Brownies & Leasers

Ginger got her first Brownie Troop in to do some horse-lovers activities last Friday. 10 girls came, all about 7, and they were a handfull! Fortunately the several leaders were all very helpful in keeping the girls focused. But one thing became very clear that a group of 7 year olds that all know each other --- are WAY harder to work with than a group of kids who just met.

I thought it was a great idea when the leader talked to me (I was down just to observe and take pictures) about the troop all signing up for a week of camp next summer. By the end, however, I was wondering if that would be such a hot idea afterall... Two hours was work enough - I couldn't imagine 5 full days with that group! Ginger in general has a wonderful rapport with kids, but even she said this group was a particular challenge. Maybe Ginger could get a leader to attend each day. Maybe we should wait until they register before worrying too much more about it.

On some related horse-business news - this weekend our number of leasers increased from 1 to 3 overnight, and a 4th took the paperwork home and is very interested in signing up. I think I've mentioned this before, but we've come to realize that leasing is really the ideal way for us to put the horses to work. It takes almost zero effort from us, and our horses get the benefit of being handled more often through the winter when we aren't doing a lot of lessons. One leaser almost covers the average cost of ownership for a horse (I need to run those numbers again now that we have several more months worth of financial data - but that is what I calculated this summer.) So, it is totally a win-win-win situation. We're very excited to have Tiffany, George and hopeflly Lisa join our ranks.