Hooves with Heart

As I reflect upon the past few months, I am astounded with the milestones that have occurred. Fifteen youth are now visiting Holly Farm every week and participating in Hooves with Heart sponsored programming. Four will be riding next week, while their cohorts are almost ready, indicating that these young people have completed at least 5 workshops on the ground with horses. Today, we sent our two Recovery Cafe young adults off with eggs from our hens. One of them said, “It’s good energy to eat these eggs from such happy hens”. Last Friday, we bagged up lettuce from our garden for YouthCare youth to take back to their inner city kitchen, a small present from the farm. These youth have contributed so much to the care and maintenance of Holly Farm, it was an honor to send a token of appreciation for them to share with others who are unable to visit. Another milestone, we now have a chicken garden and a vegetable garden, and new smaller farm animals: Poppy the alpaca, Lavender the llama, Basil and Clover the miniature donkeys, and Lilly and Panda the new goats. All these animals bring a ray of smiles to the faces of visitors and staff alike. But most importantly, we are seeing changes in our youth since March. Improved team work and positive social skills have been demonstrated by these youth in their transitional residences as a result of our programming. In addition, youth that are highly transient and living on the streets, are showing up consistently to catch the van to come to the farm. These are changes to be celebrated. Thank you for your continued support. We will continue to support these remarkable youth to the best of our abilities.

Under a cloudless morning sky, I am observing six young people saunter out of the YouthCare van towards our barn. While observing, I am reflecting on how fortunate they are to be part of the YouthCare continuum, and therefore have the opportunity to spend time at the farm. Youth homelessness is on the upswing and so many are unable to find reliable shelter and care. These are the lucky ones. Today, they will have four hours to be quiet, bury their hands in the soft coat of a horse, and maybe learn to lead a horse “at liberty” without restraints, through asking and without force. It will be the horse’s decision whether to grant their request, and the youth will be successful if he asks as a compassionate leader.  This group is learning the building blocks in developing healthy communication and relationships. Thank you to all: your generous gifts have provided this unique opportunity for a remarkable group of youth.

Kristin and I had a wonderful opportunity to visit some of our participants at YouthCare.  We have farm-fresh eggs from our beautiful hens, and we thought we would cook breakfast for our youth!  We were very enthusiastic, and over the weekend started to make a shopping list…

As we made the list, our task quickly went from “this will be so much fun” to “80 EGGS! 80 EGGS!  What are we doing?”  And so, we called Christopher.  He is owner and chef at Mongo’s in Clearview (you must try this restaurant, it’s seriously the best food ever!)  We asked for some tips, and his response was “Come to my kitchen and I’ll help you cook…you guys are in WAY over your heads!”.  After buying the supplies (only 60 eggs!) Kristin, Mesa, and I went to Mongo’s.  It was such fun scrambling eggs, roasting bacon, cooking pancakes…  We were able to bring our food, still warm, from Clearview to Seattle, where we talked about our program, did an activity with pictures of our farm, and ate the delicious breakfast!  Thank you to Christopher for his warm heart and generous spirit, as well as his wonderful ability to teach and cook!

- Laura

On Friday we had a great day of programming with Youth Care’s Catalyst house residents and staff. At our morning check-in (using paint chips to reflect how we felt with colors!) we learned that a number of youth are dealing with very real and complicated problems this winter. As a part of our day here at the farm, we wanted to give them the space to feel safe enough to express how they feel, and to also brainstorm ways to deal with what can feel like crippling stress and anxiety. We talked about how to identify looping negative thoughts, turning inward to find where the stress is held in our bodies, and practiced deep breathing to help release the big feelings. We also spent a lot of time practicing being present. During herd observation, we reflected on how horses act when they are anxious, and what they might do to relieve stress, and how it parallels our behavior. One participant in particular is bonding strongly with our little white Arab, Holly. He has discovered that if he puts a blindfold on and grooms her he can focus on his task and not get sidetracked by “the small stuff”, or negative thoughts. At the end of the day, we closed by collecting eggs, and there were 8! Participants were very excited to get to take two dozen eggs back to their house. We are working hard to help our participants learn new skills, but what we think is most amazing and inspiring is how much more present and solid everyone feels after a day here. Hopefully some of that is spilling over into their lives at Catalyst!

Tea is an amazing horse who really connects with people, especially youth.  She is an honest, willing partner, and we are honored that she wants to engage with them.

Teadora, a 15 year old Andalusian.

Tea, like our youth, has a story to tell.  As a youngster, she was forced into working as a dressage (competitive equestrian sport) horse.  Tea was too young and unprepared in body and mind to work in this type of sport.  Tea also was a broodmare and had several foals.  Being a broodmare was probably traumatic for her, as she was very young and she did not have many choices.  Finally, Libby (our Executive Director) acquired her.  Tea has been with Libby for three years, and in that time has learned many important life lessons.  She is much more relaxed and willing to work.  Her personality has shifted, and she is now very bonded to people.

Tea throwing her head in frustration.

I started working with Tea at the end of November 2012, and from the start she captured my attention.  She is vibrant and playful, and has an impressive stubborn streak.  Her early dressage work taught her how to collect herself, and watching her move is enthralling because of her wonderful rocking-horse motion.  Yet, I realized quickly that she is not a truly healthy horse.  She is very anxious and has a hard time with transitions, like so many of our youth.  Despite this (or perhaps because of this), she absolutely adores youth.  She connects with them on a deeply personal level, and will tailor her reactions to the ability of the person working with her.  She makes an ideal program horse because she asks our youth to focus and ask correctly, but forgives mistakes and works just as hard as the people around her.

Tea has never lived in a herd situation and certainly does not feel comfortable around male horses.  However, we are confident that she will learn with our herd that she is safe.  As she becomes more confident with the herd, she will be more able to connect with our participants because of her new ability to draw on other horses for support.  This too is similar to our participants as they are often solitary and unable to trust each other.  It is our hope that as Tea becomes more relaxed, our youth will become more relaxed.

Scratch, our self-appointed herd leader.

Tea getting as close as she dared to Scratch. For his part, he just waited and watched her go in circles around him.