Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

First Day



Typical Dress and Mood

My internship site is a really relaxed place. Basically you just get to wear jeans and whatever T-shirt or anything you want to, just be prepared to get lots of dirt on it as you are around horses. They're really nice people, my mentor first read the papers explaining about the internship and got really excited about the whole project idea and immediately went into thinking up something for me to do. I was really happy when I saw that, it made my day because she got so into that.

This is the woman who helps with the finances and other things they need done on the ranch concerning money related things and such. Right then she was just answering emails on her computer, about to make calls about ordering some horse feed.

















My Work Area

Generally I am going to work all over the ranch and help out whenever people there need me, because that's how their ranch works, everyone helps everyone else with their jobs and so on. But for today I just groomed and braided manes so everyone could figure out how adept at working with horses I am and how comfortable I was with being around horses.

This is the Horse of the Sun owners stalls where she keeps her horses. When I took the picture there were already three horses that I had groomed, so they were not in the picture, and two others were running around out back, away from their stalls.

















My Experience of the Day

First I got to the ranch and we each exchanged forms and liability stuff and mentor papers and such, and then after she decided to let me groom all of her horses for the day, so she started me out with Toby, her Friesian horse, and just said, brush his mane out and switch which side it's on, then braid it. I was kind of thinking, okay, cool, this should be pretty easy and fast, I'll probably be done with all of this stuff within a few hours...What else will there be to do after I'm done? Well...It took a while to get his mane to switch sides...And then we couldn't find something to tie the ends of the braids off with, so we just used duct tape in the end, which I thought was slightly strange, but it worked very well.

I had so much fun braiding Toby's hair, he is the most amazing horse ever. The whole time I was there working on his hair he was just chillin'. And when I would look away, if I didn't look back within a few seconds he would start pushing his head into my stomach or chest, trying to get my attention back on him. And then when I was brushing his mane out he just rested his chin on my shoulder like he was gonna be campin' there for a while. =P Silly horse. I have now fallen in love with this horse...He is amazing, and absolutely gorgeous...Can I take him hoooome?

















Myself Working


I groomed three horses today and braided the mane of another just so the people at the ranch could gauge how well I reacted and behaved around the horses. The main question they had about me was if I was confident enough around the horses so that they could leave me alone for a while, or if they had to stay with me the whole time and make sure that everything went alright. Apparently it's all good. =]

This is Cupcake. She is the sweetest horse ever, the whole time I was grooming her she didn't even move. I was able to brush her with so much ease that it was almost scary...I mean, literally. She. Did. Not. Move. Her tail didn't even swish to get rid of any flies or anything. The whole time she just looked ahead over the fence, like she's doing in the picture.


















What Struck Me



So, I wanted to get a picture of the dog that they have running around there with them, but I couldn't find him this time. The first two times I was there he was playing with another dog that was there, but this time all I could find were cats...=/ The first time I saw him I was startled because I thought a wolf had just run across the ranch and attacked one of their other dogs or something, but my mentor told me he was a really sweet dog, if not shy as all get out, and loved to play with the other dogs on the ranch.

They adopted him officially and named him Wolfie. His coat is so much like a wolves that I can't get over it, every time I see him I basically just stare...He's so, wild looking, I guess. It's just great. And so cool that he found them and decided to stay with them and that they adopted him.



Before I could even get into the fact that I had to ask my mentor, Stephenie, about the economy and how it effected her and her business, she answered everything. I was kind of surprised by that...The main point she answered and I thought was most important is below:

How has the current economy effected the ranch?

During this economy it's hard, because so many people are spending less, so that means that a lot of boarders here have had to either stop boarding and try to get their own stables, or they would have had to sell their horses because they can't handle the cost of keeping such a large animal like a horse. They just don't have the space or the money for the job, so that means I have to find more boarders that can afford to board their horses, which takes some time, but I think we can do it.


How My Day Went

To start out, I had been told to meet my mentor at 8:30, and that that was an okay time, but she wasn't there...After waiting around for about half an hour my mom finally told me she had to leave and go to work, but she waited, and then a few minutes later a woman showed up, and told me she would call Stephanie. After everything was sorted out, my mentor told me that I could groom her horses, and then after lunch we went over how I could start my project for them: Building a marketing plan and a one page website that explained the gist of the ranch and what they do there, so the public gets a better understanding of them.

Overall my day was pretty good. I had a great time, and my mentor and everyone else who works there is great, they're all very nice and friendly.