Thankful Thursday

We had another incredible day. The weather was pretty perfect and the volunteers were even better. There were quite a few, and it's getting really late, so I'm going to highlight one tonight and then maybe talk about the other awesome people tomorrow night. (I know you've stopped believing me a long time ago. I don't blame you.)

Dan Cooksey and his wife Betty are new friends of ours, and we're so happy about that. Their pastor told them about Galloping Grace and what we were trying to start. They came out to meet us in February during our big work day, and we've been enjoying them ever since. We've corresponded via email for the last two months, and we had a very nice lunch with them last week. They were trying to find out what plans we had for the Youth Ranch, and what they might be able to do to help.

They have already volunteered their time, money, and talents to us.
You should see the beautiful saddle they gave to the Ranch and all the tack. Too bad I didn't take a picture of that.

Max and I feel they are great role models for us because they are very strong Christians, and they know a lot about horses. We are looking forward to learning from them.
Dan volunteered to help Max work the horses on a weekly basis. Max was so happy about this--the more work the horses get, the better. Last Thursday Dan came out for the first time to work and it was miserably windy. The gusts were out of control. This is why there are no pictures of that day. Why would I come out in weather like that? Today the conditions were ideal which makes for clearer pictures. You weren't thinking I was afraid of messing up my hair, were you?

Dan did a lot of round pen work. I guess this is pretty essential in training the horses. Max loves watching his horse training DVDs almost as much as he loves reading about worms on the Internet. That should tell you something. I guess Dan has watched his own share of DVDs and attended quite a few training seminars. Dan had Blue responding in a hurry. I love to watch the horses follow without a lead rope. I think the point of these particular exercises is to teach the horse to become submissive to the human. Something about herd mentality. I sure wish Max wasn't peacefully sleeping away in bed right now while I blog. I could really use some help with the technical aspects of this particular post. For the rest of this entry, I will continue to bluff my way through. Just know that a lot of what I type isn't accurate--at all. That being said, Dan is trying to get Blue to flex his neck. This is really important for....for reasons. It helps in a pretty good way. Dan explained it to me as I clicked away. What has happened to my memory? My comprehension? Should I really blame my four children for everything?

From what I remember, this is a pretty good flex. I think it could be better, but Blue was doing a fairly good job allowing his neck to be pulled that far.

Before Max stumbled off to bed, I heard him mutter how good it was that Dan got Blue's neck all the way down. Yep, looks fantastic to me. I'm sure that's really important. If only I knew why.Dan, thanks for coming out to help with the horses. You were fun to have around and an excellent trainer, I'm sure of it! You are more than welcome back next week and the week after and the week after that!