Lessons: Day 4

"Peace" is the P word of the day. Things were a little different around the farm today. None of the three high school girls who have been here every other day was here to work. Other than one lady who brought her horse for a lesson later in the morning, there were no other students. A little before 9:00am, I found myself alone with Kaseem in the tack room getting ready to ride. All was quiet, except for the occasional horse's whinny or crowing of a rooster coming from the barn. It was so peaceful to groom Seemo and be all by ourselves, with just the animals' sounds and the smells of horses and leather surrounding us. I realized that I have accomplished one of my goals, which was to be able to get a horse ready to ride with no one helping me. At the beginning of the week, I'd always have help or have someone supervising me. Now, Kris just tells me to go get Seemo from his stall or corral and get him ready to for my lesson, and I can do it. When today's lesson was over, Kris just said, "You can take care of him, right?" and left me alone to take off his bridle and saddle, put everything away, and return him to his stall for the night. I am pretty proud that she trusts me after just four days, and I'm also proud that I can do so many things that I couldn't do on Tuesday.

The second reason I chose "peace" as my word for the day is because Anchorage Farm is such a peaceful place to be. Until this afternoon, I hadn't left since my arrival on Monday evening. Today I left for about an hour to go to Conifer, CO to go get a late lunch and run in to the grocery. It felt so strange to be out in public after four days of being hidden away at the farm in the mountains! I was kind of glad to get back to the peace and quiet of the farm when my errands were done. Of course, my favorite place to be at the farm is with the horses. During my down time, though, this is my second favorite place to relax, read, and/or work on my laptop:

There is a little pond with a waterfall right next to the patio in the above picture. I love sitting and listening to the sound of the water and watching the goldfish swim around the lily pads. If I look up, I can see three horses in the closest corral. The weather has been absolutely perfect all week, so I have spent much of my free time right here.