What do a former English professor from Indiana and a mom have in common?
Danvers Child and Erin McQueen both have a passion for horses and have chosen careers that will keep them near the huge animals. Child and McQueen are farriers.
Lots of women work late into their pregnancy, though most don't work beneath unpredictable 1,200-pound horses. McQueen likes to live dangerously. She kept working through the ninth month of her pregnancy. She admits she's slowed down a little and lets her husband, who is both a farrier and her business partner, take the brunt of the work.
Danvers Child is very busy man. You might say he has a few irons in the fire. Child runs a full-time farriery, serves on the public relations committee for the American Farrier's Association and directs PR for the Indiana Farrier's Association.
He coordinates workshops and clinics, writes articles for horse publications, does some consulting on the World Wide Web and somehow fits in the time to run for secretary of the American Farrier's Association.
Child grew up on ranches in the southwestern U.S., so he was always surrounded by horses. "The more horses I acquired, the less money I had, so I began experimenting with shoeing my own horses around the age of 16."
Soon, Child started shoeing for the public. "It took me about a year to realize how really bad I was, but once I faced up to that and seriously thought about how much harm I could be doing, I enrolled in Oklahoma State Horseshoeing School.
"Even when I went to horseshoeing school, I really didn't see it as something that I'd be doing for the rest of my life. I simply wanted to learn more about it and do a better job. Horseshoeing was merely a way to generate a bit of income while I was showing horses and competing in rodeos," says Child.
That's not all it paid for. "It provided me with a way of paying for school which I found more appealing than flipping hamburgers. It paid for several degrees -- in history and English and an MA in English."
Child taught English for four years at Purdue University before he decided he was happier as a farrier than as a college professor. "I get to work outside rather than behind a desk, and I get to set my own schedule."
McQueen agrees that being a farrier isn't just a job -- it's a lifestyle. "I do love it. Number one, you get to work with horses all day. You get to be self-employed. You're out traveling around to different farms. It's relaxing and hard work, but at the same time you get to talk to people you really relate to."
Before you get any notions that being a farrier is a romantic, home-on-the-range sort of career, Child and McQueen say there are a few things you should know.
"You have to be tough, or you'll never make it," says McQueen. You have to have a keen business sense and you better be prepared for some physical pain.
As a self-employed person, you get all the associated rewards and headaches. "It consumes everything and you're always thinking about it when you get home. People are calling you every evening to talk about it. You've got to be willing to talk to people and answer their questions, no matter what you think of them," says McQueen.
Says Child, "As an independent business owner, I actually have many bosses. Each person I work for is my employer and I have to keep each one of them happy or I'll find myself in the unemployment line."
And then there is the risk of injury.
Child and McQueen have both run that risk a few times. Child recounts some of his high-risk situations: "I've had narcoleptic horses fall asleep while I had a foot up and literally fall on top of me; I've had to shoe horses in the middle of goat herds; I've had to trim donkeys that could kick you four times before you got out of your truck."
Injuries are very common because horses can be quite unpredictable. "I've been injured a few times. Once I was under a draft horse working away, and she decided to freak out and kick sideways. I didn't walk for a couple of weeks. You get the odd kicks. The little things you just work around," says Child.
Despite the hazards, neither Child nor McQueen plan to make any career changes.
"As long as I can do it, I will," says McQueen. "If there came a time when my body just wouldn't do it anymore, I'd still try to do something that was affiliated with it."