....Of an important part of our educational mission. We are working to put the Corollas in their proper historical context for our visitors. We have early colonial era livestock--- pigs, goats, chickens, and, of course, horses.
We are building a picture frame to display those animals in. My Gwaltney ancestors came here in the mid 1600's. Some of us never left. I have had family living within a 10 mile radius of the horse lot since that time.
The Banker type horses, of which the Corolla herd is a part of, likely came into the region even before that. Some of them never left. They have had family living within a 100 mile radius of the horse lot since that time.
Our colonial smokehouse was completed a couple of years ago. We smoked pork from some of our colonial stock hogs in it. Now the rest of the picture frame is coming into being. Our beautiful little corn crib is completed as is our one room settler's home. A large colonial tobacco barn is under construction.
We are building this for the same reason we built a chickee --a traditional Choctaw home beside the pen where our Choctaw horses stay. We teach. We teach history. We teach natural horsemanship. We teach music. And we teach compassion, courage and confidence.
And we might even begin to teach a bit of drama. Our settler's homestead will make a perfect set for an outdoor drama perhaps telling the story of Betsy Dowdy.
Might sound a bit far fetched, but no more far fetched than my idea of creating the settler's homestead.
I hope to get some pictures of the two new structures up shortly.
I have been sort of out of it for a couple months..doing good to keep the horses I typically ride ridden, and not much training..tunnel vision and tunnel time, if you will. (Often you hear me gripe about a too complex society..that is part of it.) Anyway, I walked out to pasture five yesterday to fish Red Feather out of his academic stupor to go for a run, and as I led him back out, I looked up the hill and it it struck me just how right it all looked. It has been a summer of hard work done by many hands, hands which had never performed those tasks in many cases..and it shows. No, we are not "beautifying" the farm..it is already beautiful, not the groomed, overly expensive beauty of a Kentucky thoroughbred farm (Thank goodness!) but the beauty of memories made, of learning, fun, pain, and growth.
ReplyDeleteThere are no long checklists of things to be done before a ride, or after a ride..get your tack, get your horse, get on and ride..when you get back untack, dehorse yourself, turn him loose for a good roll and scratch..and pick your stuff up and put it away..simple. Tough horses live here, tough kids grow here..After all, one cannot consider oneself a proper Swamp Thug unless one is a bit hardened.
There is a cold, frosty morning coming in a few months, I expect that I will be making that same walk across the pastures, and look up to the smokehouse..maybe the old home pasture will be a better name, and see the spirits of Patrick (our imaginary proprietor) and Lido (Steve's very real little brother) emerge, and shake off the cold of morning, and get on with things.
Not all great monuments are monolithic.. -Lloyd