Relaxed & Forward Blog

Grumbling and Stumbling Toward Change

I'm coming up on the anniversary of moving to my farm twenty-five years ago. It coincides with my dysfunctional affair...
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The Long Ear Answer to Humans Doing Everything The Hard Way

"I am not sure why horse people are especially prone to doing things the most difficult way possible, but it's...
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Wild or Tame: Trust Actions Above Words

This is my neighborhood. That's Pikes Peak peering over the horizon, exactly where it was when I bought the farm....
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Nube: The Final Chapter

Over the next thirteen years of retirement, Nube napped with friends, ate well, and stood quietly for the farrier. I...
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Recording the Arc of Your Horse’s Life

The foal's name was Sunny, his registered name Sunbrite Sunset. This photo was taken just before we met. The rest...
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The Home Barn and Separation Anxiety

May I brag? I have that strange career where I travel a lot, see beautiful country as a routine part...
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Nube: What Retirement Means

And so, Nube [pronounced new-bay] retired in limbo. Undiagnosable. Sometimes, the solution for a long-running struggle is to just stop...
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Affirmative Anxiety

For as often as we've watched horses run and thought them the most beautiful of all creatures, we should know...
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How Long Does It Take To Train a Horse?

I have a herd of relatively normal retired horses. And then this gang of raconteurs, misanthropes, and dangerous characters, referred...
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Human Failings, Horses, And Judgment

A four-year-old video surfaced this week and a dressage rider deeply apologized for the overuse of a whip. She will...
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Calming Signals: Love vs Understanding

The mare would not pick up the canter. She just wouldn’t. In her defense, the rider was off balance. Every...
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Independence, Liberty, and My Personal Shining Sea

It's officially mucking-in-a-muumuu weather here at Infinity Farm. The horses all stand in the barn's shade and watch me fling...
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Travelblog: Mister Has a Dark Night of the Soul.

Dogs. We rescue them, buy them, inherit them. They are irrepressible puppies, midlife couch-partners or milky-eyed elders with wonky ears....
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Calming Signals: Another Word for Dominant

There is a wild stallion on the ridge fighting all comers for his harem of mares. We think aggression and...
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Overthinking an Undomesticated Budgie

A bright blue flick of movement, almost too small to see. White feathers spark the light, even more startling than...
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Travelblog: How I Stole Paris

I woke up introspective on my last full day in Paris. It's the same way I wake up at home....
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Travelblog: Paris is Like Visiting an Old Lover

Paris is a city full of statues of horses. They're everywhere, I noticed on my first visit. The statues are...
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Travelblog: Late for the Funeral. By Three Years.

Words about friendship and death ahead. There, you're warned. I'm still on vacation, but I'm going to talk about grieving...
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