Relaxed & Forward Blog

Photo & Poem: Coyote Run

Ancient mountains send coarse sand and sharp stone down, just pebbles at a time, to leave us unsteady on our...
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The Next Horse: Remounting after the Hardest Fall of All

    This perfect horse of yours has been with you since he was young, or you got him near...
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Photo & Poem: Hunger Moon

Fresh snow fell yesterday and more will come tomorrow, but in the still between-time, a full moon sits high in...
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Photo & Poem: Hand-Me-Downs

  Leota would send a note warning that she’d put something in the mail and we waited. She was a...
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Photo & Poem: Secrets

She attended church with joyless obligation, lip-syncing hymns that praised suffering, with dentures that never quite fit, never a genuine...
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Cantankary: If Not Now, When?

Expecting New Year's resolutions from me? Nope, I'm not the type. I am so thrilled to have survived another year...
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Photo & Poem: Horse. Woman.

There were always horses, some light and some dark. The woman met them in passing or they stayed forever; some...
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The Future for Horse-Keepers: Isolation or World Change?

It's what we do: We keep horses. Sometimes a foal too young to be ridden, so we show patience and...
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Photo & Poem: Rich

  Our family farm was leased from the man who owned the car dealership in town. Once or twice a...
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Calming Signals: How to Show Love

"How do you show your love for horses, then?" A clinic participant asked me at the end of a long...
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Photo & Poem: Girl-Cousin

Seems every farm family had one in a generation; a distant misfit girl-cousin who read too much or wore men’s...
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In Training to Be a Late Bloomer

He was a bona fide dressage master. We were lucky to have him come for a clinic. It was the...
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Life Coach: The Goat Version

It was a beautiful end-of-summer afternoon, just about feeding time. Cupid had been with us a few months by then....
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Photo & Poem: Holiday Place

  You had a plan for how this would go when you left home. Longing for a thing different than...
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Photo & Poem: You Know the Way

  The rhythm of hooves over even soft ground, we’ve lost time out together, rocked safe in the saddle like...
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Do Horses Fear Death?

  It's been an ordinary year. Animals died here. What could be more normal? Infinity Farm has an extended herd...
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Photo & Poem: Spine

  He repeats it all again, a little slower and louder each time, enunciating as if she cannot hear. Certain...
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Photo & Poem: Reluctant

  Stay outside until the sun is low, reluctant to let the day end, tidying halters, raking loose hay into...
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