Picking Rocks

Picking rocks just isn't one of those chores a lot of people think about when they think about having horses.  They picture that beautiful, gleaming horse prancing around with mane flowing in the breeze in a perfectly pretty green field.  Reality is more like this...the kids and I out picking rocks that have surfaced after a week of rain and animals churning up the mud with their hooves.  

My daughter thought it was an adventure the first 5 minutes.  Then she got tired of bending down.  And bored.  And wanted to know whyyyy do we have to pick up the rocks.  So I had her put a pebble in her shoe and run a couple of laps around the round pen and asked her how it felt.  Obviously she was not pleased with this experience.  I showed her a particularly sharp edged rock I found on the ground and asked her how she thought it would feel to step on that.  That that's what it felt like to the horses and goat walking around the pen if we left the rocks there.  Suddenly her attitude got better and she did a pretty good job finishing with the rocks.

I laugh when I see the stories in the news about "working" punishment now being handed out to kids - in my family we've been doing this for so long.  Whenever my parents or grandparents ran out of responses to smart-mouthed kids, or the drama of girl-hood, or we complained about being bored there was always stalls to be shoveled, mulch to be raked, weeds to be pulled, dog poop to be scooped, rocks to be picked...