Teach Your Children Well: Learning Should Be Fun

Now this was what the Little House was made for! Yesterday it was filled with riders and guests to hear Gene Gwaltney speak on the artifacts that he has collected over his lifetime in the immediate vicinity of the Little House. Many of these artifacts came from an Archaic site in pasture number one.

We have done a lot of things at the Little House but I believe that the kids had more fun and learned more yesterday than they have in any other program that we have done.

This weekend I also found a great source for the kind of authentic appearing lumber that we will use to construct the Gwaltney Frontier Farm in pasture number two. The early colonial reconstruction will serve as a back drop, a picture frame, for our programs to preserve rare colonial livestock of the region. The emphasis, of course, is on the Corollas, but they will be joined by other livestock that would have accompanied my earliest white ancestors when they settled around the Little House in the late 1600's.

That was not the only learning that was going on yesterday. We did not saddle up yesterday. Instead several families worked, and worked hard, on fencing, moving lumber, beautification and general clean up. Jacob continued marking the trial that he will be cutting through nearly 20 acres of woods to create additional riding challenges. Two families of guests came out to see our animals and programs. Kay's painting class continued and Jesse showed me a spectacular piece of art work that he is creating to benefit the Corolla Wild Horse Fund.

Tomorrow night is Monday night so beginning at 7:00 pm several of my riders will be working up a collection of ancient songs along with some Townes Van Zandt and Gram Parsons songs.

It is a very real thing that when a kid learns to appreciate history, art, music, the outdoors and the good feeling of being tired from working hard, they become better prepared to live a full, and meaningful, adult life.

Spiritually it does more. Without any hard sell, lectures, threats of damnation or promises of reward, a kid that learns to recognize the beauty of a deer trail through a tangled swamp, the sweet harmony the notes of B and D, the vibrance of color on a canvas, and the life altering power that one can obtain over a wild horse through love and discipline, cannot help but recognize that there is a God who loves them.

And tomorrow I will go into court, as I do on every Monday, to prosecute people that never had a Little House to go to.

A most peculiar existence.