Stable Relation by Anna Blake

Most horses do echo their rider’s thoughts and emotions. Part of learning to be a good rider is having a positive control over your own emotions. Horses reflect our hearts just as clearly as a reflection in a mirror… They mirror our mental states, from fesr to confidence. Equine senses are each so much more acute than humans can imagine. I don’t know if horses are psychic but perhps they read us so quickly and well, that it feels that way. — from Stable Relation by Anna Blake

Its subtitle is: A memoir of one woman’s spiritual journey home, by way of the barn.

On my route to becoming a better writer (which is part of what these reviews are about and part of why I’m writing them) are nonfiction books as well as fiction. I tend to be a fiction reader so there are a lot of (probably) really good nonfiction books out there that I’ve missed.

During my equine therapy, I asked whether there were any books or DVDs or some kind of media that the therapist or the equine specialist would suggest I read. Anna Blake’s two books, Stable Relation and Relaxed and Forward, were suggested. As I am most deinitely infatuated and in love with horses, I bought both books on my Kindle the next day.

Stable Relation is definitely a book I wanted to read as soon as I picked it up. And I’ll be reviewing the other book later.

Anna Blake lived as a goldsmith in Denver, CO, but she wanted something different. She called this her mid-life crisis. She’d been raised on a farm with animals and, at the time, she was boarding two horses in a boarding barn near enough she could go see them and ride whenever she could.

During her mid-life crisis, she decided she wanted to go back to her roots, living on her own farm, having her horses on her own property so she could take care of them for herself.

So she found this little rundown dilapidated farm on the prairie of eastern Colorado with a building on one side that looked like it could be made into a barn. Sure, she’d seen other places, but she decided this was the place she wanted.

And she moved.

She spent several months working by herself to get the house liveable due to its former owner leaving it a mess. She worked on creating a barn and fencing the pasture for her two horses. She created the space for an arena to ride in and had heavy machine operators bring the sand to fill it in.

Over the years, animals flocked to her — she decided she wanted goats and llamas and dogs and a donkey. Anna tells stories about how all the animals came to her farm, how they chose her and she took them in. At least, that’s how I read it.

One spring, a blizzard knocked out her electricity and she spent three harrowing days shoveling and shoving feet upon feet of snow out of her way to ensure each day — twice a day, I think — to make sure her horses were fed and that they were drinking enough water. She brought (i.e. fought) her donkey inside and kept him in her laundry room one night because he looked so cold and she was worried about him.

She’s got many other stories in the book, including stories of her childhood and how she grew up. But, next to hearing her talk about Spirit and Dodger, her horses, these were my favorite two stories because they’ve made me stop and think about what I want out of life, where I want to be, and what/who do I really love.

Anna wanted a farm — and she wanted this particular farm, even though there might have been other farms in better condition in the area.

I truly don’t know if I’ve ever wanted anything as much as she wanted her farm, but I’m starting to. I guess that’s as much of a beginning as anyone could ask for.

During the blizzard, she and all of her animals could have died. But because she was willing to work as hard as she did and push through the worst of it, she was able to bring herself and her animal family through.

Do I love anything enough to put myself in danger to take care of? I’m not counting my husband or my daughter in this because, yes, I would go through hell for both of them.

This was a good time for me to read this book. And it’s a great book. Lots of stories about her horses, her goats, her llamas. It’s the story of how one woman decided what she wanted and changed her life to get it.

I think we could all use an example like Anna.