Photo Challenge & Poem: Rounded
The whorl beneath a forelock, the velvet comma nostrils, the curve of a neck, the serpentine of a spine,...
Severe Weather Warning
It was 78 degrees yesterday. It's late October so the sun is lower in the sky. There was a slight...
Photo Challenge & Poem: Glow
The sun hurries now, eager to be gone. A chill breeze scatters the last embers of fall, crisp leaves layer...
Riding the Middle: My Horse is Lazy.
My horse is lazy. He won't go forward. He doesn't listen to my legs no matter what. Do I need...
Photo Challenge & Poem: Scale
The one you call cute, in a high-pitched squeal, hears no compliment. Is it your goal to demean me? Because...
Too Much Love: Is it Partnership?
Last week I answered a reader question about Making War on Horses and it got a predictably positive reception. It's...
Photo Challenge & Poem: Pedestrian
Young mare, on the full-moon night you were born, we recognized one another. It was an awkward kinship of un-belonging,...
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...
Photo Challenge: Windows
Has it been a year? Scanning the pasture from the kitchen sink, I don't see your swayed back. A...
Escape the Death Spiral: Asking For a Step.
Let me begin by defining a death spiral. It's asking a horse to do something he just avoided, by circling...
Photo Challenge: Layered
It began with a word so small and unspoken that it waited in a bitter slick at the back...
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 & Poem Challenge: Visiting Friends
We shared stories as we drove up the canyon road that angled between rocks, colored grape and copper and sienna;...
Helmets: When Complacency and Experience are Killers.
"She had a helmet on and she still got hurt," the woman said. Well, sure. I take vitamins and I'm still...
Photo Challenge & Poem: Waiting
The air goes still on the prairie during that instant when my finished inhale lifts gravity and just before the...
How to be a Brilliant Conversationalist: Horse Version
You know how the cat magically goes to the person with the allergy? Or she goes the person who happens...
Photo Challenge: Structure
This horse covers the ground more quietly on four hooves than my old feet can manage, dynamic strides so...
Leadership Percentages and Confused Horses
Pause here. Look in his eye. He's sensitive and intelligent and looking for a partner who's his equal. If we're...
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