Part of this past week was spent at a “horsemanship camp” at the Engler Horse Farm. (Click for link.) We learned about grooming, feeding, riding, and safety around your horse. After the riding and such came the animal chores – Horses, goats, chickens, ducks, and geese. For some odd reason, they all seemed to think they needed fed! We had fun and here are a few of the highlights!
In the beginning, I got to ride the sweet gal on the right, StarDancer. The one to the left is MyGirl (Yep, that’s her name!)
Now what would a horse camp be if you didn’t learn about any of the different parts of a horse?? Although I’m sure Jiggy (the little guy that played as our very patient canvas) would have loved to skip this part, everyone did end up learning a lot from it!
Here’s everyone lining up for a round of red-light-green-light. This helped with learning how to start and stop your horse.
Must be my mind going bad already, but I’m not sure I remember the name of this particular game.. Hmm.. Ribbon race, maybe? In an actual race, I was told you’d have a sort of paper ribbon and two riders would hold either end of it and race to a certain place without breaking it and back. (Or at least you’re supposed to make it there and back without breaking it!!)
And of course, there’s chore time. Here’s a couple of the little guys helping with hay. One is even manning a pitchfork bigger than him!
One of my favorite parts of the chores, was when the goats were moved from pen to pen. You had a sort of “goat stampede!”
On the last day, everyone decorated their horses! Paint, ribbons, bows, flowers, hair things.. You name it, it was probably there. Here’s a couple of the girls trying to decide if they missed any spots… I think they got them all!!
Those two ended up with a very, very colorful horse… and sporting quite the paint-job themselves!
I’m thinking this gal got the award for fanciest mane…
While poor Star was stuck with me and my awful horse-decorating skills! She ended up with only a braided tail. No paint, no mane, just a tail braid. But I feel that she was probably thanking me she wasn’t covered in paint when she got turned out!
The second horse I got to ride was Firefox. He was a beauty! Sadly, this was the clearest picture I got of him, as every time I was around him, I ended up needing both hands… That and I wasn’t really wanting to mess with a camera while holding onto him too!
Oh yes… And who could forget cute little Cheerio? He was a riot… But a cute one at that!
And lastly, I just had to share this picture – One of the young gals there had a pair of boots that I completely loved!
Anyway, we had fun and learned a lot.. Hope you enjoyed a little glimpse of this crazy week!
Ashleigh
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