Spring Forth Farm

It was true love at the first turn stile! We've finally found a good barn.




I think I've found a great barn with a great philosophy. Since our Ry Rosie is hell bent on riding and since unschooling is all about following your passion, I have been determined to find a great program for her. A dangerous expensive hobby? Great! But really, those aren't my concerns. My concern was with finding a teacher I could trust. I have a prejudice against "horse people" because I grew up around horse people. Sometimes, the kind of people who get into riding and keeping horses for fun also have control issues and they can tend to be kind of brutally dominating people - in this insidious and quiet way. I "learned to ride" from a woman who named her dog Sassy and taught it the command "Be Humble!" and the dog would cower on the barn floor and then she would laugh. This is the same woman who beat a horse and then put ME up in the saddle....I could go on, but this isn't the point. I don't need to go pay for someone to instill a sense of fear in my children, or to underscore the control issues rampant in my family anyway. Certainly, we can do better. Can't we?

Yes. And I think better is called "Natural Horsemanship." Over at www.parelli.com you can get the gist of this real quick. “It’s more than just about the horse...It really dips into the personal development side of things. You learn about yourself, you learn about communication, about leadership, about truthfulness, about consequence and responsibility. You learn about love and imagination. The horse becomes the animal that tells you the truth about yourself in all these categories.”

Well that's beautiful. Who wouldn't want that? Who wouldn't want to choose to begin there? Laura Feather is the owner of our new barn. She will be Ry's teacher in the beginning. She likes to start the kids with private lessons so she can really focus on each student and bring their core skills up in a solid way. Then the kids can move to group lessons. (Now there's a novel idea!) I said to Laura, "I don't care what kind of saddle you sit her little fanny in - saddle seat, western, hunt seat, whatever. What I am looking for, is someone who wants to establish a respectful dialogue between the rider and the horse." And she responded, "That's us. And I always say, the slow way IS the fast way."

Then she turned, pointed up pasture and said, "See that little brown pony up there? We will start your girl on her. Her name is Rosie."