It was one of those rare crystal-clear bluebird days at the Hanson ranch west of Marion as the Stutzman children piled into the sleigh, giddy at the prospect of a dash through the snow.

Louie and John, two 18-year-old Clydesdales, stood ready and waiting to accommodate the neighbor children on their first day of Christmas vacation. With Kate Hanson at the reins of the sleigh and her husband John at her side, o'er the fields they went, laughing all the way.

Impromptu get-togethers are not uncommon at the Hanson ranch, where horsemanship and neighborliness go hand in hand. Both John and Kate have been working with driving horses for more than 30 years.

John was born and raised in the Marion area and has been involved with horses since he was a small child.

Kate grew up in Los Angeles County. She's worked with horses all her life and developed a special interest in draft horses as a youngster, helping with hayrides at a stable.

They found each other on the Internet, discovered their mutual passion for horses and got married six years ago. But it was just last year that Kate was able to finally relinquish her work commitments and move to the Marion ranch full time.

The Hansons started Hanson's Carriage Company to supplement their income; their other business is a rock-crushing operation on their property.

"We started it to pay for the horses' feed," John said about the carriage business. "This way they kind of earn their keep."

They've used their horses for weddings, parties, parades and hayrides, but this year is the first for bona fide sleigh rides in a one-horse open sleigh. It actually works better with two horses, John noted, because "it's just easier on these guys.

"If it gets a little slick, there's not so much chance of them slipping," he said about the pair of Clydesdales.

Response to the sleigh rides has been good, with many out-of-towners scheduling rides for a trip down memory lane. Truth be told, even though "Jingle Bells" perpetuates the excitement of those early-day sleigh rides, there aren't many people who still remember the days when sleighs were a common form of transportation in the wintertime.

John's one of the lucky ones. He grew up feeding cattle with a sled designed to carry hay bales.

"Dad fed with a [sled and] team until I was in high school," he recalled. "If it was 40 below the tractor wouldn't start, but the team would."

In recent years the Hansons have held an annual hayride for their neighbors using the old feed sled. It hauls 15 to 20 people and has become the social event of the season in rural Marion.

"Last year we didn't have a hayride, and this year people already have been calling to see if it's on," John said.

THEIR four-person sleigh comes complete with cozy blankets and an antique footwarmer that holds charcoal briquettes to keep riders' feet warm as the horses traipse through the snow.

"It's real rewarding to give people this experience," John said. "It's a lot of fun. Everyone we've given rides to has loved it."

The sleigh was built by a Canadian firm about five years ago and originally was painted red and green and looked a lot like Santa Claus' sleigh. The Hansons repainted it a classic black for more of an all-season appeal.

John has a knack for restoring old things, from antique airplanes to two 1890 Studebaker wagons they use in the carriage business. One was used in the late 1800s by A.M. Moore, one of the Flathead's early homesteaders, and the other was used by Swift Packing Co. for deliveries around the same time.

Restoring these antique vehicles and preserving the horse-drawn transportation of yesteryear gives him a lot of satisfaction.

Kate's love of draft horses dovetails with the couple's carriage business. She showed draft horses for years before training and showing a four-horse hitch of Clydesdales. She later took a job with Budweiser, handling the Clydesdales stationed at Sea World in San Diego, Calif.

Eventually she became a full-time stallion and mare manager and helped her daughter, Sierra, train Clydesdales for a six-horse hitch her daughter showed on the West Coast. Her daughter currently is one of the top female drivers in the country. Kate's other daughter, Cambria, is a writer and still in college.

Kate also is drawn to restoration work, and once spent 18 months in Newfoundland rebuilding a 102-foot schooner.

It's horses, though, that occupy most of the Hansons' time these days. Now that their children are grown and on their own, the Hansons said they're finding that their four-legged "kids" "sometimes are as much fun as teenagers."

For more information about sleigh or wagon rides, go to http://hansonscarriage.com.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.