The season we all wait for often comes with the dilemma of choosing which fun things to do. With so many options, how do we fit everything in, right?
So far this summer, we’ve had a variety of educational opportunities with Horses for Clean Water, as well as the Sweet Pepper Ranch Cowgirl Retreat in June. Our new digital editor, Jess Friedman (whom you all had an opportunity to meet last month through her post, The Girl on the Horse), helped us produce a new video about the retreats. It’s outstanding—just like our retreats! I hope you’ll take a look at it, then grab your horse and a couple of friends to join us at our next retreat on September 13-16th.
The September retreat will focus on Ranch Riding and will feature Matt Livengood as our clinician. We plan on having a few cows available to allow participants a safe, guided opportunity to introduce their horses to cattle, and those who’d like something more advanced can also try the Cut-a-Cow with Matt in the afternoon.
Friday afternoon’s lecture will feature personal safety for women, led by Dave Clevenger, an award-winning black belt karate master. I will lead the Saturday afternoon lecture, which will be on Mustangs and the history of wild horses in North America. I can hardly wait as this has become one of my favorite topics!
All of this will be held at our environmentally-sensitive Sweet Pepper Ranch, where we showcase practices like manure management and composting, rotational grazing, pollinator hedgerows, native plantings for wildlife enhancement, and more. I hope you’ll plan to come join in on the fun, learning, and horse’n around!
Horses for Clean Water also has many wonderful educational opportunities available throughout the Pacific Northwest, all free thanks to the sponsorship of local conservation districts.
Do you live in Kitsap County, WA and would you like to reduce chemical use? Join us for Eco-Friendly Ways to Manage Pests and Problems on horse facilities, Friday, August 17, 6 to 8:30 pm. We will also be discussing Pasture Management on-site at a beautiful horse property on Saturday, August 18.
If you are interested in equine enrichment opportunities, our class on Track Paddocks and Slow Feeders will help you offer a mental change of pace for your intelligent horses. Join us Sunday, August 19 from 1 to 3 p.m. in Issaquah, WA, for that one.
We have several farm tours and workshops to mark on your calendars for this fall. Join us in Redmond, WA, where we look at clever but simple horse shelters, manure composting, an outdoor washrack—all sorts of doable ways to manage small-acreage horse properties. In Southwest Idaho and Northwest Oregon, we will focus on techniques for making your horse property chore efficient for the coming winter.
Visit our events page for more details on all of these events.
The HCW website also includes lots of free and useful info. Firewise for Horse Owners is an especially important resource to review at this time of the year. Fires are burning out of control in many parts of North America as well as across the world. We are living in a new world of global climate change; fires like these could affect any of us. Be proactive and review this material today.
See you down the road and enjoy your summer!
Alayne
