March 3rd, 2012

by Patty
What  a beautiful week.  The sun has been shining, it has been warm, the mud has dried up, Life is GOOD!

We had a great lesson with Matt and we are getting ready for Special Olympics.  Rocky is definitely challenging him to work, but Matt is USUALLY up for the challenge!  Matt thought I was a crazy lady again this week when he got to be a horse.  He really got how hard it is for horses when you give unclear directions!  It's really fun working together with his OT, his teacher and his speech pathologist to figure out how we can work together to make Matt more successful!

We already have such a great team, I was able to leave and have Lindsey Fetty be the instructor for Caleb and Birdie.  We were able to get the whole class covered with volunteers.  I got to go up to Dallas to be the apprentice evaluator for the PATH Intl instructor certification.  I was very nervous on both counts, but both went really well.  I'm not going to lie, I was kind of glad to hear that Caleb missed me! ;)

We had a great group of 30  Baby D's and Mavericks out on Saturday and got a ton of work done (even though I was unorganized!)!  A huge thank you goes out to Mandy Morrison and Nick D'Andrea for helping manage this group!  They were able to get the arena measured T-posts in .  They also reconfigured the front entry way and cleaned up some of the brush along the front fenceline (though we still have a lot to do)!  We moved the ramp, cleaned up the make shift feed area since it flooded.  Now we will use Jeff Smith's Farrier trailor as the feed room and Debbie Higdon's toyhauler as the tack room.

Unfortunately, we had to cancle todays first lesson for JuanD and Maria. They will start in 2 weeks (after the Gold Stirrup Horse Show next Sunday). Lesley Jubinski got to come out and ride FINALLY.  We need to start conditioning Holly if she is going to have someone riding her at the walk, trot, and canter!

 Bill Thater finally got to come out and groom and bond with Rocky and Playboy.  He is such a sweet man!  We got him up on the tractor very easily, so after a couple practice runs, I will have another volunteer to shred the fields.  Thanks Michael and Erik also for doing some shredding.  I have quickly figured out that there is no way that I am going to be able to keep up with all this grass cutting all by myself!  It's a good thing that I have a great team!

Thank you to everyone that helps make this happen!  I can't tell you how much I appreciate each and every one of you!