Bittersweet Farm update

One of the possible blog topics suggested (a phrase you may hear quite a bit for the next couple of weeks) asked what I planned for my equine business. Since I spent the afternoon with J. planning dates for both our family's plans and for the farm, this seems like a good topic to cover tonight. (And clearly, I am not watching the Superbowl. Until a couple of hours ago, I didn't even know who was playing. I am very much not a sports person.) 

So, the farm...


As usual I will be holding Equine Education classes for children. I just won't be doing as many as I did last summer. Last summer was a bit crazy and the amount I was teaching was a big reason why we didn't really have a garden or end the summer with as many canned items as we usually do. I didn't want to repeat that again. There will be classes for ages six and up as well as a few sessions of Mom and Tot classes for the 3-5 year old crowd. I always find scheduling these to be challenging. What makes sense to me often does not work for a great many people, so I continue to try different combinations which allows the most people to participate. 


What I want to focus on more this summer is holding retreats like I did last fall. I have a couple of different ideas. The journaling retreat was great and I will definitely be repeating that. I would also like to have a few vision board retreats where the participants spend time relaxing, create a vision board, visit with the horses, and then do some thinking about what they created. Doing any sort of advanced planning is a little tricky for these because I don't really have any sort of indoor space we can move to if the weather is uncooperative. J. and I tossed around the idea of purchasing a large event tent to help with this problem. (Can I just moan again here about not having an indoor arena? Do you have any idea how many lessons I would not have had to cancel this winter if I had an indoor arena?)

[Insert brief pity party.]


Okay, I'm back...

Finally, the thing I want to work the most on is building up my EFL clientele. I am totally convinced that being around horses can help us know ourselves better and that combined with doing facilitated work means people can experience a sense of change in their lives. Our children need us to help them regulate, but we can really only co-regulate with someone if we ourselves are in a place of calm awareness. We don't have to react to life around us. I'm helping to do some mentoring for a certificate program of the Athena Herd Foundation for the next couple of months, and in the session I was sitting in, one of the session leaders said that his goal is to allow his clients to see that they have always have a choice. I thought this was brilliant because sometimes in parenting children we feel stuck and that we don't have choices. This can be a difficult place to be. Yet, we do and horses can help us be aware of those choices. To that end, I think I'm going to offer a three for the price of two sessions for the spring and summer. 


I also keep suggesting to J. that perhaps his life's passion is to become a shepherd and that he just doesn't know it yet. So far he's not really buying it, despite me showing him many photographs of really cute sheep. (Google 'babydoll sheep' or "Valais Blacknose" if you need to see many pictures of really cute sheep.) He thought maybe he would go for it if we could make enough money from sheep for him to quit his job and stay home. I don't think I need to do any research to figure out that raising sheep for fiber is not how one gets rich... or even stays afloat. 


I'll be chatting with MC (son-in-law and business tech support and graphic designer) about what needs to get put up on the website and then people can start registering. Because some day winter will end, right?

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