Undomesticated Women: Anecdotal Evidence from the Road
Welcome to our year of living compactly. My dog, Mister, and I crossed thirty states, saw two oceans, and drove fourteen thousand miles in eight months, pulling our A-frame trailer, the Rollin’ Rancho. We were nomads looking for horse training adventure and liver treats. Work paid for the trip; it was part clinic tour, part travelogue, part squirrel hunt. But mostly an unapologetic celebration of sunsets, horses, RV parks, roadkill, diverse landscapes, and undomesticated women.
It’s a book made of adjectives and nouns, blue skies and tornado watches, resorts and reservations, open roads to the horizon and one-lane dead-ends. We emerge from the truck in a cloud of dog hair and sunflower shells, like disoriented and scruffy rock stars in a GPS haze, not entirely lost or found.
Horse. Woman.- Poems from Our Lives. For many of us, the cowboy persona has never been a good fit. Women have earned a narrative to honor our own lives with horses and the land. We tell a uniquely female account of living and working with horses, coming out of the shadow of cowboy hats and spurs. For us, it was never about fighting for domination. It was always about herd and home.
Going Steady: More Relationship Advice from your Horse takes up where Relaxed & Forward, Relationship Advice from Your Horse, left off. For those who want to build a better relationship with their horse. These bite-sized essays on affirmative horse training, rescue stories, and “gray mare” thoughts are geared toward encouraging creative, affirmative partnerships through attitude and understanding as much as technique. Blake's writing about horse training uses clear descriptions, a joy of storytelling, and some sideways humor to inspire meaningful, positive communication. Sometimes irreverent but always honest and horse-centric:
Horse Prayers: Poems from the Prairie
A collection of poetry from a small farm on the Colorado prairie; tiny stories in simple words, praise for the beautiful fragile land, and love poems to horses. This is a 106-page book of poetry and photography, a softcover mini-coffee table book.
Barn Dance. Nickers, brays, bleats, howls, and quacks: Tales from the herd.
What can a parrot teach you about horses? Have you ever thought your pickup truck was the perfect purse? Does a donkey exist with more scruples than Edgar Rice Burro? How did a Welsh Corgi get the name of Preacher Man? What should you do when the Grandfather Horse steals your goat? And when a neglected horse comes to the farm for fostering, who is it that really gets rescued?
You’ll find answers to these questions—and much more—in Barn Dance, a collection of essays on horse-play, donkey ethics, and the fine art of mucking, from a small Colorado horse farm.
Relaxed & Forward: Relationship Advice from Your Horse is a collection of essays on training and the horse world.
We’ve been besotted with horses since they had three toes. From the popular Relaxed and Forward blog comes training advice combining the everyday fundamentals of dressage with mutual listening skills. Blake writes with a profound respect for horses and an articulate voice for humans, blending equal parts inspiration and un-common sense. It’s serious training communicated with humor and lightness, because horses like cheerful riders.
Stable Relation –A Memoir of One Woman’s Spirited Journey Home, By Way of the Barn is a memoir about the farm I grew up on, the farm I have now, and the horse that carried me in between. It’s the story of my bittersweet transition from a mid-life orphan to a modern pioneer woman, building an entirely different kind of family farm.
“When most women go through a mid-life crisis, they start a diet, get plastic surgery, or have an affair. My life went to the dogs…and horses…and llamas… and did I mention happy hour with the goats?”