Lean Into It And Pull: Why Tomorrow Night is One of the Biggest Nights in The Program's History

We have sold out for the first concert of our Roots and Americana music program's band, Pasture #3.  A Handful of adults, a lot of young people, more traditional musical instruments then will fit in a homeschooler's van, and a great performance coming up.

So what does learning to play and perform have to do with preserving nearly extinct strains of Colonial Spanish Horses? Every bit of our focus links back to the horses and their preservation. The programs that we have developed over the years have turned us from being a place to go learn to ride to being a full fledged, non-traditional educational institutions.

The only hope for these horses is for children who care about them to become spokesman for the horses when they are adults. Being on stage gives the confidence to speak out. When one learns these ancient songs on ancient instruments they learn to reject the edicts of the shallow pop culture that engulfs young people today. When an eleven year old learns to appreciate and understand time worn songs that have no current commercial value they learn to think for themselves. The future of the preservation of the various heritage livestock cannot depend on the hope that mindless conformists will somehow see the light as adults and begin to support preservation.

Kids that will be on the stage tomorrow night have learned  to work as a team and to put their egos away and work for something bigger than themselves. And they have learned to improvise, to solve problems, and to figure it out for themselves. No stilted learning methods, no hammering on the "right way" to do a song--in short, the way poor and working people have learned to play music since the first man picked up a stick and beat a rhythm on a hollow log.