The Penumbra

                                     Penumbra: a shadowy, indefinite, or marginal area.


Our reputations are penumbras of our characters and personalities. It is the penumbra that fills in the blanks when one is defined by others. In short, the existence of certain traits leads to the conscience and sub conscience assumption of the existence of other traits.

Many kids who come out for our programs do not know how to do hard physical work. It is not so much a matter of being lazy. It is that their computer game lifestyle has never given them the opportunity to test their physical limits.  That becomes even more obvious when they try to work together on projects.

They cannot fathom how the tree tops that I am cutting down from about 15 acres of woods can ever be removed from the forest floor and placed into brush piles hundreds of yards long that will create ideal wildlife habitat. Those who allow their minds to even get far enough to think of ways that it could be done invariably come to the "solution" that we need to buy some heavy equipment to get the job done or "just hire somebody."

It can take several weeks for the kids to learn to work together. It takes only a short time after that before nearly all of them learn to love working together. By that point they have learned to be proud of their work product. Yes, many of them even get excited about being given the chance to learn to work hard.

And we all want our children to grow up to be successful, happy adults. One of the best gifts that we can give kids is to give them the chance to learn to work together and to work hard and efficiently.

Please do not confuse the concept of being a hard worker with being a workaholic. A workaholic does not know how to work with others. A workaholic does not know how to be part of a team. And most of all, a workaholic does not know how to work efficiently. Workaholics waste time on perfectionism and never achieve the satisfaction of being able to look at their work and see it as good enough.

There are penumbras associated with being known as a hard worker. When we think of hard workers we think of them as honest people--reliable people--generous people--people who give of their time to others. In short, simply being known as a hard worker brings with it a host of  other assumptions of  good character.

When we began creating our program we made no effort to incorporate learning to work hard into what we do. It evolved as I watched kids in our program become older teens and even young adults.  Those who learned to work hard became more confident in all aspects of their lives.

A veterinarian once made a very important observation to me--"Your riders do not act like other riding students. They aren't haughty and condescending."

That is very true. They are not.

They have learned not to be that way and when we say that we are an educational institution it is this form of education that lies at the heart of everything else that we do.