Boot Scoot 'N'---Part of Our Team            

Our program is multifaceted and we have no paid staff. Everything that we do is done by volunteers. On rare occasions we have to reach out to professionals for service and products that we cannot produce in house. I work hard to keep those occasions to a minimum, but there are times when I run into situations way beyond my field of expertise.

 Daddy is a trained farrier and blacksmith. I have never made shoes and it has likely been nearly fifty years since I have put a shoe on a horse. All of our horses are barefooted, and we use trimming techniques rooted in the teachings of Pete Ramey. This summer Audrey and I participated successfully in the Old Dominion Endurance event and are getting ready to go out this week to the Iron Mountain Endurance event. 

 Such events require safe, reliable hoof protection, and that is where Morgan Reid came in. She is a firefighter, a farrier and Hampton Roads Scoot Boot Dealer. I knew nothing about hoof boots except that we had a very short deadline coming up to get well fitted hoof protection on the horses. Other options fell through before I heard of Morgan Reid and Scoot Boots. She came out, explained the boots and fitted the horses for a set. It turns out that Colonial Spanish horses have another trait that separates them from many modern horses. Holland was born wild on Shackleford Island and has incredible hooves, but those hooves are small compared to most modern breeds. Joey is a gaited Choctaw and his gaitedness has had an effect on the overall shape of his back hooves. The hooves are not defective, but they are not typical of what one would find on a Quarter horse. Morgan put in a rush order to get boots that would fit Joey and came out early to get them on him. 

The boots took us through the Old Dominion event where we came in around the middle of the pack, successfully completing a fifty-five-mile ride on horses who had never before seen a mountain on trails that were so rocky that until doing so, I did not think any horse could trot on. Morgan wanted to know how the boots worked for us and even though we completed the ride with the boots still intact, she wanted to try another style boot on Joey to seek an even better fit. She did so at her own suggestion at no extra cost. She made another trip out last week to upgrade the boots to make them even more secure. Again, at no extra cost. 

 The Scoot Boot product is great. Morgan Reid is a skilled professional. Those two things matter. But there is something about this experience that matters more than either of these things to our program. She was more than simply a vendor. She was more than simply a skilled professional. She became part of the team of people who make things happen at Mill Swamp Indian Horses. It is often, and accurately, said that there are no other programs with the scope and breadth of what we do at the horse lot. That is true because we have so many people who go the extra mile to make everything possible. Morgan Reid and Boot Scoot 'N' went that extra mile for us. You can find her facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093720715080

What Is So Different About learning to Ride at Mill Swamp Indian Horses?

Its more than the miles in the saddle. 

It is the time spent in the woods. It is the time spent working together to fence in new pastures. Its the time spent planting. It is the time spent making organic fertilizer. It is the time spent discussing history and philosophy.

It is the time spent carding wool. It is the time spent laughing. It is the time spent learning to love learning. And for many of the kids in our program it is the time spent learning ancient songs on ancient instruments.

Our music program is a big part of what makes Mill Swamp Indian Horses a unique cultural experience.  Kids learn natural horsemanship to better communicate with horses--which inevitably leads to better communication with people. Kids learn music to more effectively communicate with an audience--which inevitably leads to  improved communication with all those around them. 

It Is Time To Bring The Blog Back Into Print Just in Time for Our Fall Homeschool Program

I know when to admit failure. At the end of the year, I came to terms with the fact that one of the curses of social media was the havoc that it wreaks on the ability of kids to read and learn passages that are more than a sentence or two followed by a scantily clad young person twirling on the screen. While I had no plans to reduce my attire and twirl, I had hoped that by turning the blog into a vlog we would be able to reach more young people. 

I have not doubt that that is true. However, a blog requires the work of more than one person and a blog does not. 

So the blog is re booting and returning to print--and just in time to announce our homeschool program for the fall of 2023.

Mill Swamp Indian Horses is the program name of Gwaltney Frontier Farm, Inc, a 501 (c5) breed conservation program where we work to preserve and promote nearly extinct strains of Colonial Spanish Horses, the first horses to come to America. We also have a range of other rare, historic livestock including Spanish goats, early colonial Sheep, Highland cattle, and hogs. We teach riding lessons on Saturdays. Programs also include horse training, and hoof care. In addition to riding, we use our horses in trauma informed sessions with those who are inpatient in the Hampton Veterans Hospitals PTSD program. 

Our educational sessions in the home school program are intended to provide meaningful information to those as young as four while still being structured in a way such that a seventeen-year-old student can learn and be entertained at the same time. We teach leadership and teamwork and constantly strive to demonstrate the value of hard work and learning, not as punishment or drudgery, but as an opportunity to become part of something bigger than ourselves.. We do not have separate sessions to teach courage, honesty, compassion, empathy, generosity, and resilience, because everything that we do in the program is tied to building those character traits. I encourage you to look at the video links that I have set out at the end of this email. 

The Friday Program (sometimes referred to as the Home School Program) runs from 9-2 each Friday, year-round, weather permitting. Beginning in September of 2024 we will expand our program to include more local field trips and special guests. It is a unique learning experience for young people that covers the gamut from soil and water conservation, historic agricultural techniques, livestock care, history, introduction to philosophy, examination of the various ecosystems on the farm, microbial pasture development, wildlife habitat creation and preservation, and even a bit of folk, blues, roots, and old-time music.  Participants learn to work together on major projects like wildlife habitat development, fence building and repair, compost creation and worm farming, 

Tam began in our homeschool program and is now a young adult. Here is what she wrote about the program a few years ago:

"Last year, a homeschool link came up on my mom’s computer. It was about a place in Smithfield, stating that there were Colonial Spanish mustangs, along with a homeschool program. It seemed like a really nice place to visit, and it would be the first time we saw horses in a long time. Moving 800 miles to a different state was full of stress, long nights, and uncertainty, so my mom figured that being around horses would help.

The farm looked nothing like I had imagined. No painted white fence, no golf course grass, and no stables. Instead, there was the unfinished log fencing on the new land, diverse grass, and pastures. It was simple, and laid back. So were the people I met.

Week after week, we worked on the hugelkultur, made cinches or Stone Age tools, worked on the new land, or worked with horses. The homeschool program gave me a lot of important information that came in handy while riding. About 2 months later, we started the actual riding part, then joined the music program. It was interesting to learn about instruments that I had never seen before, and learning about the Carter family.

It’s been about a year, and I’ve learned so much about natural horsemanship, history, psychology, science, history, and music. I play instruments that I never thought I could play. I ride horses that I used to not know about..

 
                                                     And the farm is now a second home"

The fee for all of our programs is only $160.00 per month per family. Everything that we do is done by volunteers. We have no paid staff, only a group of experienced horse people and hard-working volunteers.

For further information on our program please see our website at http://www.millswampindianhorses.com, our group facebook page "Mill Swamp Indian Horses" and for nearly fifteen years of posts on our program take a look at our blog,  Mill Swamp Indian Horse Views. You can find a great discussion of our efforts to preserve these horses at https://www.facebook.com/livestockconservancy/videos/1417489765308290 . I was very honored to receive the Citizen of the Year Award which was given primarily due to the work of our program at Mill Swamp Indian Horses. Here is a link to a great short film made about that honor. Steve Edwards ~ Smithfield First Citizen 2022 - YouTube 

If you would like to schedule a time to come out and see how we do things please send an email to msindianhorses@aol.com

Steve Edwards

A New Chapter For Mill Swamp Indian Horse Views

For fourteen years this blog has chronicled the work that we do in our program. During the earliest years we were simply a for profit operation that never put a profit ahead of a person. We became a breed conservation non-profit and eventually we formed a 501 (c) 3 educational non-profit, The Gwaltney Frontier Farm Educational Foundation. We grew in our scope and in our scale. The virus slowed our growth but did not kill us. 

 My daughter, Amanda, has had the blog printed in hard cover each year and the bound copies are even more important than our permanent cyber print. Several people have read the entire blog, all of the years, all of the posts, all of the pictures--can take a while to do that, but it took quite a while to write them. It took fourteen years to live them. 

 I soon turn 63 and as I age I recognize the importance of reaching more people with the simple message of what our program does and how they can build one like it. Just as we are moving into a post truth culture, I fear that we are moving into a post literacy culture. Intellectual weakness can be simply dismissed with the excuse of "TLDR".

In January we will continue this blog, but as a video blog to be seen on you tube. The links to each vlog post will be on our face book page and will be easy to see and to share.

The printed version could not be ending on a better note. 

Yesterday was our Christmas ride and social event at the horse lot. There were many individual accomplishments and family ties strengthened as generations were drawn together. So very much good went on yesterday that I will not even consider cataloguing all of them. But there were two things that make waking up worth the effort. 

A young man, who had once vowed to never do so, mounted up.  Some lucky few of you reading this understand what a big deal this is. Some even luckier, even fewer, of you have had the opportunity to share this experience with a young person. 

And those very lucky, very few, people will understand why I am so happy to end the written history of this blog with this story.

She is big enough to walk around athletically and old enough so that I understand several words from each sentence that she excitedly says. I was not quite able to understand as she told me who she was dressed as for the event (She was the "Spirit of Christmas."). Her oldest sister lead her on the trail that was so beautifully lined with Christmas decorations. Half way through, the little Corolla mare spooked and the Spirit of Christmas hit the ground. She got up and her big sister told me that she was fine and we moved out again. We had a lot of riders and walkers on this special ride. I walked up front and when I got back to the tack shed I saw the little Corolla mare being lead in without a rider. I am sure that I looked a bit concerned.

Her big sister quickly told me, "She's fine. She wanted to get back on and she just got cold on the ride."

About a hundred yards behind I saw her coming in. She was bundled in the arms of the father of two of my riders. He had carried her in for the last portion of the ride. He sat her on the ground and the Spirit of Christmas came over to see me. She wanted to let me know that she was fine and that she was not afraid to get back on. 

She looked up and told me, "It's just that I got cold. That's all."

Applying Philosophy To Natural Horsemanship

“Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not.” ~ (Epictetus). 

 We are about to begin the training and retraining of nearly a dozen horses and donkeys. It is a very exciting time for our program. It has been several years since I have introduced so many program participants to their first experience of training a horse from being completely unrideable to being a safe trail horse.

 This time we are truly going to begin at the beginning. Before ever stepping into the round pen program participants will be urged to deeply understand Epictetus' principal contribution to the understanding of human endeavors. We will learn to divide the challenges that we face with each horse into those things that are in our control and those things that are not in our control. Things in which we have no control over (e.g. whether a horse has a naturally calm temperament or is super reactive) are things that we will waste absolutely no mental energy over. Things that we have control over (e.g. how we can best calm and train a super reactive horse) will be the entire focus of our work.

 And here is the part that is hard for many people to understand. We will take responsibility for correctly doing the things over which we have control. We will not allow fear to get in the way of doing our job. We will not seek out excuses for dangerous behavior on the part of young horses. We will not seek to find some past event to blame for the horse' difficulty. Such blame leads to an excuse to not train the horse.

 We will learn to not apologize for giving the horse direction and correction. We will learn that whether we choose to be the leader that our horse needs us to be is entirely in our control. We will not pretend that allowing a horse to kick, bite, or run over us, is somehow a virtue. We will not pretend that we are unable to teach a horse that which it must learn because the horse has experienced some imagined abuse in the past.

  We will not allow cowardice to masquerade as compassion. 

We will learn that it is always in our control whether we express anger or frustration. We will learn that we control our actions. We will not seek to find ways to justify ineffective, abusive behavior. 

 We will learn philosophy as we learn natural horsemanship. We will learn the incredibly hard lesson that when it comes to building solid relationships with horses what we can learn from Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus, is just as important as what we can learn from Brannaman, Anderson, and Dorrence.