst a back drop of dust clouds, cracked earth, straggling weeds, a woman is cranking down the bale of hay from the hauler, her old pickup idling, her slender arms belying the strength that has to be there as this is the third bale she has hauled this morning, in the summer, when there should be grass but there isn’t. Looking intently at this image I do not know that she owes the hay man thirteen thousand dollars. That she’s going to have to sell forty heifers to pay for it. That the banker will have to agree to lend her back the money to do this, that there is the annual note due in October, and that there will not be enough calves to cover it. What I see is a tireless resolve to keep this herd fed and to keep this herd.
I have a collection of moments in my mind. A portfolio of a 65 year old woman working two jobs, sleeping a couple of hours before frying herself an egg and going out to the pasture. A women favoring a broken leg as she unloads a barrel of lick and attempts to feed cattle cake with the herd milling heavily around her. A woman standing in wonder and fury after loosing cattle to thieves, a woman thankful to the board member that puts in a good word for her at note time every year, a woman coping with a broken windmill, bad fences, and a rental house falling down around her, a woman gathering on foot when her horse has gone lame, a woman laughing at her calves playing, a woman who has received kind gestures, over the years, from good people, though they did not understand her stubborn resolve to pursue her chosen life. A woman who dreamed of a ranch where she could work along side of a man, where her grandchildren would want to live and work on, a home of her own, all of which have not come about. A woman who informs me on a daily basis with a feverish resolve, that as long as her cows are in the pasture and she can feed them, there is hope. This is a woman who is on the verge of losing her herd to the bank.
A woman, my mother, who is now struggling to adjust her vision to her reality, thinking and attempting to believe, that there may be a place out there somewhere, where someone likeminded needs some help. A place where she can live, work and have her cattle. A place for her and what is left of her vision.
My mother’s stories, my images, are to me, metaphors for sheer will, determination, integrity, and a personal bliss. These are, to me, the qualities that make a cowgirl, the qualities I see in your images and I just wanted somebody out there to know that she exists.
Thank you for your attention.
Sincerely,
Angel Lucas
Port Angeles, WA
