As Blue Rodeo opens, Owen Garrett is sitting on his horse surveying a bundle of activity: A newcomer in town, Margaret Yearwood, dressed only in a man's workshirt and panties, is running back and forth between a water faucet and two amorous dogs engaged in what Owen calls "the natural order" - and one of those dogs is his own blue heeler, Hopeful.

When Margaret's attempts to separate them fail, Owen takes the opportunity to introduce himself to his new neighbor, who he soon learns shares his desire to leave the past behind.

What had begun as an act of rebellion for "sensible" Margaret, abandoning her California life for the small town of Blue Dog, New Mexico, just three hours north of trendy Santa Fe, turns into much more than a year's retreat. Amid bright yellow summer wildflowers and the fascination of meeting master weaver Verbena Youngcloud, Maggie locates the courage to pick up more than her old paintbrushes - she falls in love.

But as Maggie discovers, it's not so easy to forget the shocks of the life she left behind: a husband who abandons her for his younger girlfriend; a sister, Nori, who always seems to take the easy way out at Margaret's expense; and more deeply shattering, a teenage son, Peter, who survives a bout of meningitis only to discover he will never hear again.

Meanwhile, Owen, who yearns for anonymity, struggles with memories of his own failed marriage, a daughter who hardly knows him, and the dawning knowledge that his practiced rootlessness is no longer a workable way of life.

As Maggie, Owen, and even newly deaf Peter come to realize through the risky business of loving one another, even the most primal wounds scar over, and there's nothing so renewable or so healing as passion. In the shadow of Shiprock Monument, this is a bittersweet story of ordinary people who must learn to heal family bonds before they are permanently severed.