The "Pembroke Campus" as we have deemed it, is being run out of Greenwood Stables, an excellent facility just 5 minutes outside of Pembroke. We will be taking advantage of the 68x 120 indoor arena, a smaller arena, the 80 foot round corral, local trails as well as the boarding facilities that Greenwood offers.
The Pembroke Campus will allow us to continue our Natural Horsemanship lessons all year round, and also begin our Equine Assisted Learning programs focused on leadership, communication and confidence building. While the goal is to maintain our Killaloe location, we will begin programs at the Pembroke Campus within the first weeks of September. This means we will be dividing our time between the two locations.(until the weather changes and we move indoors!!)
This move has been exactly what we were looking for and we are absolutely thrilled with the facility! Our hats must also go off to the owner Louise who has been gracious enough to offer us the facility and lend her experience and time as we get this venture off the ground. We are very much looking forward to the coming months working with her on this and the doors this move opens for the business. As we advance our services and programs we will update here but as of right now we are taking on new students and boarders at the Pembroke Campus.
Aside from this the past few weeks have seen several changes in the herd itself. First, we sent
Sweetie home mid-August. Once again thanks to Alissa for leasing this great mare to us, she is missed and we sincerely wish you the best with her.
Secondly, John came to collect Fancy (mentioned in the last post) a lovely little Standardbred mare who was in for training. Fancy was an excellent project and an awesome horse to handle. We are looking forward to continuing working with John, his family and the horse(s) that are in their lives.Thirdly, we took Scoota home to her owner Raquel after boarding her here for the past few years. It is nice to see both owner and horse happy at home and thanks to Raquel for holding on to our little Brigadier for the time being. (Brig is on loan as a companion to Scoota.)
The rest of the changes have been incoming, as we took on two
fantastic geldings, Chance and Trenton. These draft cross boys came to us together from around Trenton, ON. They were both previously rescued by the SAD Rescue organization as youngsters and have spent the last few years growing and maturing with a family as pasture pets. Chance is green broke but a very solidly minded horse we have yet to find something that phases this guy. Kate has spent some time getting him understanding steering and going when asked, and he will be very soon initiated into our lesson program.Trenton on the other hand is a slightly more difficult horse, he also received training prior to his arrival here. Unfortunately he did not advance as quickly due to his right brain tendencies. It is suspected that he was mistreated as a youngster due to the scars on his head, jaw and flanks. We are hoping that with his sweet personality and his natural curiosity we will be able to help him get over his fears and advance his training to the point of being a solid riding horse as well.
With the business advancing and the herd developing into an awesome group of sound horses we have been pretty tied up. We did however have the help of an extra set of hands, our working student Bridget. After spending ten days in lessons while she was here on vacation last year Bridget decided to spend a month here helping us out in exchange for her time in lessons. To put it mildly we had a blast and managed to get some stuff done as well. ;) Bridget was once again an excellent student and a joy to teach. We look forward to future visits and miss her while she is away. I have included a photo of Bridget riding Misty one of our advanced horses, who seemed to just click with her.
We are all looking forward to the new prospects of the next couple of months. Should be some fun times!! I personally really look forward to riding in a nice dry building while it is cold and miserable outside!! It'll be even better if we can ride with some awesome horse people at the same time!!
Normally Natural,
Marie ;)
