YOU KNOW YOU MARRIED A HORSEWOMAN WHEN:

1. She treats you like a hero for giving her a home-made boot jack on her birthday.

2. You start using her hobby to leverage your own. "Sure, I can make you some saddle racks. All I need is a new table saw."

3. She buys so much heavy duty winter clothing that she winds up on mailing lists for hunting, fishing and survivalist catalogs.

4. You find yourself unquestioningly trudging through a sleet storm to feed the show horse that she won't let you ride.

5. You find yourself juggling roofing steel in a New Year's day blizzard to finish "her" horse barn while your alma mater is playing in a bowl game, and you wouldn't dream of going inside to watch.

6. You realize that not only have you become expert in trailer backing, horse grooming, tack cleaning, and giving her a leg up, you can also repeat her riding instructor's comments from her last lesson verbatim.

7. You get so used to her doing things like mucking stalls with a broken finger or showing her horse with a fractured ankle that you can't understand it when morning sickness wipes her out.

8. She names your first child "Dan Patch" or "Misty".

9. You've spent so much time at the boarding stable that people think you're the maintenance man. (with good reason!)

10. You wear NASCAR baseball caps to her horse shows so people won't ask you questions that you can't answer.