To Become Better People

We work to expose kids to the wide range of programs designed to improve the quality of the lives of others. Good horsemanship is its own reward but sharing the fruits of the skill, knowledge, and opportunity that our program provides is a very special reward. Della Stokes is a dedicated humanitarian who follows in the footsteps of her mother Otelis Rainey. Otelia was a role model for anyone who wanted to build a program from scratch to help people. She was an amazing women.
Della is developing a program exposing young people with problems to animals, especially horses. The horses available for her programs are big and younger children can be quite intimidated by them.
For some reason, Bird Women stayed remarkably small. She is a saucy little rascal and is too small for all but the smallest kids to ride.
Danielle is responsible for the fact that Bird Women has learned to be lead so well and take a saddle and little rider on her back. Danielle trained Bird Women with very little direction from me. She did a great job. Without the work that Danielle put into Bird Women she would have been little more than a lawn mower. Now, because of the time and effort that Danielle put into teaching Bird Women, she will not only have a good life, but through Della's program will be able to help many other people to have a better life.
I am very proud of Danielle this morning. I am also proud of Rylee. I can depend on her and I expect that over the next few years I will grow to depend on her more and more. When Della picked up Bird Women yesterday, she also picked up a young jenny named Chihuahua. Rylee had done some preliminary training on the donkey, but she was still quite donkeyfied. I asked Rylee to come out very early yesterday to work intensely with Chihuahua in order to get her leading with the lightest of pressure and to freshen her up on her cues.
I did not know it, but Rylee was planning to have a special morning out with a friend that included a movie and all of the other kind of things that make little nine year olds smile and giggle.
She cancelled those plans. As she explained to her father, "Steve needs my help this morning."
I have one more thing that I am proud of this morning. We did not spend yesterday riding. Instead we had an intense day of work. We transplanted trees, moved fences, cut saplings, moved concrete dust, and deepened water hole obstructions in the amusement park. A few adults helped out but, but the bulk of the work was done by my little riders. One rider brought along a friend who mentioned several times how much fun it was to be working so hard.
Hard work makes for good memories for kids. Yesterday we dug about 35 post holes by hand. The kids participated both in the digging and ramming of the posts. Of course the work would have gone much faster had I rented an auger. But in 15 years when my little riders bring their kids out to the horse lot it would not mean much for them to point out to the fence line and say, "See those posts? I was there when Steve rented an auger to put them in." No, it will mean much more for them to be able to tell their kids how they learned to use a post hole digger.
Perhaps the most important thing that happened yesterday was that my little riders/workers took a seat and listened as Della and I told them a little bit about Otelia and the great things that she did with her life. I want my riders to understand how to make impossible things possible. Most of all, I want my riders to grow up to make impossible things possible.
As said before, the goal of our program is not to generate ribbons in the show ring. It is to become better people.

(In the picture above Danielle stands with Comet. Danielle taught Comet to back through an L shaped alley using only voice cues.)