Blog

The wind touches my skin, Asking if I can, for a moment, be still. How can I connect with anything, if I don’t notice the delicate lilac...

I woke up in the early morning dark in November 2020. Like many, I was pandemic fatigued, but that wasn’t why I was awake. For the fourth...

Rocky and Crissi. It’s that time of year. Our horse Rocky is so itchy, he’s rubbing up against pine trees to scratch the hair off. I took...

Our new clinic horse Top is a chocolate bay with a kind eye and a pink spot on his lower lip that makes him look like his tongue is...

There are things I like about this time of year. The Christmas lights that festoon the trees lining our downtown main street are magical,...

In the summer, I like to keep a few pots of herbs and vegetables on our south-facing porch. The growing season is short where we live,...

By the time Shelly came into the arena for her lesson with me, her mare’s bay coat was almost black with sweat. When Shelly bought the...

As I was brushing our horses yesterday, I noticed that despite the rivulet of sweat running down my back, their short summer coats were...

After learning about the horse’s brain at a recent seminar and getting to hold a horse brain, I felt a thrill much like roller coasters...

As we stood at the gate to the horse’s paddock on a sunny afternoon, my nephew said: “Aunt Crissi, I want to pet every horse in the pen!”...

Thorny was an old cowboy my parents knew, and the first person who introduced me to horses. I was still in diapers, holding on to the...

It was a warm and sunny morning as I chatted with Jaycee about what she would like to work on with her horse Scamp. “I’ve been making him...

Life–and horses, for that matter– both have an uncanny knack of knowing just when you need a little insight and humility. We recently...

Photo: Crissi McDonald I was in my mid-twenties when I started training horses (and assumed I knew more than I actually did).  I brought...

When I was in my late twenties, I became fascinated by the art of Dressage. Honestly? I am still fascinated. Back then, however, the...

Breagha (Bree) I think we learn and go through life much like a pendulum; we swing all the way to one side and then we swing the opposite...

When Rusty arrived, his eyes were as hard as his muscles.  He had rain rot from withers to tail and large old white scars on his back...

The little paint mare stood trembling at the end of the longest lead rope I could find that day. The July morning had dawned hot and we...

Photo: Crissi McDonald I have a little puzzle for you: How would you make this line shorter? ____________________________ Erase it? Cut...

Shortly after a horse accident in 2014, I had to walk with a cane. The design between its black handle and its black rubber tip was pink...