on 10/05/2012

Bull-headed, sometimes pig-headed: these are names that you might call an obstinate tomboy of a daughter. It wasn’t meant to be a compliment. Did you ever hear those names around your house?

I prefer the term hard headed. In 1970, Cat Stevens (then) put out my personal teen angst album, and it had a song entitled Hard Headed Woman. It was the first time I had heard the phrase used in a positive way:

“I’m looking for a hard headed woman, One who will make me do my…

It is autumn now. I should be writing poetic blogs about geese on the wing, abundant golden harvests, or maybe a symbolic essay about the seasons of life. I’m not in the mood.

Every day the sun comes up later, and goes down earlier.  The drought has drained my beautiful pond, my pasture has fried and died. Hay prices are simply impossible. Some of the elder barn residents are…

We have a decently healthy herd here at Infinity Farm. We are eight species strong- mostly horses, but our fair share of ruminants as well.  Sometimes you can pick up a sick vibe in the herd before you can figure out which animal it is. It’s almost like sensing it out of the corner of your eye. This week it was a llama.

Her real name is Belle Starr, but she is a big boned girl and it’s hard to not refer to her as the Belly Llama. She had a bit of a digestive upset that I was able to…

We’ve all been there: Schooling our horse, asking for something, but not getting the right answer. We try one thing and then another, the work is sticky so we try a bit harder. At the same time, the horse feels a bit more resistant.

“This wasn’t just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.”  -Dorothy Parker.

But then…

The 2012 Summer Olympics concluded this week. Dressage got a bit more attention than usual, partly because of Great Britain’s wonderful win on home turf, and partly because of political satirist…

I can’t remember who came first in my life- dogs or horses. I do know a few of each are required for my mental health. There is a slow and gradual changing of the guard, as years go on.

Three dogs and 13 years ago, my cattle dog, Hero and I were pretty depressed after losing our old dog, Spam. The moping around was wearing on us, so we signed up for Dog Agility class and called it date night.

I’d been to obedience classes with other dogs- but this was different. It was happy…

One of the first things to know about horses is that they are prey animals. Simply put, that means that other animals eat them, and their natural instinct and only defense is to flee. Prey animals usually have wide set eyes as an early defense system.

Humans are predators, like mountain lions and wolves. Our…

I’m going to be blunt about sports bras- not trying to offend anyone, (or exclude either of my male readers.) If you work with horses, or dogs for that matter, you should probably be wearing one. The good news is that they have…

06/22/2012

My grandfather Percy Blake was a horse trader. They say he had a good eye, but I could never quite discern if he was honest or not. Folks respected him, but he maybe had more income than scruples.

Being a horse trader…

It goes without saying that Duke Ellington is right, about most everything. And even horses agree.

But I get ahead of myself. This is how it starts: you’re riding, moving in unison with your horse. You’re fluid, and free-…