Welcome to my blog! This blog is being created as an outlet for me to share the things that my students/teachers are teaching me on this journey through equine assisted growth and learning.
This journey truly began for me in the last century - the early 1990's.
So, what happened is I finally bought a farm and my very own horse, exactly the kind everyone told me I should get an 8 year old gelding quarter horse. He was lovely and kind to my children, and everyone else, but right from the very beginning, he seemed on a mission to teach me something.
I guess it all started with the fact that I bought him at a horse auction in downtown Tabernacle, destined for slaughter, but I didn't know anything about horse slaughter at the time, I only knew I didn't have the courage to live my lifelong dream of horseownership, so my husband (at the time) bought us a bottle of Jack Daniels and we got drunk and bought a horse, paid someone to trailer it home for us, and so it was done.
I was surprised at how noisy he was, whinneying all the time. Of course now, I think he was likely calling for some friends. He's the epitomy of "herd". He's 28 now and lives with 7 mares including 1 miniature pony Mya (who LOVES him) and Jacquie our Angelic miniauture donkey. Who am I kidding, all the girls love him.
He taught me about feeding horses, who knew they couldn't eat grass? Chronic colic taught me how to pay attention to EVERYTHING! Founder made me use all of the things I knew about creating health naturally in people, in my horses. I'm a Certified Natural Health Professional, and up until my handsome Sorrel horse forced me to listen to my instincts, I relied on the professionals who knew everything about horses including showing them who's boss (there was no doubt, he was! I couldn't even pretend, there was no point.)
So then, a couple of years later, I had another brilliant idea, I needed another horse! One without so much baggage. So, once again my husband (at the time) -no we didn't get drunk- thought we should buy a baby horse! and there we were visiting with the prettiest little tri-colored paint philly I had ever seen. While I was kafetching about how we should not buy a baby horse, (green on green makes black and blue!) he was paying the man. My little clean slate was named Patches of Winter because she was mostly brown with some white patches and a black mane, tail and 4 black legs. Any undesirable trait she has developed I know how it got there. In hind sight I realize I put it there, but at the time, I was just trying to live through the experience of daily life with this athletic full of life fast little horse!
The thing that I noticed right away was how no matter what, she was not jumping all over Sorrel, like she was jumping all over me!.. I needed some of what he has, horse sense, leadership, clarity, boundaries, she loved him completely and immediately. I thought he was being mean to her, but clearly he knew what he was doing, I was the one putting on my helmet, just to walk her from place to place. Then I started to put Sorrel between Miss Patches and I wherever we went, that was great! She would not jump on him and he would keep her perfectly in place. This is where I knew I needed to figure out what he had that I wanted.
