Opioid Misery--A Reason to Ride, and Walk, and Fight Back

It looks empty, doesn't it? A small jurisdiction, part rural, part suburban--no special reason to be singled out for suffering. Yet, there was the jury pool off forty four citizens of that small jurisdiction, with eight hands raised. Eight of forty four. They raised their hands in response to the lawyer's question, "Have any of you had a family member or close friend die from an opioid overdose?"

An epidemic of teenage suicide--record levels of  teen mental hospitalizations--sky rocketing levels of self reported anxiety and depression, increases in alcoholism--and underlying all of these headlines is a deep, long lasting and profound unhappiness.

And if you are only looking for someone, or something,  to  blame don't waste my time. If you are looking for solutions--let's talk.

We don't just teaching riding. We teach wellness. We teach hope. And this June I hope that a lot of our program participants learn a lot about hope and their own personal wellness.

"The NMM Challenge"  No Mechanized Movement. it is that simple. Each day in June participants will record, with precision, the number of miles that they rode a horse, walked/jogged, or rode a bike. There are a few other rules but the point is to move. 

And it is very likely that those who win will win several times each month. They won't know it when they win. It might even be years from now that they realize that they won. 

Every morning that they got up extra early to walk four or five miles when they would have rather lay there in bed, is a win. Every time they get on the horse that they fell off of on the last time and ride hard in the heat and the bugs, is a win. Every time they start their bike ride with a bit of pain and stiffness is win. 

Every time they refuse to take the easy way out is a win.

Life in this century in our nation is a constant push toward immediate gratification, rejection of the slightest discomfort, with nearly every significant aspect of our lives, from our cell phones, to our air conditioning working hard to destroy the resilience that we have to have to survive. 

When life becomes nothing but the avoidance of all discomfort, then life becomes the avoidance of living.

It is the struggle, the big ones, and the little ones, that give us the resilience.  To get technical for a moment, it is engaging in the struggle that gives us higher baseline levels of dopamine. It is the struggle, and the willful engagement in the struggle, that allows our neurotransmitters to work as they have evolved to do. Opioid addiction is one of the defaults that we fall into when we gradually decide that we must stay back from the struggle, that we must only do what is easy, that  we must always be comfortable. 

So this June, push yourself. Push your child. Get up and move. 

And don't tell me that it is too exhausting.  Watching children rot is much more exhausting. 

Home Schooling At Mill Swamp Indian Horses in Smithfield Virginia

 

There has never been a learning experience to compare with the home school program at Mill Swamp Indian Horses. Each Friday from 9-2 students are exposed to a range of topics that on any given day could range from history to philosophy, to wildlife habitat construction, to conservation and preservation of nearly extinct strains of early colonial horses and livestock, to music, to microbial pasture development, to natural horsemanship, all on a farm designated as a certified wildlife habitat.

Students range in age from five years old on up to older teenagers. Full family participation is encouraged. That is why the fee structure is only $100.00 per family per month. Parents may stay and participate in all of our programs. Mill Swamp Indian Horses is a program of Gwaltney Frontier Farm, a nonprofit corporation with no paid staff. Pack lunch, dress to be able to walk in woods and pasture and wear clothes that are great for play--and work. 

Kids participate in helping with special programming like our annual sheep shearing program with our rare, heritage Hog Island and Leichester sheep. They can learn how horses can be used to bring peace to people with anxiety and PTSD by helping with our weekly sessions with patients in the PTSD program at the Hampton Veterans Hospital.

Kids learn solid information on health, exercise and nutrition and come together for special events like our January 1, ten-mile hike in the Dismal Swamp as shown above.

The community has really come together to support our program with the understanding that we are more than just a riding lesson program. We are a cultural and educational institution dedicated to bringing the best of the past into the present for young people today. Our book barn, which stores our educational materials and records, was constructed by, and completely paid for by the Smithfield and Suffolk Rotary clubs.

And program participants learn the joy of hard working and working together. Improving wildlife habitat, constructing and repairing fences, planting pastures by hand and clearing land for new forage opportunities- these are a few of the kinds of projects that the kids learn to do and to take pride in

Riding is not the focus of the homeschool program, but program participants learn natural horsemanship. they learn to understand the mind of a horse. They learn that building a relationship with a horse or donkey is the perfect model for using empathy and sound communication skills in building relationships with other people. Natural horsemanship is used to create good horses and better people.

And participants in the Home School Program help with what is one of our major missions, working to prevent the extinction of several strains of historic Colonial Spanish Horses, including the Banker horses whose ancestors arrived in the New World a century before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, Choctaw horses whose ancestors carried the Indians of the southeast on the Trail of Tears, Marsh Tacky horses whose ancestors were ridden by Patriot forces during the American Revolution, and the remnant of the Grand Canyon horses. 

And all of this for only $100.00 per family per month. We have never turned a family away for inability to pay program fees. If the program fee is beyond your family's budget you may pay  a monthly fee that is within that budget. To register send an email to msindianhorses@aol.com.

Home School Hugle Kulture With Our Kubota

Today was the first day that we could use the wonderful contribution of this Kubota hauling and dumping mobile. This wonderful contribution from Oliver and Linda Brickhouse sped up this spring's work to expand and replenish our huglekulture mounds efficiently and at a much higher level than our past efforts of moving everything by hand.  

We use no poison in our program. We practice microbial pasture development and worm farming. Our vermicompost is a vital element in the mounds that are built from organic material with a heavy emphasis on compost and wood from our forest. We cut fresh logs, load and move them to the mounds, unload them, and go pick up a load of primarily organic soil created from trampled round bale residue. That residue goes onto the mounds which will be capped off with a few inches of topsoil prior to planting. 

Rain disrupted outside activities but still today we were able to put a Corolla mare in with a stallion for breeding, discuss applications of Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations", to life in this century, and have a session on local black history. We wrapped up planning for tomorrow's Heritage Sheep Shearing event. We hope to have a lot of local guests out to learn about heritage sheep, shearing and wool production, and colonial livestock management. 

We might even sell a goat or two. 

There is no learning experience out there like the Mill Swamp Indian Horses home school program. And we have room for even more families in the weekly sessions which run from 9-2. 

And the cost for the homeschool program is only$100.00 per family, per month. To register your family please send an email to msindianhorses@aol.com

Alone?

There are few things that I enjoy as much as riding with people that I care about. I generally do so several mornings each week before coming into the office. In the last week 

I fell back into doing something a bit different--something that I have not done much of in years. Riding alone. Riding with the sound of only one set of hooves--being truly alone with one's horse and one's mind is a great way to stimulate creativity. And it is not an "instead of" proposition. It is an "in addition to" proposition.

The simple reality is that if I am going to wrack up the number of miles that I must for 2024 many of those miles will be solitary rides. I don't know how I drifted away from riding by myself but I am certainly going to fall back into the practice to pick up several hundred more miles in the saddle beyond what I have been doing. 

He Could Not Have Been More Wrong!

And there was a time when I would have enthusiastically endorsed his misperception. 

It was one of those few times when the two major parts of my life--being a criminal prosecutor and being a teacher of natural horsemanship overlap. I have been in a murder trial all week and as I was preparing for my opening remarks I was doing some breathing exercises. Sometimes they can be a bit loud.

Opposing counsel looked surprised and then said, "Oh, you are just psyching yourself up." 

In fact, the exact opposite was occuring. I was psyching myself down. I was going into a deeper state of relaxation that would make me less impulsive and more able to notice everything going on around me. I was slowing down my heart rate and clearing my mind.

 In short, I was doing the same thing that I do when I am confronted with a terrified horse with a training problem. I prepared my body to be under my own control. I put my emotions in my pocket where I could reach in and pull them out only if doing so would be effective. 

 When i was young I ran off of adrenaline and confidence. The two made potent fuel, but they burn too hot to use long term.

I am working hard to teach the kids that I am training now to understand that they must first control their emotions before they can control a horse effectively. It is a concept that matters.

If your horsemanship is not making you a better person it is failing you and you are failing your horse.