Do you notice that it gets a little easier to be yourself every day? Public speaking wasn’t the sort of thing I was born being good at. My first lesson: Everyone thinks it’s a good idea if the person making the presentation breathes from time to time. I listened to podcasts about public speaking, and … Read more
“Why don’t you ride?” It’s the question we dread. Sometimes the people who ask are neophytes who don’t understand that in the arc of a horse’s life, there are many phases, many unexpected turns that change our plans, and many mysteries that take years to unravel. Sometimes the people who ask are longtime horse owners … Read more
In the beginning, a filly is born. In the hospital, a baby girl human is born. The filly stands almost immediately. The girl breathes and cries. In less than one week, the filly gambols laps around her mother on long legs at breakneck speed. She is champing, a calming signal sending a clear message, and … Read more
She’s an 18hh Thoroughbred-Shire cross. She’s 30 years old and her name is Thyme. I’ll give you a minute to smile. Thyme lives in England but managed to get her rider to email me with a question. “Did you ever write a post on the halt?” he asks. “She will stop in the school, but … Read more
I’ve gotten sour on a word. Why does it matter? Words are how we understand each other but some words get borrowed as code words for something else. Sometimes they turn into monsters and sometimes they get stuck between your teeth like a raspberry seed. Words impact how we feel, trickle down to how we … Read more
She has no time for gentle words and soft hands primping her mane. The broad-chested mare may allow a stiff curry in the itchy season, but she would rather throw herself on the ground to rub the loose hair off on a crust of spring snow and cool mud, leaping in air to gallop away, … Read more
When Larry McMurtry wrote Lonesome Dove, he gave Woodrow Call’s gray mare a blunt name that was rudely respectful, in a close-as-kin way. Being a sort of gray mare myself, the name stuck in my memory. Some folks hate mares so much they refuse to have them on the place. Others praise them to the … Read more
She knows my presence before I see her. Under the tree in the far corner of the pasture, no real shade but she stands there, hip cocked at rest, a prairie breeze weaving her tail. Approaching her slowly, regretting what I am but trying to downplay the plain truth, walking an arc, pausing. Has … Read more
“Curiosity is a sign of courage,” she said, hushing my correction. Bright praise for my colt chasing her dog along a fence line. That colt grew old and died, funeral respect gladly paid to a fine mentor, and now that mortality hangs around my ankles, I’ve grown stubborn, looking both ways before ranting, not … Read more