Necessity is the mother of invention, as the old saying goes, and someone once said that ranching is the mother of necessity. In other words, to survive in ranching, a rancher has to be innovative and a jack of all trades.

Often, it’s not economically or logistically feasible to hire someone to do a ranch job that must be done, so you do it yourself. When a fence starts to fall down, you fix it. When an animal is sick or injured, you treat it — unless it’s a situation where you need a vet to do a surgical procedure or something else you can’t do.

And if a horse needs shoes, you shoe it.

You make exceptions of course, for unusual cases that need attention from a professional. But on most ranches, a horse that needs much attention from anyone but yourself gets sold because you can’t afford the hassle, expense and inconvenience of having to depend on — and pay — someone else.

I am not a farrier. I don’t shoe other people’s horses. On rare occasions, when I was much younger, I shod a few horses for friends who asked me, but that was 30 years…