Upside to rainy weather for my horse girl

My 15-year-old loves horses and has had to be creatively resourceful in finding ways to spend time with horses that don't require a lot of money. Anyone who has ever paid for riding lessons knows there is nothing inexpensive about it.

But G. has managed to find a lot of different ways to learn about, and spend time with, horses over the years. She took group therapeutic riding lessons (seasonally) in elementary school. Then we took a break in part due to our crazy schedule as well as finances. In middle school she really wanted to get back to riding and found a horse barn near our house. She's been working at the barn weekly, mucking out stalls and other chores in exchange for riding a couple of times per month. She's been doing this for the past couple of years and loving it. I am both pleased and surprised that the kind of hard work she does is something she's stuck with all this time.

This past year an opportunity arose with a new 4-H club that is a "horseless" horse club. It's a club with members who do not own horses but love the animals and want to learn more about them as well as spend time with other horse-lovers. It's been a fun, no-cost experience for both my kids and they love it.

I give G. a lot of credit for exploring every horse opportunity that comes her way. She is not so interested in formal riding as much as the simpler just-enjoy-the-horses and pleasure ride kind of thing.

A few weeks ago she found out about a free horse driving carriage clinic in Oxford she insisted we attend.

"Come on mom, it's free!"

I asked G. to contact the organizers to ensure the "free" activities really did include actually driving a horse carriage before I agreed to drive up there. It did. It also required G. juggling an already busy schedule to attend. She was emailing, calling and working out all her schedule conflicts to attend this clinic without any help from me.

It is amazing what a kid can manage with the right motivation.

It was, of course, raining the day of the clinic. G. could have cared less. Within 15 minutes of being on the fairgrounds she'd chatted with an owner and had herself a job brushing out a horse. She drove a single horse carriage and then a double-team carriage. She even had a chance to work with a horse who had not driven a carriage. He was in training to learn and she directed the horse through an obstacle course by walking him using long reins. Had we lived closer to this particular horse owner (he lived more than a hour away), she'd have had a summer job.

G. could not have been happier about the experience.

She commented on her way home from the fairgrounds that it was good it rained. She had a lot more driving time because not many people attended the event because of the wet weather.

I guess there is an upside to this rain for at least one Maine teenager.

I can't say I'm enthused about large animals but G. and her new horse friend talked me in to a ride (a very cold one since I was not dressed warmly enough that day).