Yesterday was the first day that these riders had ever worked to tan deer skins. Work is the word for it. Hide tanning and rawhide production is on of the most laborious tasks that I have ever undertaken. All the way through college and law school I worked at Jamestown Settlement. While there I developed a number of stone age skills. At Jamestown we taught by demonstrating, explaining and hands on participation, all backed by solid research.
That is what we are emulating at the horse lot. That is part of what makes our program unique. Consider yesterday's activities:
We fed the hogs and replaced some posts. As the kids arrived we brought Manny, beautiful young Choctaw into the round pen. Several kids worked him on ground work. They saddled him. KC and Atilla mounted up. Lloyd even rode him a bit in the round pen. A family of visors came by and we gave them a tour of the horses and told them about our program. Hailey put another Choctaw horse in the round pen and demonstrated how we train.
Chloe took Polished Steel, an untrained Corolla, into the round pen and gentled her to the point that she freely accepted a blanket. We did not do mounted archery yesterday.
We were too busy with the deer hides.
And none of this is brain surgery. Anyone who cares about kids and horses who is willing to work hard to learn and practice natural horsemanship can develop a program like ours.
It is worth it.
No comments:
Post a Comment