Fair time.

I've gotten behind in my blogging. We got home from the Caledonia Fair Sunday night, Tor and Lize started school Monday morning. I leave Thursday morning for South Dakota, returning Monday night.

The Fair was good! I'd be happy to be invited back next year. I met Gino, one of the acrobats who's a 5th generation circus performer. He's of Spanish heritage and I enjoyed telling him about the Colonial Spanish Horses. He was very appreciative.

Each public event we go to there are always a few people that stand out that I'll remember for a long time. He'll be one of them. The other was an older woman who told me a hundred times how much she loved the movie Hidalgo. She was there the whole weekend helping with the Haflinger horses that did driving demo's. She heard my speil about the CS horses over a hundred times too. Then there was a little girl about 8 years old that cried when she had to leave Augustine. I let her lead him around and she kissed his nose many times and hugged him. He loves that. And a 13 year old boy named Tyler that was around all weekend too. He was such a natural with Augustine. He watched me work with him on the ground, then I gave him a few pointers and let him figure it out. He handled Augustine with such confidence and leadership. I'd welcome Tyler as an apprentice any day.

Tori and Oscar were really the stars of Lawrence Arena over the weekend. Tor signed autographs, and not always Oscars! She handles it all so well and with maturity. It was her 16th birthday on Monday. I'm very proud of her. Eliza works hard behind the scenes, enjoying that role.

We did three presentations. I talked about HIDALGO, the CS horses then seamlessly ( ha ha !) went into natural horsemanship. It's like show and tell. People were interested I think. Or they were just being polite! I'm getting much better at the public speaking thing now. I'm more confident about the information I'm sharing than I was in the past. After almost 6 years of this, it's about time I suppose. Being able to make jokes and smiling is a good thing. It's not the amount of people that bother me. I could talk in front of a coliseum full of people as long as I had a horse next to me to work with.

Augustine isn't the most exciting demo horse because he's so laid back. Nothing bothers him, there is no drama. People like drama and excitement. He really represents the CS horses well though and everyone falls in love with him.