Monday 7th September

Monay I woke up at 6am to get ready to go to my first job at EARTH, 40 horses. I ate breakfast, got dressed, and on my rubber boots. Wendy drove me to my destination which was about 5min away from the house. We arrived at a stable and went in to meet the workers. There was only two people working for forty horses. The first man I met was named Mark. Mark had been working there for many years now and he had taught Wendys kids how to ride horses and mantain them when the kids were younger. He also knows the most about horses in the whole college. The second man I met was John. John was younger and talked twice as fast as Mark so he was hard to understand at first but after a while I was able to understand what he was saying. The first objective of the day was to help Mark by holding a horse who had cut itself on the butt. It was a Miure or in spanish a Yegua. She had been taken to San Jose to breed, but on the way home she got scared and cut herself by freaking out in the trailer. After that I swept the floors and washed them with a hose. Mark taught me how to clean a horse, put on a saddle, out a bridel on the horse, tye knots to keep the horse connected to a pole, and the scariest one, clipping the horses nails. First you tye the horse up, then you slowly move your hand down the horses leg, by doing this you wont scare the horse if you just reached for its foot. Then you tap the back of its hoof to lift it up. If the horse doesnt move, Mark told me to lean into the horses leg while lifting up on its foot. After you have the front foot in you hand, you use these big clippers and cut the nail off one clip at a time. After that you have to put the hoof between your legs and then file it down with a huge filer. Its hard work but its was fun. After that Mark and I went to another field and rounded up some horses to bring back to the stable. When we needed one of the horses, Mark had a lasso and would swing it around his head just like a cowboy. I was amazed at how good he was at it too. He could catch any horse he wanted too. At lunch break, as we waited for Wendy to pick me up, Mark taught me how to use a lasso! It took me a while but I finally got the ruteen down and practiced on a tall tree stub. Wendy picked me up around 100pm and then I had some lunch. She went back to work and I went for a bike ride. The bike they let me use was way too small and the gears werent working. I decided to perchuase a bike so I could get around EARTH on my own. When Wendy got off work, she took me to the town bike store where I talked with the guy Jose for a while, then bought a dark blue GT moutain bike. Jose said he would drop it off at EARTH the next day after he tuned it up. I found out from Wendy that Jose was very lucky to have EARTH because that is where he gets all his business from. He goes into EARTH frequently and fixes bikes, gives tips to people, and rides with a group on the weekend. He invited me and I said I would love to go! After that whole experience I was tired and knew I need some sleep because from then on, I would need to get up at 5am in order to start work at 6am.