Welcome to our year of living compactly. My dog, Mister, and I took to the road pulling our A-frame trailer, the Rollin' Rancho. I'm a traveling horse trainer/clinician, who became a non-essential worker during the COVID-19 lockdown. Then, in 2022, we bounced back. We were nomads looking for horse training adventure and liver treats. Work paid for the trip; it was part clinic tour, part travelogue, part squirrel hunt. But mostly an unapologetic celebration of sunsets, horses, RV parks, roa...

Going Steady takes up where Relaxed & Forward, Relationship Advice from Your Horse, left off. These bite-sized essays on affirmative horse training, rescue stories, and "gray mare" thoughts are geared toward encouraging creative, affirmative partnerships. Blake's writing uses clear descriptions, a joy of storytelling, and some sideways humor to inspire meaningful, positive communication. Sometimes irreverent but always honest and horse-centric:What you have to offer is more than en...

"It was a tough life if you was useless." -Leafa Numbers BlakeMy grandmother proudly claimed she had delivered more foals and calves than any woman in early 1900s North Dakota. Like her, we've found a purpose building our lives, sometimes elbow deep in dirt and blood, but doing whatever work that needed to be done. Horses have always been our north star.For many of us, the cowboy persona has never been a good fit. Women have earned a narrative about our own lives with horses ...

When most women go through a mid-life crisis, they start a diet, get plastic surgery, or have an affair. My life went to the dogs…and horses…and llamas… and did I mention happy hour with the goats? My urban world came apart, so I took a leap of faith and crash-landed on a dilapidated would-be horse farm on the flat, windy, treeless prairie of Colorado. It was a place where white horses turn pink at sunrise and I didn’t have to worry about locking the back entry to the house, because the do...

What can a parrot teach you about horses? Have you ever thought your pickup truck was the perfect purse? Does a donkey exist with more scruples than Edgar Rice Burro? How did a Welsh Corgi get the name of Preacher Man? What should you do when the Grandfather Horse steals your goat? And when a neglected horse comes to the farm for fostering, who is it that really gets rescued?You'll find answers to these questions—and much more—in Barn Dance, a collection of essays on horse-play, do...

*2019 Readers' Favorite Bronze Medal Winner.A collection of poetry from a small farm on the Colorado prairie; tiny stories in simple words, praise for the beautiful fragile land, and love poems to horses. This is a 106-page book of poetry and full-color photography, a softcover mini-coffee table book.Some heartfelt, some humorous, these poems are a howl to the prairie wind. I'm a woman on a farm, wonderstruck by this simple life with its plain beauty; the comfort of daily chores an...

A collection of poetry from a small farm on the Colorado prairie; tiny stories in simple words, praise for the beautiful fragile land, and love poems to horses. This is a 106-page book of poetry and full-color photography, a softcover mini-coffee table book. Some heartfelt, some humorous, these poems are a howl to the prairie wind. I'm a woman on a farm, wonderstruck by this simple life with its plain beauty; the comfort of daily chores and bittersweet sunsets. Even my words can't look awa...

This book is the outcome of an idea, and the idea is very simple. It is that the best way to understand the dramatic transformation any idea can bring and to successfully bring ideas across, is to think of them as profound insights and moments of clarity often disguised as wit, captured in one single Quote.Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread faster when they carry your message in a single line or paragraph: a Quote.To feel the impact a Quote can have, here ...

Do you still watch those old horse movies that you've seen a dozen times, just for the scenes of the horse galloping in slow motion? Do you hold your breath just a bit?It's because horses embody so much more than muscle and bone. They evoke a full range of emotions like hope and courage and valor. They can gallop straight to you with neck arched and tail flagged, and then instantly melt to a stop—just to share your breath.We've been besotted with horses since they had three t...

**2016 Readers' Favorite Gold Medal Award Winner* *National Indie Excellence Award Finalist** When most women go through a mid-life crisis, they start a diet, get plastic surgery, or have an affair. My life went to the dogs...and horses...and llamas... and did I mention happy hour with the goats?My urban world came apart, so I took a leap of faith and crash-landed on a dilapidated would-be horse farm on the flat, windy, treeless prairie of Colorado. It was a place where white horses turn p...

When most women go through a mid-life crisis, they start a diet, get plastic surgery, or have an affair. My life went to the dogs…and horses…and llamas… and did I mention happy hour with the goats?My urban world came apart, so I took a leap of faith and crash-landed on a dilapidated would-be horse farm on the flat, windy, treeless prairie of Colorado. It was a place where white horses turn pink at sunrise and I didn't have to worry about locking the back entry to the house, because ...

Imaginative Pursuits: An Artist's Notebook invites readers into film director Paula Markovitch's most intimate creative world. In these pages - memories, reflections, short stories, and fragments - she moves fluidly between childhood recollections, moments from youth, and fictional episodes that often feel more vivid than conscious experience. The book can be read as autofiction, as the memoir of an artist, or as a kind of travel diary.Readers encounter both the author's e...