Travelblog: Being Here Now
This is the view out the front of my deck: pastures to the ocean. I'm having a rest day, staying...
Photo Challenge & Poem: Beloved
Eyes averted, shuffling an invisible walk. A predator who feels like sad prey, trying to pass for normal, trying...
Photo Challenge & Poem: Variations
“Isn't it dysfunctional?” he asked, his head cocked. His confidence steeped in every privilege due to a certain sort of...
EOY P&L: Life, Death, and Tears
EOY P&L... my last post of the year always has some math involved. I don't have the math skills to quantify the number...
Photo Challenge & Poem: Serene
The cowboys I knew didn't dress like the movies. No neckerchiefs or fancy Mexican spurs. They wore easy smiles under...
Making War on Horses: Is it Leadership?
By reader request: "Horses need a dominant leader; you have to make him respect you." "You can't let him get away...
Sleeping With The Wrong Dog
Warning: This is not an upbeat rescue story. It's a sad story with a sad ending. Proceed with caution. Or...
Photo Challenge: Delta
Walking the washout, high desert ground between pond silt and prairie pasture, I know to look for crushed cans, bits...
Caring for the Lead Mare
It was a perfect day. There were just enough clouds to soften the heat. The front gate didn't open once all day...
Mounting Block Conversations
This is Andante. He likes to have a conversation at the mounting block. He wasn't always like this. In his...
Photo Challenge: Dense
Stupid. Dense. Stubborn. Lazy. Until we stop seeing others in our own worst self-image, these words will describe us. .......
Circling Back: How We Became One.
We were hooked and it was written all over us. The first weird looks passed between our parents. We were...
Do You Communicate Like a Coyote?
Some of us baby-talk and cuddle our horses like they're twelve-hundred-pound teddy bears. Some of us enter the pen with...
Climate Change: Not Just Bad for Polar Bears.
Farm kids, like me, learn early that a healthy anxiety about the weather is the subtext of every task--from lambing season, to...
Safety and Being a Spoil Sport.
I'm a riding instructor. Wait, it's worse than that. A riding instructor who has read the small print of her liability...
The Politics of Holiday Pie
Inconceivable: I'm going to share my pie recipe. I'll pause and give my friends time to pick themselves up. They know...
Photo Challenge: It’s Not This Time of Year Without…
bucking tradition: when seasonal words don't fit when obligation overwhelms desire when some mourn or have none or do not when the...
The Passion to Punish
First, last, and always, this is the truth about communication with animals: Punishment is the lowest form of expression. A...
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