Horse Camp!

 

       Echoes                                    Voices                                  Sparkslingers!

Sometimes life requires me to take a break from writing. This last week was a perfect example. Once again, I can log another successful horse camp with one of my nieces here on our little farm. This year, my 13-year-old niece came for her third visit. Her younger sister, who is 10, came for the first two days for a sampling of what's to come. We did so much more than just play with the horses. We scooped poop, fed grain and hay, cleaned stalls, swept the barn, and filled water troughs. Only then did we ride, and not before a gentle grooming and generous dose of fawning. 

We cooked, crafted, baked, and learned to crochet. We walked the donkey and played with the pups. We cared for the chickens and cleaned the coop. We even watered and weeded the flower and vegetable gardens. In the mornings, we read Chancey of the Maury River by Gigi Amateau together on the front porch, and in the evenings, we watched season 19 of Heartland in our jammies. 

This year, she practiced several new riding skills, like a soft jog trot, riding one-handed, and making a tight turn. She designed her own "show," and we practiced and practiced every day to the music she picked out. Mind you, the week she spends with me is pretty much the only time she gets to ride horses. It was really important to her that she show her family all she had learned throughout the week when they came to pick her up.

Her performance began with a demonstration of free lunging our decked-out quarter horse Tuff in the round pen, walk/trot/canter. It's pretty cool to watch a girl and her horse communicate and connect when their only tether is the one between their hearts. I spied some teary eyes in the audience, including my own.

Her one-handed weave poles at the trot were really impressive, as well as her egg-and-spoon trip all the way around the arena, the first half at a walk and the second half at the trot. For her finale, she chose to carry a big, beautiful, flowing American flag twice around at a posting trot. All to Miranda Lambert's Bluebird.

The week flew by. 

I'm exhausted.

I'm also inspired and invigorated to get back to writing. My second Forever Fields book is well underway! If you haven't yet read the first one, check it out soon!