Riding without a saddle?
This weekend the boys had so many new activities. The weekends have slightly different schedule to the rest of the week. On Saturday we started our day off with tie dye. The boys enjoyed tying up their t shirts, bandanas, pillow cases, even socks. Then spraying them all sorts of colors! Prepare to see some colorful items of clothing when they come home! Followed by water games at the barn. We played egg toss, name games and had a water balloon fight which was perfect as it was a very humid morning. We even got to play a few games of bowling with our new blow up bowling set! It was great to see everyone cheering each other on! Then we finally got to do bare back! We like to give a bare back lesson during the sessions so the campers can feel what its really like without the support of a saddle. We show them how sensitive their skin is and how the flinch to remove flies. They walked around the arena, bending around barrels and stepping over poles and testing their own balance. Bare back is a great opportunity for the kids to trust in themselves and their instructors when it comes to staying on the horse and everyone did great! They even had challenges like leaning forward as far as they could to touch their horses ears! During this day the boys also got to paint a horse after having their own faces painted! Durango put hand prints, their names and so much paint on our ponies that Charlie the grey horse will be slightly green for a while! After dinner we had our Dance! The whole of Wawayanda gathered on the hard courts and Filries field to come together and just have fun. We had music, gaga ball, soccer, swing ball and so much more. It was great to see the campers just relaxing with everyone at camp!
All camp! Every session Frost Valley does an all camp which is a huge day of activities in which the whole camp gets involved with. Sundays are also the horses day of so this is a great distraction from the barn. This sessions All Camp was A Small World! This is a day of learning about all the different countries and cultures that have come to work with us in Frost Valley. There was America stalls, Welsh stalls, British stalls, South African stalls, there were a lot. Its great that we have a vast amount of staff to teach us these cultural differences. All the stalls were set up on Filries field and the campers had the freedom to go off and explore by themselves and having village check in’s every now and then! And when the sun finally settled, we got to see our July 4th fireworks! Some of the boys got up in front of the whole camp and performed songs or danced. As an all-rounder, I think they definitely enjoyed their all camp!
Monday already?! Durango had so much fun at the weekend that the weekend flew by and its already Monday! Durango had a great time this morning after water front at our rope element called the Flying Fish! This is where one camper is attached to a rope and have a pull team on the other end. When the pull team run away it shoots the person on the rope up into the trees! They all loved being pulled up and also helping pull! Today we got back on our horses for another lesson and some groups have even progressed to trotting on their horses which is an amazing achievement to reach in a week of lessons! They also learnt a lot about vet care and the different medications that we use. The boys even practiced putting Polo wraps (bandages) on each other. After our riding lessons today Durango got to visit our Raptor center! They got to meet two owls and a red tailed falcon. Frost Valley runs this small educational sanctuary for any raptors or owls that will no longer make it out in the wild. For instance, Gilboa our barred owl has only half a wing but has lived 9 years longer than a general life expectancy! The boys had many questions for Sophie who was running the workshop. After dinner the boys are heading up to a hiking area called Brothers Hole which is a nice easy hike with amazing water holes! I wonder how the boys will do in their lessons tomorrow!
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