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Relatively Stable: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Kimberly Carter
In Relatively Stable we delve into the journeys of those who have faced challenges, uncovered their passions, and discovered resilience along the way. Whether you're here for the stories, seeking inspiration, or simply drawn to the wisdom we glean from horses—and life—you’re in the right place. Let’s dive into the narratives that remind us how to stay relatively stable, no matter what comes our way. stableroots.substack.com
Latest Episodes
The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 3 days ago23 min
Mane Character Energy
It took a quarter million words to let the horses tell their own stories.This week in Stable Roots, I’m talking about what happened when I accidentally stopped writing around the horses and started writing about them.It began with a conversation about horse shows, a Facebook post I mostly forgot about while mowing and listening to Demon Copperhead, and a phone that would not stop dinging. Then I started telling the individual stories of the horses at Bramblewood—Penny, Max, Hero, Pepper, Moose—and something unexpected happened.People started bringing me their horses.Not literally, thank God. I have enough feed bills.They brought them into the comments: ancient geldings, complicated mares, childhood ponies, horses they lost thirty years ago and still talk about in the present tense.After three years and roughly a quarter million words of Stable Roots, I realized I’ve spent an awful lot of time writing about what horses teach us and not nearly enough time simply telling you who they are.Maybe not every horse needs to be a metaphor. Maybe they don’t need to teach us, heal us, win something, or accomplish anything extraordinary to deserve a story.Maybe sometimes the story is simply: You should know this horse.All this time, I’ve been living in a pasture filled with main characters.Also this week: apparently Books at the Barn—our program where introverts sit quietly in a barn aisle and read—is giving insurance underwriters pause. Giant horses? Tractors? Electric fences? Fine. Books? Apparently dangerous.Welcome to farm life.Join me at Stable Roots where I bring you stories from the farm every Thursday morning. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stableroots.substack.com/subscribe
- 1 weeks ago28 min
Julian Thinks the Barn Is Stupid
What’s the difference between being in control and being controlling?This week in Stable Roots, I’m thinking about all the ways I’ve confused the two — from spending four hours trying to convince Max to get on a horse trailer, to watching well-meaning humans become complete doormats in the name of giving horses a voice, to one very opinionated chestnut gelding who spent an entire thunderstorm explaining exactly what he thought about being put in a stall.We’ll talk about consent-based horsemanship, horse training, groundwork, boundaries, and what it really means to listen when a horse says no — without assuming that respecting another creature requires us to surrender our own voice.But, as usual, Stable Roots isn’t really just about horses. The horses simply give us a place to practice the things that are harder to see in ourselves. How do we listen without disappearing? Hold a boundary without needing someone else to agree with it? Change our minds without feeling like we’ve lost? And stay grounded when another person — or horse — sees things very differently?Maybe being in control was never about getting the horse on the trailer, winning the argument, or arranging the world into the ending we’ve already decided upon.Maybe it’s knowing what belongs to us — our reactions, our boundaries, our choices — and becoming a little more comfortable with everyone else having an opinion about them. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stableroots.substack.com/subscribe
- 2 weeks ago30 min
The Four Seasons
The Four Seasons: An almanac for those who are emotionally dependent on mowing grassKim has a problem.Summer isn’t even over yet, and she’s already worried about what will happen when the grass stops growing.After one full trip through the seasons at Lavender Hill, mowing has become more than another farm chore. It’s three uninterrupted hours on a machine, moving slowly enough to notice things, loudly enough that nobody can talk to her, and leaving behind the deeply satisfying evidence that something has been accomplished.So what happens when winter takes that away?This week, Kim creates her own slightly unhinged almanac for the year ahead: winter rye grass, mulched leaves, soil biology, forest paths, a deeply justifiable need for a PTO wood chipper, and eventually, the glorious resurrection of the grass in spring.Along the way, The Four Seasons wanders into bigger territory: the difference between owning land and knowing it, our human compulsion to improve and control the natural world, and why a farm may be one of the best places in the world to avoid writing.Twenty-seven years ago, Kim quit her real jobs to write a book and promptly discovered a thousand jobs that needed doing around a barn instead.Maybe she wasn’t procrastinating after all.Maybe she was taking field notes.In this episode: winter rye grass and the journey of a bag of seed; why mowing leaves can feed the soil; the Four Season Tractor Avoidance Program™; learning the bones of the land in winter; the ecological case Kim has constructed for buying a wood chipper; why mowing has become a spiritual practice; and what 27 years of barn chores have taught her about writing, paying attention, and the work we think we’re avoiding.Read Stable Roots for the original essay, photographs from Lavender Hill, and the weekly subscriber video that takes readers beyond the page and behind the fences. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stableroots.substack.com/subscribe
- 3 weeks ago34 min
Alpha is a Misnomer
Alpha is a Misnomer: On horses, wolves, the Cold War, and our need to know who is in chargeWho is actually in charge in a herd of horses?For a very long time, we thought we knew.We built entire systems of horsemanship around dominance, hierarchy, and the idea that a good human needed to establish themselves as the leader. Somewhere along the way, the language of Natural Horsemanship became tangled up with Alpha wolves, Cold War thinking, and our very human desire to arrange the world into neat little pyramids with somebody firmly planted at the top.There was just one problem.The wolves weren't actually behaving the way we thought they were.And, if we pay close enough attention, neither are the horses.In this episode, I follow the Alpha from David Mech's early wolf research through the Cold War and into the rise of Natural Horsemanship — and then back out into my own pastures, where Bentley, Max, Pepper, and one world-class dork named Julian have been quietly dismantling some of the things I thought I knew.Because horses certainly have dominance relationships. They move each other. They compete for resources. They have friendships, alliances, preferences and grudges.But dominance isn't necessarily leadership.Sometimes the horse moving everyone away from the hay isn't the horse anyone follows when something strange appears along the fence line. Sometimes the big, bossy gelding is actually the anxious wingman. And sometimes the horse you are absolutely certain is terrorizing a mare is, in fact, desperately trying to hide behind another horse because she will not leave him alone.Twenty-six years into making horses my profession, I'm becoming considerably less interested in deciding who is in charge.I want to know who knows something.And Julian, world-class dork that he is, is still trying to teach me how to pay attention.In this episodeDavid Mech and the history of the Alpha wolf • what captive wolves taught us — and didn't • the Cold War and our cultural obsession with dominance • the rise of Natural Horsemanship • Pat Parelli and the commercialization of leadership • dominance versus leadership in horse herds • what Bentley taught me about Max • the unfortunate prosecution of an innocent Julian • confirmation bias in the pasture • and why changing our minds may be one of the most important things we can learn to do.Written and read by Kim CarterStable Roots on Substack: Seeing the understory in our everyday lives. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stableroots.substack.com/subscribe
- Aug 20, 202620 min
A Total Eclipse of the Foxtail
A weed can be growing beside you for years without causing a bit of trouble. Then somebody teaches you its name — and tells you to be afraid of it.Suddenly, it’s everywhere.This week, between two eclipses, I am roaming a horse pasture hunting foxtail, an ancient grass that has followed agriculture for thousands of years and that I had been conditioned to fear during my unfortunate former life selling hay.There are horses. There are weeds. There are extremely particular hay buyers. There is a basic white girl ordering at Starbucks. There is a brief agricultural history lesson and a small amount of science about whether foxtail is actually plotting to destroy your horse from the inside of a hay bale.But mostly, this is a story about what happens when we learn the name of something that frightens us and suddenly can’t see anything else.Because awareness and danger are not the same thing.And sometimes the thing taking up our entire field of vision was growing there all along.In this week’s VoiceOver of Stable Roots: foxtail, eclipse season, the impossible human desire for nature without all the nature mess, and what the horses seem to understand about the difference between a weed and the whole damn field.Read the full essay and subscribe to Stable Roots for a new piece every Thursday.Relatively Stable is the VoiceOver companion to Stable Roots, written and read by Kim Carter. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stableroots.substack.com/subscribe
- Aug 6, 202617 min
But Will There Be Riding?
But Will There Be Riding?A social media post that took five minutes for me to write reached more than 40,000 people in a couple hours.It wasn't my weekly essay, nor a podcast. It was just a little announcement for an introvert-friendly book club held in the hallway of a horse barn.As strangers began signing up for an event built around silence, I found myself wrestling with an unexpected question: How do you protect something whose greatest value is that almost nothing happens?This week, I'm writing about social media, boundaries, horses, and why our culture is so uncomfortable with stillness. Along the way, I answer the most frequently asked question in the barn:"But will there be riding?"Often, the most important thing a horse teaches us isn't found in the saddle at all.In this episode:- Why a simple Facebook post unexpectedly went viral- The challenge of protecting quiet spaces as they grow- What horses understand about presence that humans often forget- The surprising value of doing less instead of more- Why Books at the Barn isn't really about booksReferenced in this episode:📖 Stable Roots — Weekly essays exploring horses, land, grief, wonder, and the ordinary moments that shape a life.🐴 Bramblewood Stables — Horsemanship, coaching, farm memberships, and community gatherings in Simpsonville, South Carolina.📚 Books at the Barn — A free monthly gathering where everyone brings whatever they're reading (or writing), and we spend an hour together in companionable silence before optional conversation afterward.If this episode resonated with you, I'd love it if you'd share it with someone who could use permission to slow down for an hour. Your support helps preserve this old farm and keeps these weekly stories coming. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stableroots.substack.com/subscribe
- Jul 30, 202617 min
A Time for Everything
This week in Stable Roots, a rug becomes much more than a rug.As I begin clearing out the room where my father died, I unknowingly prepare my heart for the loss of a dear friend. A conversation over Middle Eastern food, a horse covered in mysterious welts beneath the moonlight, and an old hospice nurse's wisdom all converge into a single realization: we almost never understand the purpose of our ordinary moments until they're behind us.This week's essay is about grief, timing, horses, and the unrelated threads that stitch our life together.In this episode:- Why one room in our farmhouse is called The Mourning Room- The surprising connection between Turkish rugs, asymmetrical music, and the rhythm of riding horses- What Bentley's midnight medical mystery taught me about paying attention- The intersection of faith, science, and the mysteries don't fit neatly in a box.- Why the horses may understand rest better than we doI hope this story feels like coming home.Thank you for listening and for walking this journey alongside me.🌿 About Stable RootsStable Roots is my weekly collection of essays from Lavender Hill, where the horses, the land, and farm life reveal extraordinary truths about being human.If these stories resonate with you, I'd love for you to subscribe, share an episode with a friend, or tell me your thoughts. Every small act helps more people discover this work and supports the ongoing restoration of Lavender Hill and our senior herd of horses.Love, Kim This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stableroots.substack.com/subscribe
- Jul 23, 202618 min
Horse with a Pearl Earring
Horse with a Pearl EarringWhat do a missing pearl earring, a flea-bitten gray mare named Penny, and three teenagers sleeping in a horse pasture have in common?This week in Stable Roots, I follow a story that began with the certainty that one of my horses had swallowed an earring and ended somewhere entirely different.Along the way, I explore why horses instinctively take the fewest steps necessary, why humans so often invent extra ones, and how living on our new farm is teaching me the difference between responsibility and carrying imagined catastrophes.You'll also meet three young women who have grown up at Bramblewood and started what I hope becomes a lasting tradition: spending a summer night beneath the stars with the horses. Watching them reminded me that preserving farmland isn't just about protecting open space—it's about making room for memories that shape a lifetime.In this episode:- The night I was convinced Penny swallowed my pearl earring.- Why horses are masters of efficiency.- The lesson of "taking fewer steps."- The surprising gift of saying yes instead of automatically saying no.- A new Bramblewood tradition born under a sky full of stars.How Lavender Hill is changing not only the landscape around me, but the landscape inside me.If Stable Roots has become part of your week, I'd love for you to subscribe, leave a review, or share this episode with someone who might need it.If this story reminds you why places like Bramblewood matter, you can also help preserve this work. Your gifts directly support the care of the horses, the stewardship of Lavender Hill, and a place where future generations can build memories like the ones shared in this week's essay. Every contribution, large or small, helps keep this land, these stories, and this community growing.❤️ Support Bramblewood: at this link.Thank you for walking this path with me each week.Love,Kim This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stableroots.substack.com/subscribe
About Relatively Stable
In Relatively Stable we delve into the journeys of those who have faced challenges, uncovered their passions, and discovered resilience along the way. Whether you're here for the stories, seeking inspiration, or simply drawn to the wisdom we glean from horses—and life—you’re in the right place. Let’s dive into the narratives that remind us how to stay relatively stable, no matter what comes our way. stableroots.substack.com
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