Monday, March 4th

Ben Bott: Hi everyone! My name is Ben and I’m a sophomore studying Communication and Spanish.  As a person who wasn’t involved with LEVEL before this break trip, I have already felt so much love and appreciation with this group through our service and the relationships we’ve built.

            Today was our first day of hands-on action at Triple Play Farm.  Filled with lots of anticipation for today’s events, we were all very excited to see what was in store for us.  Breaking up into two groups, we tackled the tasks that Tracy and Kris had set up for us.  Our first exercise dealt with individual experiences with a few of the horses.  I had the privilege of working with Emma, a horse whose past experiences have made her a timid and very responsive to movement.  Building relationships with her and others with Clyde, we learned how to create a trusting, loving, and fruitful relationship with the horse and developed a new sense of leadership that expanded our comfort zones. 

            After a quick break, the two groups switched exercises.  In a whole new field of expertise, our group made individual circles in the ground in hopes of getting a horse to walk through all of the circles.  Trying to build a world of trust with the horse, we learned how to respect boundaries and make a standard of equality amongst the horse and the human.

            Once fueled by a lunch sponsored by Subway, our group came together to create a beautiful butterfly garden for Monarch, a horse who had passed away this January at triple play farm.  Monarch was the first therapy horse at Triple Play Farm.  He was there from the beginning and the impact he left on the lives of everyone was evident in our service to him once the construction was done. (shoutout to the mayor of Davidson for coming to the service!)

            The day came to a close with an insightful reflection amongst our group.  Through reflective questions that inspired lots of great ideas, we discussed how we need to discover what it is that makes us vulnerable.  Are we able to face the uncomfortable questions that we don’t want to answer? If we can, we can challenge our those around us and ourselves, we can grow both as a person and a community.  We look forward to what the rest of the week has in store!

Carter Young: Today was a very challenging day that brought us out of our comfort zone. Most of us were intimidated by the horses or the idea of encouraging them to do certain tasks. However, thanks to the staff, and the people in our LEVEL group, we were able to work together to do certain tasks with the horses, such as walking them, making them back up, and having them pass through dirt circles. We even got to form bonds with the horses, who quickly grew fond of us, and some even moved their heads affectionately towards our bodies or heads. Even those of us with more experiences with horses learned more about what we can do with horses, or how they think. We listened to this story that we were told before the activities, where we were shown this horse, Casper, who has been stigmatized by the other horses due to his trachea surgery, which has made him unable to communicate with the other horses like before. The story was meant to link with our trip’s mission in teaching us how to get past assumptions and to get rid of people’s stigmas of certain things. Other than the horses, we got to see these two Newfoundland dogs, a three-legged pug, and we caught a glimpse of a pen full of goats and pigs. The rest of the work today involved us splitting into different groups either to paint a fence, build new chairs, or to create a Monarch butterfly garden in honor of not only a beloved horse named Monarch that recently passed but also, other animals that have lived on the farm. The mayor of Davidson came with a local country music band, and they helped deliver this heartfelt memorial event, where the mayor gave a long, heartfelt speech, the band played beautiful music, and some of us other people at the event placed memory stones in honor of animals that we have lost. We then went to a great restaurant called the Great Egg of Davidson, where many of us enjoyed breakfast options for dinner. A wonderful occasion indeed. We also gave a very deep, long reflection tonight, which was a mix of humorous, hopeful, and emotional. We then ended our night with some exciting games to bond more before sleeping in preparation for the next day of our important week.

Becca Riedel: “I am happy.” This is what I responded when asked to make an “I statement.” Today was a good day, and I was truly happy with no worries. I didn’t come into this day expecting it to affect me as much as it did, but I left the day feeling relaxed, rejuvenated and ready to take on the tasks of this week. Today we focused on making connections with the other members of our group, as well as the various animals. Last year on the trip, I was timid and scared to work with the horses, as I had no experience and didn’t want to hurt myself or the horses. I had built a special relationship with Moose that had given me the confidence to approach some of the larger, more intimidating horses. This year, I came into today and wanted to not only approach these horses but have enough confidence to truly interact with them. I got assigned to work with Clyde and for those unfamiliar with the Triple Play horse hierarchy, he is the leader of the pack. I tried not to let my nervousness show when trying to guide Clyde, but I wasn’t fooling him. He wasn’t listening to me and I was growing frustrated but after some guidance from Kris, I was confident and was able to lead Clyde and get him to follow my lead. Clyde gave me the confidence in myself to work with the other horses, just by being responsive and not giving me an easy way out. Throughout the day I was able to get more and more comfortable with the horses and didn’t even freak out when Leo (a gentle giant of a horse) unexpectedly rested his head on my back, progress!

With all of the stress of school work and midterms, I hadn’t really had a lot of time to think about how I was feeling about this trip. I was excited to return but didn’t begin to think about how I could not only help others on this trip, but also help myself. School is a big source of stress for me and in just one day of working with the horses and working on a memory garden, I forgot all about my anxieties and focused on being present in the moment. Reflecting back on the day helped me to realize that being confident in yourself can go a long way, and a little bit of encouragement (even if it is from a horse) can go a long way. It made me realize just how valuable the work that Triple Play and Rocky Creek do is, and how people of all different abilities can benefit from it.