Ending the Week With An Ossabaw--Life As a Livestock Preservationist

I sat down last night. I sat down by the fire last night. I sat down with two of my grandchildren last night. I sat down and played music last night. I sat down and ate barbecue from an Ossabaw boar last night.

Yes, last night I sat down.

Monday was a rather ordinary day at the office--preparation for slews of prosecutions on the horizon--from murder to making annoying phone calls. Monday night we had music practice for those in the music program here at Mill Swamp  Indian Horses--a handful of adults and a roomful of kids learning to play and perform Americana, blues, old time, gospel and roots music. Tuesday was office work and then out to work on fences.

The remainder of the week involved a field trip of fifty kids and parents,  several visits by families interested in seeing the horses. cutting down trees for poles for the fence around the New Land, riding lessons for two new riders, and group riding lessons for other program participants, feeding mares with foals dailey, getting kids together for a musical performance, having a visit  from another group of students on another day, getting things ready for fall barbecue, giving several  tours of our soil and water conservation projects, setting up round pen demo, hoof trimming demo, microbial farming demo, and confidence building in horses demo.

We introduced well over 100 visitors to Ossabaw hogs, Hog Island Sheep, Colonial Spanish horses, Syfan, San  Clemente and Baylis Spanish Goats, and Bourbon Red and Blue Slate turkeys.

And we did all of this with no paid staff. Everyone who participates in our program is a volunteer.

And here is what I did not do last week. I did not spend time arguing over the proper name for our various strains of Colonial Spanish horses. I did not spend anytime lamenting the fact that we do not do enough to earn the good graces of the established horse world by participating in their silly rituals of equine competition.

None of what I write here is remotely designed to give our program a pat on the back. I write to give an answer to a question that we are constantly asked--"How do you all find time to do all of this?"

A big part of that answer is that we take the time and energy that would be spent arguing about things that do not matter and put that time and energy into building something that matters.