Relatively Stable

I Didn’t Expect to Fall in Love with a Chicken

I Did Not Expect to Fall in Love with a Chicken Stable Roots | Audio Edition What do a dying chicken, a fountain pen, a small funeral, and an alarming amount of stationery have in common? Apparently, my nervous system. This week in Stable Roots, I'm writing about the ways grief announces itself before we even know what we're grieving, the unexpected heartbreak of loving a tiny Silkie chicken, and the holiness of dawn when you've spent the night tending a sick animal. There's also a nine-year-old with a better understanding of mortality than most adults, a dearly departed chicken whisperer whose ghost I suspect is still hanging around, and the unfortunate timing of learning that Christopher will be away for most of November. Somewhere in the middle of all this, I've rediscovered the pleasure of writing by hand after bilateral carpal tunnel surgery, developed a rather expensive stationery habit, and begun wondering whether it's finally time to write the book I quit my real jobs to write nearly thirty years ago. It's a story about love, anticipatory grief, the things we cannot save, and the peculiar ways we find ourselves again. And yes, I would like to know what kind of pen you use. Read and subscribe to Stable Roots:https://stableroots.substack.com Written and narrated by Kim Carter from Lavender Hill Farm, home of Bramblewood Stables in Simpsonville, South Carolina. 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

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Oxytocin Has Entered the Chat

Oxytocin Has Entered the Chat: Dopamine Is So Yesterday What happens when you've spent most of your life preparing for danger and suddenly find yourself somewhere you feel safe? This week in Stable Roots, I'm exploring the biology of belonging, the role of oxytocin in our relationships with horses and humans, and how our brains can learn new ways of experiencing the world. I'm sharing the terrible advice that helped inspire Bramblewood, a memorable lesson from Rupert Isaacson's visit to the farm, and why emotional safety deserves as much attention as physical safety. I'm also looking back at three very different Halloweens, from a time when I wondered whether I'd ever feel well again to an evening at Lavender Hill filled with ridiculous horse costumes, old friends, laughter, and a sweetness I'm finally learning to trust. After decades of fighting for the life I wanted, I'm beginning to ask a different question: What happens when I don't have to fight anymore? Perhaps it's time to put dopamine in the back seat and embrace the cozy. Read or listen to the full essay at Stable Roots. 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

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It’s Just Anxiety, Darling

What happens when we become so good at tolerating discomfort that nobody notices we're suffering? After three years of being told the numbness in my hands was anxiety, a nerve conduction study revealed severe damage that required surgery on both hands. Along the way, I encountered some rather strong opinions from my longtime shavings delivery guys, an unexpected lesson in the effects of epinephrine, and the realization that we're super glad to tell others how we're feeling without taking a good look at ourselves. In this episode of Relatively Stable, I explore the uncomfortable similarities between the way we treat human pain and the way we interpret horses. We admire endurance, reward cooperation, and often mistake our ability to compensate for evidence that nothing is wrong. Maybe the more important question isn't how much pressure a horse can tolerate, but why we're asking it to tolerate that pressure at all. Read the accompanying essay at Stable Roots. 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

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Hope Always Goes Clean

What happens when you find an old version of yourself in a box of dusty photographs, and realize you don’t miss her, but you’re awfully glad somebody took her picture? This week in Stable Roots, I’m turning a forgotten little building at Lavender Hill into a home for thirty years of Bramblewood Stable's history. Along the way, I’m thinking about the power of photographs, the people and horses who make us who we are, and what it means to look honestly at the life behind you without either wishing it away or wanting it back. And it all comes down to four words given to me by a reader: Hope always goes clean. For most of my life, “going clean” meant getting a horse around a jumping course without dropping a rail. These days, I have a very different idea of what constitutes a successful round. Written and read by Kim Carter for Stable Roots, from Bramblewood Stables at Lavender Hill Farm, Simpsonville, SC 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

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Practical Farm Magic

What if Lot’s wife had OCD? My mother has been asking this question for a long time. Maybe Lot's wife wasn't longing for Sodom. Maybe she was simply halfway down the road when she thought: Wait. Did I turn off the stove? This week in Stable Roots, I’m taking you with me while I close the farm at night: a ritual of cats and chickens, old horses and water buckets, gates checked and checked again, and one long walk toward the Secret Meadow where something is moving through the dark Appalachian woods. From there, we wander into the stranger territory of obsessive-compulsive disorder: the miserable little feedback loop that makes checking feel like safety, the usefulness of a hypervigilant brain when you manage a farm, and the line between responsibility and the impossible pursuit of certainty. And then, naturally, we get to witchcraft. Because after you’ve checked a gate you already know is closed five more times, you may have to admit you’re no longer practicing farm management. You’re bargaining with the universe. A story about OCD, ritual, intention, Appalachian haints, practical farm magic, and learning to trust what you’ve already done. And if I ever do look back one too many times and turn into a pillar of salt, at least the horses will know what to do with me. 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

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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

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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

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The Four Seasons

The Four Seasons: An almanac for those who are emotionally dependent on mowing grass Kim 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

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Alpha is a Misnomer

Alpha is a Misnomer: On horses, wolves, the Cold War, and our need to know who is in charge Who 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 episode David 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 Carter Stable 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

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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

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I'm Sorry, Please Forgive Me

I'm Sorry, Please Forgive Me (I love you, thank you) This week, I’m thinking about all the things we apologize for that might not require an apology at all. Things like: talking to ourselves, talking to horses, taking up space, having bodies that change. Things like having feeling things we would rather pretend we don’t feel. It begins with a client asking me if it’s okay to speak to a horse and Penny, our resident Amish unicorn, once again refusing to walk over a pole. It wanders through the strange intimacy of discovering my own back in the shower and realizing that, after a lifetime spent believing otherwise, I am not weak. I am not damaged. I am capable. And then we arrive at schadenfreude. Exactly one year after learning that we would have to leave the farm we called home for twenty years, I went looking for information about the subdivision proposed for the land we left behind. What I found cracked open something I thought I had put away. This is an essay about the spells we cast when we say things aloud, the bodies we misunderstand because we cannot see them clearly, the strength that sometimes reveals itself only after the thing we feared most has already happened, and the complicated little bubbles of satisfaction that rise to the surface when life hands us an unexpected ending. There is also: horse emergencies during showers, hay in places that defy physics, a Belgian named Drax escaping through a stall window, the indignities of aging, Friday’s perpetually missing neck collar, buried horses, hypothetical hauntings, and one deeply satisfying opportunity to say: I f*****g told you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. I love you. Thank you. Written and read by Kim Carter Stable Roots / Relatively Stable Get full access to Stable Roots at stableroots.substack.com/subscribe

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 books Referenced 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

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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 do I hope this story feels like coming home. Thank you for listening and for walking this journey alongside me. 🌿 About Stable Roots Stable 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

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Horse with a Pearl Earring

Horse with a Pearl Earring What 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

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The Trees Speak

A few weeks before my wedding, a tree started singing. Christopher and I were standing beside an old pond, preparing to say our vows beneath its branches, when we heard a sound neither of us could explain. We listened. Then we moved our ceremony. Days later, Hurricane Helene forever changed the landscape around us. This week on Stable Roots, we follow the language of the forest through folklore, forestry, science, and one unforgettable South Carolina forester who seemed to live on an entirely different timeline. Along the way, we explore the mystery of Dropped Bough Syndrome, Tolkien's Ents, and what healthy trees can teach us about carrying too much for too long. Perhaps the trees have been speaking all along. In this episode: - The tree that changed our wedding plans - Hurricane Helene and the forests of the Upstate - The mystery of Summer Branch Drop - Meeting a real-life "Ent" - Why foresters think in decades instead of deadlines - What trees can teach us about letting go If you enjoy these weekly essays, subscribe to Stable Roots. Every Thursday you'll receive a new story from Bramblewood Stables at Lavender Hill, along with its companion voiceover. Paid subscribers become part of the farm collective, helping sustain the writing, the farm, and this growing community rooted in curiosity, resilience, and the quiet work of paying attention. Thank you for listening. 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

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The Joy of Mowing

What if mowing wasn't a chore? This week in Stable Roots, Kim Carter reflects on why climbing onto a tractor has become one of the most restorative parts of life at Lavender Hill. What begins as a story about bush hogging pastures unfolds into a meditation on attention, empowerment, Elizabeth Gilbert's All the Way to the River, the surprising history of lawns, the secret language of roadside ditches, and why Johnson grass might have more to teach us than we'd like to admit. Sometimes the most ordinary work invites us into the deepest conversations—with ourselves, with the land, and with the seasons quietly unfolding around us. Whether you spend your days on a tractor, in a garden, at a workbench, or behind a desk, this episode is an invitation to slow down, pay attention, and discover the unexpected joy hidden in work you can actually finish. In this episode: Why buying a tractor changed more than the way I mowed Measuring an afternoon in Elizabeth Gilbert instead of hours Bush hogging versus suburban lawns The hidden history of the American lawn Reading the stories written in ditches What Johnson grass can teach us about land—and ourselves Why tangible work quiets a busy mind Question for listeners: What work tires your body but fills your spirit? I'd love to hear your answer in the comments. Stable Roots is a weekly essay and narrated podcast exploring horses, historic places, Appalachian culture, faith, human behavior, and the quiet lessons hidden in ordinary life. Subscribe for free or become a paid subscriber to support the work and receive audio narrations, the full archive, and exclusive subscriber content. Written and narrated by Kim Carter Bramblewood Stables at Lavender Hill, Simpsonville, SC New episodes every Thursday. 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

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Granny Magic

Granny Magic: A witness statement from the Blue Ridge Mountains What if the old women knew something we've forgotten? This week, I'm taking you back to one hot summer afternoon when I ran into a burning kerosene heater, my cousins called Aunt Daisy, and she "talked the fire" out of my burn with a prayer passed down through generations. That memory opens the door to a much larger conversation about Appalachian folk traditions, the rise of cottagecore and grannycore, the tension between faith and science, and why so many of us are suddenly longing for the wisdom our own grandparents often left behind. Along the way, I share the story of my remarkable Aunt Winchester, explore the rituals that still survive throughout the Blue Ridge Mountains, and offer my own witness statement about mystery, prayer, healing, horses, and the things I've experienced that I cannot explain away. Whether you believe every story or remain wonderfully skeptical, I hope this episode reminds you that paying attention has always been one of humanity's oldest forms of wisdom. Because perhaps the real magic was never in the rituals themselves. Perhaps it was in remembering how to notice. In this episode: - The day Aunt Daisy prayed the fire out of my burn - The mountain women who carried healing traditions through generations - Why cottagecore and grannycore have become cultural movements - The relationship between Appalachian folk practices and Christianity - Talking fire, stopping blood, weather signs, moon lore, dreams, saints, and horses - Why I believe science and mystery belong in the same conversation - My own witness statement about living in a world that is far stranger than we've been taught If this episode resonates with you, I'd love to welcome you to Stable Roots, where every week I explore the intersection of horses, history, grief, faith, psychology, and the stories that shape the way we live. 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

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Shut Up and Listen

The Ability to Be Taught Why horses care less about what we think we know. What if the most important learning skill isn't intelligence? This week, Kim Carter begins with a one-minute drone video of horses running across a field in Upstate South Carolina and follows an unexpected thread into a much bigger question: What does it mean to pay attention? From horse-crazy barn rats and child labor law research in the pre-internet era to a stubborn girth buckle, fragmented attention, working memory, and the surprising science behind learning styles, this essay explores why children often learn differently than adults—and why horses may be some of the best teachers we have. Along the way, you'll discover: • Why research has largely debunked the idea of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners • What psychologists mean by working memory—and why instructions sometimes seem to vanish before we can use them • The surprising reason adults often struggle more than children when learning something new • How modern life trains us to divide our attention into smaller and smaller pieces • Why horses consistently reward curiosity, presence, and the willingness to be a beginner At its heart, this isn't a story about riding lessons. It's about competence, attention, and the increasingly rare ability to stop what we're doing long enough to receive new information. Whether you've spent your life around horses or have never touched one, this episode offers a fresh perspective on learning, listening, and why some of the most important lessons in life begin when we're willing to admit we don't already know the answer. Featured topics:Attention • Learning Styles • Working Memory • Neuroplasticity • Horses as Teachers • Child Development • Adult Learning • Focus in a Distracted World • Personal Growth Key Quote "The best learners are people willing to breathe through their discomfort and listen. And if we're lucky, the horse is patient enough to wait for us to remember how." 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

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A Future Me Problem

What year is your problem from? In this week's Stable Roots, Kim explores a simple thought experiment that came to her in the wee hours between waking and sleeping: What happens when you take a problem you're facing today and place it in another time period? Would a fallen tree have felt different in 1825? What about a dead mouse in a feed bag? Would the problem still exist, or would it reveal itself as a product of modern technology, expectations, and endless decision-making? Through stories from life at Lavender Hill—including a storm-damaged water oak, a Sunday morning botulism scare, and a veterinarian's reminder that knowledge and control are not the same thing—Kim examines why modern life can feel so exhausting even when we have more tools than ever before. Sometimes the problem isn't the problem. Sometimes it's everything we've attached to it. This episode is an invitation to take three steps backward, widen the frame, and ask a different question: What year is my problem from? In This Episode The origin of the phrase "That's a future me problem" Why some modern worries would have made no sense in 1825 The hidden burden of endless options and decision-making A fallen tree, Hurricane Helene, and the cloud of choices surrounding simple problems What a dead mouse in a feed bag taught Kim about uncertainty The difference between knowledge and control Why waiting has become such a difficult skill A practical exercise for gaining perspective when a problem feels overwhelming Memorable Quote "Not every problem belongs to today. Some belong to tomorrow. Some belong to the past. And some problems aren't problems at all, but questions that time hasn't answered yet." Stable Roots on Relatively Stable is the audio companion to Kim Carter's weekly Substack essays, recorded from Lavender Hill in Upstate South Carolina, where horses, history, grief, resilience, and ordinary life intersect in unexpected ways. Read and subscribe to Stable Roots. Follow Kim on Facebook. 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

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I'm So Glad I Was Evicted

The best solutions often come at the worst cost. For two decades, Kim grew a business and a life inside the protective casing of fear—terrified of what would happen if she were ever forced to leave the farm she called home. But human time moves fast, and when an eviction notice arrived to signal that the land was being developed, a twenty-year tenancy vanished in a blink. In this audio essay, Kim reflects on the long, overlapping histories we leave on borrowed ground, the difference between a grand illusion and a true sanctuary, and how a sudden uprooting led her to the 200-year-old threshold of Lavender Hill. We are all just passing through, but some evictions force us to transplant our lives into much richer soil. In This Episode: The Ghost of Morpheus: A twenty-something dream of a grand estate in Tryon, NC, and the warning hidden inside a beautiful illusion. Pot-Bound Roots: Navigating twenty years as a "humble apologist" on borrowed land, overshadowed by the footprints of those who came before. Operating on Land Time: The sudden shock of a six-month eviction notice and the confrontation with a geographic clock. Discovering Lavender Hill: An impossible listing beside a prison, two juvenile armadillos acting like puppies, and a hidden meadow that became a love song. The Reality of Sanctuary: Learning to live in a place that demands partnership rather than deference. Notable Quotes: "Like a garden bed filled with mint, my shoots overlapped with the Turk’s broad trunks, and the shared history of other trainers who had come before us in that space, on that land." "It felt like I was walking into a dream, but one that didn’t come with a warning." "To a mountain or a pasture, a twenty-year tenancy is just a blink, a single season in a vast, geologic clock... Every landlord, every trainer, every husband, and every writer is eventually evicted by time itself." Connect with the Farm: If Stable Roots feels like a conversation you'd like to keep having, join our community. Every week, Kim Carter writes about horses, land, grief, belonging, and how we sometimes have to get lost to find ourselves. Read the original essay & see the photos: at Substack. Support the work: Consider upgrading to a paid subscription to directly support the horses, the land, and the stories harvested at Lavender Hill. 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

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