Our program and the expansions of that program that will grow from the Gwaltney Frontier Farm involve much more than riding. Natural horsemanship is at its core but our program is one of constant education. History, science, wild life studies,music,art and conservation all have a place in what we do.
Last night several of my riders and their families gathered over at Krista's house to build bat houses that will go up at selected locations around the horses lots. Krista researched bats and their housing needs as she and her family took the lead on this project. (That is our crew of bat housing construction engineers in the picture above). Kay and Sarah Lin have completed butterfly houses that will join the bluebird house, and martin nests this spring. Other kids have worked on building up brush piles for habitat for small animals. Christian has developed a lawn tractor and plow combination to use in our wind row composting program. We will soon all pitch in in a monumental effort to plant five hundred colonial pines around the horse lot. Lydia prepared the area in the front of the Little House for landscaping. My daughter and son in law have started a lot of plants in their green house to be set out in the coming weeks.
Kelly and Josh are making tremendous progress with their wild Corolla stallion, Edward Teach. She constantly peppers me with great programming ideas and perhaps more than any of my other riders shares my hope to turn our program into a model of learning and teaching in addition to being a model program of natural horsemanship.
I like seeing the program grow but it means even more to me to see the kids taking pride and ownership in what goes on at the horse lot.
No comments:
Post a Comment