Conserving Rural America--Antique Animals

The Livestock Breeds Conservancy's annual meeting in Williamsburg is wrapping up today. Yesterday I had a great time learning about poultry health,  black soldier flies and seeing the debut of Krista Rutherford's informative film on mustang conservation, "America's Forgotten Horse."

Friday we hosted a day long series of clinics and demos that featured our non traditional efforts to expose more people to nearly extinct strains of Colonial
Spanish Horses.  "Education, Entertainment, and Public Service to Promote Heritage Livestock"  focused on our programs progression from being a place to learn to ride to being an educational, cultural institution that teaches natural horsemanship, history,  livestock breed conservation, regenerative agriculture, biological farming, equine based therapeutic and personal growth programs, music, and animal husbandry.

We raise yesterday's horse's for tomorrow's riders. And we use yesterday's horses to shape tomorrow's teachers, tomorrow's healer's, tomorrow's parents, tomorrow's community leaders,

We do not live in the past. We do not worship inflated ideas of  uniformly heroic and virtuous ancestors. We recognize their horrible flaws for what they were.

And without missing a beat we work hard to take everything that was good and beautiful from our past and apply it to today's world.

And one of the best and most beautiful things from our past are the nearly extinct Colonial Spanish Horses, particularly the Bankers, Marsh Tackys and Choctaws. And our horse lot is a  living museum. And our pastures are laboratories. And our trails are classrooms. And our tack shed porch is a music conservatory. And our round pen is a place of healing.

....and our animals are antiques.

Carbon, Compost, and Very Clean Hands

Only those of you who have raised hogs are going to understand the incredible significance of what I am about to write. However, the simple fact is my hands do not stink.

As I put the finishing touches on the horse lot for today's day of clinics and demonstrations for the Livestock Breed Conservancy I spent a great deal of time in the pens of our Ossabaw hogs. I moved some of the hogs from one pen to another and moved several pieces of heavy wood inside the pens. It has been raining for the last several days. I found myself smeared with mud and wet hog manure.

When got home I washed my hands and thought about how futile it was to do so. I come from many generations of hog farmers. As a child and as a teenager I raised hogs of my own. I know how hog manure seems to seep deeply into the pores of your hands leaving an aroma that last a day or two even when hand washing with soap is followed up with a rinse in rubbing alcohol.

And I did not even scrub my hands particularly well. In fact, I am typing with some finger nails that are visibly dirty.

And my hands do not stink.

We tear up cardboard into fairly small pieces and add it to the pens every week. We put moldy round bales not fit for horse consumption into the pens. We also put a lot of scraps of untreated umber in the pens. Makes for a very messy looking pen until we have a few days of rain. When the pens get muddy the cardboard starts to break down fast and the wood chunks work their way down into the soil.

The infusion of carbon into the mixture eradicates the otherwise strong odors of hog production. It also creates super compost that becomes ever more useful after spending a few months in our large vermiculture container.

The end result is a more diverse microbe collection than would be found in vermicompost using only horse manure....

And, my hands stay very clean.

Perhaps The Most Important Day Yet For Our Program

Below you will find parts of a flyer concerning tomorrow's (Nov 10) day of programming for the annual meeting of the Livestock Breeds Conservancy. We have a very different model both for attracting novices to riding a horse ownership and for exposing rare, heritage breeds of livestock to the public. We do not seek to convince the established horse world to accept Colonial Spanish horses as being worth preserving. We do not seek their approval. That approach as been tried for many years with limited success. They were invited to the banquet but did not come. We have piped but they did not dance.

Our focus is on attracting those who have never owned horses and may have never even ridden a horse. We do so by administering a wide range of programs to draw people out to see the horses. The day will focus exactly how we do that.

(Registration for tomorrow's event is now closed)



friday Full-Day Pre-Conference Clinic - Friday Nov 10

Using Entertainment, Education,
and Public Service to Promote Heritage Horses
Steve Edwards at Mill Swamp Indian Horses

Come join Steve Edwards and learn all about Colonial Spanish horses! (and Ossabaw hogs, and San Clemente goats)

No experience needed. Steve feels that hands-on training is the best way to learn, so come prepared for a busy day!

Approximate Program Schedule:

9:00 am: Tour of the farm with information on Ossabaw hogs, San Clemente goats, strains of Colonial Spanish horses



10:00 am: Introduction to Colonial Spanish horses, types, and their conservation

11:00 am: Information and demonstrations on

Use of permaculture in farming
How to draw young people onto the farm
Infrastructure requirements (like liability insurance)
Working with veterans, schoolteachers, and police officers

12:00 pm: lunch (included)

1:00 pm: How to use your farm for entertainment
(living history, kids and music - performance included!)

3:00 pm Questions, discussion time

Speaker: Steve Edwards
Steve Edwards is executive director of Gwaltney Frontier Farm, Inc , a non profit breed conservation program that raises mustangs, including the rare and endangered Corolla Spanish Mustangs. Steve teaches natural horsemanship, has written several articles on natural horsemanship and published his first book, “And A Little Child Shall Lead Them: Learning From Wild Horses and Little Children.” He has received the Keeper of the Flame Award from the American Indian Horse Association, the Carol Stone Ambassador Award from the Horse of the Americas Registry and the Currituck Star Award for his Corolla horse conservation efforts.

The Round Pen's Most Important Lesson

We practice natural horsemanship not merely because it creates better horses, but because it creates better people. In order to become a better person one must recognize the most important change that the round pen can make in a person.

Properly conducted natural horsemanship will lead one to absolutely loose all desire to control the behavior of other people. Natural horsemanship allows one to understand that lasting power comes from leadership that does not seek that power. One learns that control is not power.

The older I get the more I pity those who love policy, procedure, rules, order, and straight lines. I recognize each of those things for what they are--tools of coercive control that assure the unhappiness both of those who are controlled and those who seek to control others.

"Just as I would be not a slave, neither would I be a slave owner."--Abraham Lincoln



That does not mean that we teach anarchy. The round pen teaches one that leadership is best demonstrated from the front, not the rear. There is a reason that it is not called "pushership." The round pen teaches one to encourage, support, and inspire others.

The round pen gives one the confidence to teach others to be confident.

And it does so in the simplest of ways. Force does not work in the round pen. The simple reality is that the 200 pound man can only "control" 800 pound horse by letting the horse know that it is safe in his presence.

When it is all said and done the only control that truly creates power is self control. The only confidence that is contagious is self confidence.

Selfishness creates the illusion of power. Selflessness shatters that illusion.

The round pen can a place of spiritual awakening. The round pen, and all of natural horsemanship,is nothing but a teaching ground for unconditional love.

Ad if you are not taking advantage o everything that the round pen has to offer, you are letting your horse down. You are letting yourself down.

And you are letting every person in our life down.

To Raise Emotionaly Healthy Horses

It is easy to understand that a horse does not have he same nutritional needs as a person. It is equally important to understand that a horse does not have the same emotional needs as a person. As a prey animal a horse's emotional needs are all focused on one goal--a strong sense of security.

To have that sense of security a herd animal requires several things that are not obvious to humans. For example, they evolved to need movement. Safety and security only exists for a horse who knows that he can escape potential danger. That is why being shut up in a stable creates, at best, constant low level stress and, at worst, the development of stereotypical behaviors that are often labeled as "vices"--e.g. weaving, pacing, cribbing, etc.

They evolved to be able to closely read and interpret the behaviors and emotions other herd members. They are always on the look out for signals, no matter how subtle, from other herd members, that tell them if they are safe or in a potentially dangerous spot.

A horse's ability to detect sound and scent dwarf those of humans. A horse's ability to detect stress in those around them also dwarf those of humans.

One of the worst things that some otherwise well meaning horse owners do to their horses is to project their own hypochondria onto the horse. The obsession with the belief that the horse is constantly in need of medical attention and, therefore, is in a state of constant suffering can fill an emotional void for the person. It can fill in their need to be needed. For some owners it papers over their fear of riding by giving them an excuse to avoid mounting up. They can always cite some health problem that the horse has as being the reason that he needs to be rested. Just as alcoholics often find themselves sitting around drinking with other alcoholics and readily agreeing with each other that neither has a problem, these horse owners can find support from other such horse owners who also feel that they alone are the only ones giving proper care for their horses. Instead of recognizing the problem they reinforce it in others.

But the horse does not receive the care that it needs. It does not get the feeling of security that it feels in the presence of a confident,secure leader. Instead, it finds itself constantly exposed to a nervous, fretting human who exudes insecurity and stress. The horse reads and internalizes those signals.

The horrible irony is that there are few relationships that can create more feelings of peace, security, and confidence for a person than to have an emotionally healthy relationship with a horse. That relationship does not develop when one views one's relationship with a horse as a constant effort to heal nonexistent health problems and to keep it safe from nonexistent threats.

The good news is that the horse can serve as a great diagnostician. If your relationship with an otherwise healthy horse is as set out above, you need healing.

Work hard to build a relationship with our horse that is based on the horse's actual needs, instead of the hypochondria that you project on to the horse and you will quickly see how much healthier you and your horse have become.