Maeve Birch Home

    Tag: Equestrian

    • Dark Season

      Well daylight savings time ending has hit me like a truck, as it does every year. Those of us who have full time jobs outside of horses must squeeze in horse time in the cold and dark. The horses are fuzzy and don’t fit any of their tack, the barn cats are instantly in the…

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    • Fall is Book Reading Season!

      It’s November, and we’ve had chilly weather here on the east coast for the past few days. Soup weather. Cozy blanket weather. Book weather. It’s also time for me to begin thinking about holiday gifts for friends and family. It sneaks up on me every year, and by December I’m always so busy.  If you’re…

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    • Ponderings on Fear

      Thoughts for a rainy day. I have several pictures of the Welsh pony I’ve been working with where he’s either nervous or afraid. In one instance, he stood on cross ties in the grooming stall and someone had just started brushing his tail. For whatever reason, this caused sudden fear. His eyes widened, tail clamped,…

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    • Horse Book Dreaming

      The weather here became decidedly autumnal this weekend. Heavy rains and wind from a tropical storm, and nighttime temperatures that convinced the barn to swap horses from night turnout back to day turnout. It feels like book writing weather. I have plans for my next book vaguely in an outline, but am a little nervous…

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    • The Pain of the Stoic Horse

      I want to talk honestly about the stoic horses. The ones who seem to be stubborn or lazy, when in reality they are hiding the kind of pain that a more open horse would show by bucking or rearing. Instead the stoic horse shuts their eyes and plants their feet and attempts to ignore everything…

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    • Books that Influenced Me

      If it hadn’t been for the other horsey memoirs and instructional books out there, I certainly wouldn’t have made it to the relationship I have with horses today. Back when the only thing I did was lessons and trail riding I felt the overwhelming itch to learn everything I could about the link between human…

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    • Need vs Gratitude

      With autumn approaching here in the northern hemisphere, harvest season right around the corner, I tend to get a bit busy. I grow tomatoes, squash, and greenbeans in my suburban yard. Beans need canned, squash needs discovered before it becomes the size of a bus, tomatoes need picked before the next storm or they’ll split.…

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    • Excerpt from the Chapter “Rex: Discipline”

      Rex, unfortunately, was impatient with staying still for long while humans did things to him. Some days he would behave perfectly, and others, he wouldn’t want to do anything. Brushing would elicit small kicks of his back legs and rocking away from the brush. Being on cross ties would make him shake his head and…

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    • An Opening

      I’ve been busy learning again. It has been a continuous struggle to figure out how to get better at riding horses without compromising on how I want to be in relation to horses. I don’t force a horse to move anymore. It’s so counter to what I’m trying to do in the world that it’s…

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    • Story Snippet: Thoughts on the Herd

      You ask how the horses are. I tell you they’re fine. I brushed Spruce. I was able to stand next to Red today. I speak in terns of progress. Activity. I haven’t told you how peaceful it felt as the cuddly one kept nodding asleep with his nose pressed into my jacket. I haven’t told…

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