BROOKS, Alta. – A family that horses around together, stays together.
By instilling a love of horses in their children, Bob and Joyce Kaufman hope they are ensuring a way for their family to spend time together doing something they all love.
“Our whole goal is to be self-sustained with the horse industry,” said Joyce.
The Kaufmans’ lives revolve around horses. When Bob isn’t managing the Antelope Creek ranch in southern Alberta, he and Joyce train horses and give riding clinics across Western Canada.
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In their spare time, Bob builds saddles and Joyce shoes horses and makes horse-hair hitched bridles, hatbands and shooflies, which hang off a saddle or bridle to keep flies away.
All in the family
Their oldest daughter Hannah, 14, trains dogs and horses and makes horse-hair hitched riding equipment.
Elise, 12, writes and recites cowboy poetry. Amber, 10, makes beaded jewelry. Rhael, 8, is learning to braid six and eight strands together. The youngest, Tye, 6, has no specialty yet, but he “loves to cowboy,” said his mom.
“If we can leave them knowledge, that’s my heirloom to them,” she said.
Joyce, a former veterinary assistant, met Bob during a roping competition in Williams Lake, British Columbia when he was a director of the B.C. Cattlemen’s Association.
“I’ve been ranching most of my married life,” said Bob.
On the Antelope Creek Ranch, they rotate 250 head of cattle though 11 pastures on 5,500 acres of land. It’s an attempt to bridge the gap between wildlife and ranching.
“It’s set up as a demonstration ranch which shows livestock grazing is not detrimental to wildlife,” he said.
Joyce said she began shoeing horses as a way to earn money at a job where she could bring her children with her. Shoeing the neighbors’ horses also gives her unlimited access to horse hair for hitching.
Joyce found the inspiration for her equipment made from horse hair when Bob said he paid $50 for two small shooflies at a cowboy poetry gathering. Joyce hit the roof and embarked on her own effort.
It took her four hours to make her first shoofly.
“I was so proud of it,” she said.
To do hitching, tiny strands of horse hair have to be grouped together and then slowly tied into a long rope.
Horse-hair hitching has become an all-consuming passion with their oldest daughter as well. Hannah recently spent 94 hours hitching strands of horse hair together to make a bridle.
“And I’m not finished yet,” she said.
Bob works in the basement workshop where he generally has several saddles in various stages of construction or repair. He built his first saddle six years ago, then began taking custom orders.
“When he’s working on a saddle, he doesn’t come to bed until two or three in the morning,” said Joyce.
Being raised on a ranch has given the second daughter, Elise, plenty of material for her cowboy poetry. She wrote a poem called Sour Milk about the time the milk cow wandered too close to dynamite.
Another poem is about the time her mom heard a noise in the house on Halloween night. With rifle in hand, she confronted a pack rat in the shower.
Elise’s cowboy poetry, Bob said, is honing valuable writing and reciting skills she will find useful throughout her life.
With most of the children’s lives before them, the couple hopes their love of horses will keep the family working and playing together.
