Maeve Birch Home

    Category: Uncategorized

    • Right Activity for the Right Day

      Have you ever showed up to the barn to work with a horse, brought them out of the pasture, and quickly realized that they were having a bad day? Maybe they walked away from you when you went to halter them, when they normally halter just fine. Maybe they were sticky and hesitant to move,…

      Read more: Right Activity for the Right Day

    • What do horses dream of?

      If a horse had goals for themselves, what do you think they would be? Would they aspire to being the greatest at jumping with a human on their back? Winner of the most money? Fastest on a dirt track? Or would they have dreams of their own? What matters most to them? What does a…

      Read more: What do horses dream of?

    • Equestrian Olympians and Wandering in the Wilderness

      Four years ago I was watching video of a horse being punched on live television in the Tokyo Olympics. The result of that incident was the removal of horses from the Pentathalon event, a cascade of people searching for more ethical ways of working with horses, and a chapter in my book. This year a…

      Read more: Equestrian Olympians and Wandering in the Wilderness

    • Stress-free Equine Event Planning? Breaking it Down

      It’s the day after Independence Day in the US, and a lot of us were sitting with our anxious animals while fireworks went off around our homes and barns. I used to enjoy fireworks a lot more when I didn’t have any worries about a horse running through a fence or stall guard in panic…

      Read more: Stress-free Equine Event Planning? Breaking it Down

    • Increasing Understanding

      I keep forgetting to update words in the midst of all the things happening in real life. The issue is, the things in real life are still too “everyday grind” to spark any great words. I don’t have any inspiration for you today, but I do have a small moment in time that I found…

      Read more: Increasing Understanding

    • Big News!

      Fantastic news! I am excited to announce that Standing in a Field With Horses is becoming an audiobook! Now you will be able to listen to the book while you drive, do chores, or even fall asleep to it. Audiobooks allow the freedom to listen on the go, which I didn’t fully appreciate until I…

      Read more: Big News!

    • Clouds and Horses

      I regularly listen to a podcast called The Emerald. It’s one of my favorite animist/spirituality podcasts, part informative, part future-dreaming, meaning searching, trance-inducing journey through cultures and environments both foreign and familiar to me. This latest one, On Clouds and Cosmic Law, held significance because it relates very intimately to what I’m going through now.…

      Read more: Clouds and Horses

    • The Third Body

      My life has been barely controlled chaos for the past few weeks, but it now seems to be giving me enough of a breather that I’m able to form coherent thoughts. Thoughts of things that I’d never considered in horse/human relationships before, because it’d never been so glaring. Mildly stealing from the title of a…

      Read more: The Third Body

    • Changing Worry

      I walked Rex for the first time in almost two months and found that I had changed. Between an illness, a new project at work picking up, and leasing a horse again, I had not been able to do more than stop to visit with Rex in the pasture for a few minutes every week…

      Read more: Changing Worry

    • Riding the Line

      In working with horses I’ve been lucky enough not to run up against time limits very often. Time limits like “we have to get this horse ready for this show,” or “the farrier comes in two weeks and if this horse can’t be trimmed then it’s feet will start degrading before the farrier comes around…

      Read more: Riding the Line