Life Lessons

We have three newborn fawns that arrived at camp today.  As the Wranglers and I were walking back from lunch today we stopped in to see them.  It is a wonderful feeling to love and hold them.  It is a blessing to work here at Lonehollow.  We get to feel the same joy that these kids feel when they hold and feed a baby deer.
The lesson plan for riding today was to introduce various styles of riding to the campers.  Today we took the horseback classes out into the big field in front of the barn and played "horse games".  We did pole bending, egg & spoon, toilet paper relay and barrels.  We did a jumping, barrel racing and dressage demonstrations.  As the horse was getting ready to jump he stopped and refused the jump.  He did that 3 times. We changed the jump from a vertical to a cross rail and used guide poles.  He finally went over it at a walk and then a trot.  I used that as an example to the kids to show how we have to continue working on the problem to fix it.  Getting angry at your horse doesn't work and will usually make the situation worse.  The way to solve a problem is to think about alternate solutions until you can ultimately get the horse to do what you want.  I think that is a great life lesson.  When we came back to the classroom I asked them what they learned today.  The answer was not to get angry at your horse.  I hope they will remember.  That wasn't the original objective of the lesson but it was even better.  Thank you God for using horses that refuse jumps to show us how to work on solving problems.