Relaxed & Forward Blog

Letting Edgar Rice Burro Get Old

Edgar Rice Burro runs with a gang of misanthropes. A goat whose broken leg healed stiff, so he has an...
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Learning to Herd: How Dogs Become Family

I was raised by people who didn’t let dogs in the house. The common opinion was that dogs should live...
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Spring Fever, Bad Behavior, or Flight Response?

It's February on the high prairie at the fringe of the Rocky Mountains. The pond is still frozen so there...
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Book Release: Horse. Woman.

Book Release! Available Now! Horse. Woman. Poems from Our Lives "It was a tough life if you was useless.” -Leafa...
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Horse Woman, Our Narrative

Drawing by Rebecca Howard I usually write a gray mare rant annually on my birthday. I'm...
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Photo & Poem: Weather Change

Hail blown sideways by the wind, dark clouds churning across the horizon, as the horses brace against the stinging ice...
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Photo & Poem: Midsummer

Midsummer, the mare stands square, hooves flat and neck low, her muzzle faced into the corner of a dark stall,...
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Photo and Poem: Spring Thaw

  The air hung heavy, strangely moist for a desert prairie. Dense fog as rare as raindrops. The ice on...
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Calming Signals: Sleeping with a Reactive Dog

    I don't mind bragging; I've slept with some very fine dogs in the course of my long and...
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Photo & Poem: To Soar

  Alone in the sky, her broad wings create their own horizon, as she...
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Photo & Poem: Second Cup

Second cup of coffee while waiting for light, a second cup while waiting to head out. The horses have thick...
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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: Payment Due

  No more lingering in the melon-colored dusk, grazing late to the barn. The pasture is finished, even the weeds...
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Photo & Poem: Home Farm

Skeletal power poles from the wind turbines out east litter the view of the mountains, splintering the sunset. New construction...
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Photo & Poem: Spring Storm

The storm came so late that shedding season was done, the horse’s coats already thin and slick. So late there...
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Photo & Poem: Birds and Horses

  Fences mended with twine until there’s more time. Scrubbed water tanks filled fresh, drank down to half by noon....
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Photo & Poem: The Sea’s Nature

  The sea’s nature is change, waves rolling one on top of the last, spent flat...
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Photo & Poem: Explain the Sky

  Restless eyes behind closed lids, the early hours lay flat, dull to these scurrying thoughts. Rise to use the...
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