Summer Time in the Promised Land

On the first day of our summer program we had twenty students/visitors. Here is a quick rundown of the day.

8:30 first arrivals, feed up and water herd
9:00 work with the beautiful USERL mustang, Annie, for three hours. Took her through all of our training steps even though she had had a great deal of handling. Amanda rode her on lead. Rebecca rode her independently. Stunning horse, gentle, ambling gait, Vicki, her owner brought her all the way down from Goochland for the day of training. Deborah Lee stopped by with a stunning piece of art work that she gave me which will be the subject of a future post.
11:30 Introduction to stone age technology with a demonstration of the initial shaping of a spear point with the hammer stone and an explanation of the atlatl.
Lunch in the Little House.

Afternoon--construction work on the sweat lodge and stretching of a deer hide
Amanda despooked her Corolla mare, Secotan, in preparation for tomorrow's parade. Ashley rode Daddy's mare Roxie in the round pen and taught her flexing. Demonstration and discussion of the use of the bosal in starting a horse. Abbie worked on inside turns and flexion with Swimmer, our large Corolla mare. Tammy despooked and groomed our yearling 1/2 Corolla Werowance. Rebecca and Adrian worked Rebecca's colt, Crazy Bear.

After supper--Played some old time and Carter family songs with Christian on Guitar, Abbie on the Marvin, Lydia and Emily on vocals and me on banjo. My grandson Aiden closed out the night with two songs that he composed impromptu, both of which were tributes to his favorite person in the world, his father Paul.