If I Was a Twelve Year Old Girl I Would Be In Crisis Right Now

Little riders often become very bonded with their favorite horses. They worry about hurting that horse's feelings if they start to enjoy riding another horse. I have seen tremendous expressions of guilt over leaving an old favorite behind to saddle up a new horse.  They worry that their first horse will feel left out from being left behind.

Of course my first love is the Colonial Spanish horse--especially those of the Southeast, Choctaws, Corollas, Shacklefords, and Marsh Tackys.  When my weight was down about thirty pounds I had great fun riding Nick, a large standard donkey born of a blm jenny and a wild father. My daughters rode him a lot as teens.

I have always been intrigued by Mammoth donkeys but they are so rare that I never expected to have any in our program. Thanks to  Thomas family, specifically Jenner Thomas' love of donkeys, we have four of these large, beautiful, athletic equines at the horse lot.

I am certainly drawn to them. They are the most underestimated members of the equine family. I like that. Whether on the ball field or the courtroom I always hoped to be underestimated. There are few advantages in life that one can have that is more helpful than to be underestimated. Luckily for me, it seems that I have always been surrounded by suburbanites who were more than happy to underestimate me.

They have a minimal panic response. That is not exactly true. They are very skilled at hiding panic while looking completely in control of the situation. This is also a trait that I work very hard to emulate.

But most of all, they are real, lacking in flash and chrome, but housing a powerful engine and mud grip tires with deep tread. Oh, I do, admire that.

I don't feel guilty for loving the donkeys. I don't feel like I am letting the horses down.

I just have to figure out how to find the time to ride both donkeys and horses hours on end.

 Guess I will have to learn how to eat faster and sleep less--maybe even spend less time cleaning my vehicles.

Done Come Home To A Place They Never Been Before

Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning...."

Not to get too esoteric and reflective, but it is good to remind ourselves that not everyone, in every age, in every culture shares our most deeply embedded western concepts. For example, not every culture in history has seen time as linear. To take that to its starkest implications, in those cultural settings there is no belief that yesterday came before today and that tomorrow will come after today. In cultures that viewed time as circular instead of linear everything came both before and after everything else. There was no beginning and there will be no end according to such a world view.

If you think about it too hard you can get dizzy.

Yesterday we unloaded the two most beautiful Mammoth jenny donkeys that I have ever seen after a long drive back from Happy Valley Donkey Rescue in Concord Virginia. The Thomas family's love of donkeys has allowed us to preserve and promote this wonderful piece of American history.They are sisters and are of a breed of donkey so rare that few people have any idea that there are donkeys the size of horses.

They are nearly extinct.

That possibility should bother anyone who cares about the agricultural history of this nation. George Washington was among the agricultural pioneers that worked to produce these super sized donkeys.  The tall donkey jacks were bred to  large horse mares. The powerful mules that resulted from the breeding plowed much of the American soil.

When they were unloaded a herd of Spanish goats came over to see what the ruckus was. Right behind the goats came a band of five sheep. Three are of Hog Island lineage. Two of them were directly from Mount Vernon. The other one's parents were from Mount Vernon. The other two are Leicesters, a sheep breed from England that Washington sought out to cross with his American sheep.

We all stood there in a pasture with George Washington's sheep and his donkeys. For a moment, for just a moment, "was", "is", and "will be" were all happening at the very same time.

And for me that is the value that one receives from making the conservation of heritage livestock a top priority in one's life. It is a life enriching experience to simply stand in a pasture watching history unfold, refold itself and then unfold again. 

Over the years our program has allowed a several thousand people to see, and many of them to ride, the horses who carried their ancestor quickly down dark trails in the middle of the night to find the midwife who delivered their great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. They got to see the little Spanish horses that pulled the simple wagon that brought her to the church to be married twenty years later. They get to see the horse that her husband plowed the fields with for nearly a score of years. They get to see the horses that her three sons rode off to war. They get to see the horse that brought the only son who survived that war home. And they get to see the horse that slowly pulled the wagon carrying her simple, small coffin off for its final ride.

And I love doing this. And this is what makes it worth it.

Heritage Breeds Week begins in two days. If you would like to become part of working to conserve the livestock that built our nation go check out the wonderful work that the Livestock Conservancy does. If you would like to participate in the  breeding and conservation of nearly extinct Colonial Spanish Horses you can contact me as msindianhorses@aol.com

"I Had No Idea That All This Goes On At Mill Swamp Indian Horses!"

That is what a visitor who lived locally said when he came out to learn about our program. I was not surprised. Not many people do know, and those that do are shocked when they learn that all of this is done with no paid staff. Everything that is done is done by hardworking, knowledgeable, dedicated volunteers.

In fact, we do so much that we document it so that others can understand what is possible. We record the number of miles each rider rides in a  lesson and record the cumulative figures. In 2019 we rode further than from Norfolk to Oslo, Norway.

Let that sink in for a moment.

Here is what goes in in our program--

Gwaltney Frontier Farm Educational Foundation, Inc is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit that supports educational programs at Mill Swam Indian Horses, the program name of Gwaltney Frontier Farm. As is the rest of the nation, we are in a holding pattern for many of our programs and are looking forward to being able to get fully back into gear soon. Below I will set out a list of some of the services that have been provided until the virus suspended things and that will be resumed the moment that it is safe and legal to do so.

We work to preserve and promote nearly extinct strains of historic heritage livestock, including Colonial Spanish Horses, particularly those whose lineage goes back to the Outer banks of North Carolina, the area around the Grand Canyon, Choctaw horses whose ancestors carried Native Americans on the Trail of Tears into what is now Oklahoma,  Galicenos and Marsh Tackys, the horse of Colonial South Carolina. We also feature rare strains of Spanish goats and early Colonial Sheep and hogs and even raise Scottish Highland Cattle. We have recently begun to feature Mammoth donkeys of the type that George Washington used to develop larger, stronger mules.

We teach children and adults to humanely gentle and train the horses to saddle and we teach riding lessons. We have never turned anyone away for inability to pay program fees. It is important to keep in mind that we have no paid staff. Everything that is done is done by volunteers. The program is on nearly sixty acres of land that the program uses at no charge.

We hope to soon return to having our Friday program in which children are taught soil and water conservation, microbial farming, pasture development, Natural Horsemanship, livestock care and handling, Colonial gardening techniques, composting and vermiculture. Perhaps most importantly, the kids learn to work on the farm and use problem solving skills and team work to take on very large projects, e.g. clearing brush and wood land for pasture conversion and fencing that land in for efficient, environmentally sound use. We have a program fee, but no family is ever turned away for inability to pay the fee. In order to make it easier for entire families to participate in our programs, those for which a fee is charged are charged on a per family basis. This makes it possible for large families to participate and encourages parents to participate right along with the children.

Our educational program includes a free Old Time, folk, blues, gospel and American music lesson program. At no additional charge program participants who wish to do so gather weekly to learn to play and perform on stage. A few adults join in with up to a dozen or more kids and play such instruments as banjos, fiddles, mandolins, dulcimers, harmonicas, wash tub bass, dobro, tenor banjo, tenor guitar, bouzouki, kazoo, autoharp, and even a wash board. The kids have played many professional engagements. All of the performance payments are donated back to the program.

Perhaps the most important aspect of what we do involves healing and helping people who have experienced extreme trauma in their lives. For over seven years, until the virus outbreak, we provided weekly programming to those who are in the in-patient PTSD program at the Hampton Veterans Hospital. We have never charged for this service. We provided monthly programming to Mid-Atlantic Teen Challenge, a substance abuse treatment facility at no charge. Although we are not a therapeutic riding facility, many people who suffered significant abuse as children or adults benefit tremendously from interaction with our horses.

We have provided, and look forward to providing more sessions to first responders, medical professionals, and other professions both in using techniques of natural horsemanship to more effectively communicate with traumatized people and to use the horses to deal with the trauma that they experience on the job.

That is what has been going on at the horse lot for many years and I hope that we will be jumping back in with both feet soon.

If you would like to be part of our program you may email me at msindianhorses@aol.com. Fess for riding lessons are $160.00 per family per month. Families in the riding program can participate in the Friday program at no additional charge. Participants in the Friday program without being riding students have a fee of $120.00 per month per family.

Colonial Spanish Horses: Do You Really Think They Are Super Horses?

My strong preferences would be to not hold such a belief. Feeling that way makes me sound too much like an overly eager booster. However, pesky facts and observations keep getting in my way. A Corolla mare, less than a month after being removed from the wild carrying her rider on a forty six mile ride--A Corolla mare never before ridden responding to the lightest pressure while being ridden in a rope halter as if she had been doing so all of her life--Choctaws and a Shackleford taking three of the top ten spots in the first endurance ride that their riders had ever seen--Tradewind a wild stallion from the Outer Banks removed from the wild because of severe founder and hoof abscesses responded so well to therapeutic hoof care that he went on to become the Horse of the Americas National Pleasure Trail Horse of 2010--The list of the accomplishments of these historic horses is beyond the imagination of those who have never had an opportunity to ride them--

 And now this--Bella Note, perhaps the last Colonial Spanish mare alive to have 12.5%  Grand Canyon lineage, eagerly takes to swamp trails including water and mud that was chest deep and then settles into a 17 mph trot with Tam gleefully sitting on the saddle. After she is fully conditioned she will become one of the lead horses in our endurance team.

And this was on her first limited "test run".

There size scares off modern breed enthusiasts--until they ride one.

Super horses? Clarke Kent didn't look like he could fly either.

Does Bedside Manner Affect Live Foal Birth Rates?

I am afraid that it might. I grew up riding stallions. While I suspect that I owned a mare at some point I do not remember doing so. About twenty years ago we began breeding and producing foals.

Our protocol was simple.  I put the mare that I wanted bred in a pasture with a stallion for a few months during spring and summer.  In less than a year she gave birth in an open pasture with no people around.

I did not go out and "check on" the mare every day. I did not subject her to any additional stress beyond that which the other horses were having.  I did not stand around her and worry about whether or not the foal-to-be was developing appropriately. I did not go out and wring my hands around her worrying if she was ok.

I just let her have the foal.

As is my habit, I eventually began studying about prenatal care, conception rates, and live foal birth rates. I was floored when I saw how low the live foal birth rate was in racing and show barn breeding facilities. Mares in those environments were producing live foals way beneath what was occurring in our pastures.

Fifteen years ago it was the rarest of occasions to have a mare bred here that did not produce a healthy, pasture born foal.

Everyone who has any understanding of the mind of the horse knows how strongly they react to human emotions. Their  herd instincts, developed over the ages, cause them to constantly process the actions, and reactions, of other herd members, be those members human or equine.

A terrified person terrifies horses. A person under stress will find a horse that reflects that stress waiting for them in every pasture.

I wonder if being constantly exposed to stressed humans affects a mare's ability to produce a healthy, full sized foal. If it does not, then horses have developed an exception to the entire psychological make up that governs every other aspect of their emotional lives.

I also wonder if being regularly handled by a relaxed, optimistic human who interacts with the mare enhances the chances of a healthy live foal birth.

My strong hunch is that the mare who is allowed to interact with her equine herd without any unnecessary human interaction, particularly during the late stages of pregnancy, would do best.

Such a study would be very difficult to conduct scientifically, but it would certainly be worth conducting.

Of this I am certain--number of horses those illness or injury I have successfully treated by worrying about them, wringing my hands, and constantly trying to show them how much I care comes in at a "0". The number of horses whose illness or injury I have successfully treated by providing them with the most conservative treatment possible, administered in the least stressful manner possible, comes in at "innumerable."