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