Hey Susanne, where are we going? Freya - not so sure about things Donate to WSS Horses It takes a community to care for our horses. Being a non-profit, we are reliant on the generosity of  neighbors, friends, and donors to maintain our herd. Please considering supporting WSS by giving to this very special and beautiful work. Umbrellas can be scary! Where are we going? In our last blog post, it was bitter cold. Now, spring has not arrived, but there are days when you can smell the potential of new life in the air. The horses are consistently laying down to bask in the sunshine for naps. Often, we have a report from a guest they are concerned that a horse has died in the field. But we know our herd - they are a relaxed bunch with no predators in the area. They enjoy taking a load off after a meal. Come April or May, depending on the growth of the grass, we pull them out of their winter [...]

Freya happily sporting her thick winter coat Donate to WSS Horses It takes a community to care for our horses. Being a non-profit, we are reliant on the generosity of  neighbors, friends, and donors to maintain our herd. Please considering supporting WSS by giving to this very special and beautiful work. In the bleak midwinter…. It’s cold out there. I pray you are keeping warm and your driveway shoveled. At White Sulphur Springs, it is always a challenge to keep up with the camp roads and staff homes. We shovel, it snows, we shovel, it snows. Most of the ground is covered with ice chunks, covered again with snow. It’s even more challenging to keep up with horse care and feeding during the winter. Water tanks freeze despite all the many ways we mitigate the cold. The ground is slippery and moving horses safely is very challenging. The WSS Wrangler team works very hard during the winter to make sure our herd stays healthy. In the winter our horses are confined to smaller pastures. Each pasture is equipped with [...]

Renee Krider and Freya Donate to WSS Horses It takes a community to care for our horses. Being a non-profit, we are reliant on the generosity of  neighbors, friends, and donors to maintain our herd. Please considering supporting WSS by giving to this very special and beautiful work. It’s been a year! This weekend marks a special moment in Kairos time. Let me explain. A year ago, Renee Krider came to WSS on retreat. She had in her heart to find a special place for her little foal. Freya was, at that point, about 8 months old- a filly full of curiosity and warmth. She had won the hearts of those around her, all the family, neighbors and anyone one else who visited the Krider farm. A few short weeks later, Freya arrived at WSS, and a beautiful process began. Teaching/training a horse is a unique privilege. It also requires courage to work with an animal whose weight is generally 10x-12x greater and whose natural bent is to run away when something doesn’t suit her. But for those of [...]

Freya learning how to learn -a tinch reactive :) Video - 4 minutes of beautiful horse training! Our horses are a community affair. Would you consider donating for hay, farrier care, repairs to tack, medication, or even sponsoring Freya or your favorite horse? Please join us on the the horse adventure! Donate to WSS Horses Tell me where you struggle, and I can tell you where God is working- where you can experience God. God is a speaking God, but sometimes my ears are stuffed-shut with my own noise. Jesus tells the woman at the well in John 4:24 God is spirit, and those that worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. Many times in my walk with God I complain that I’m stuck in the world of black-n-white words. My heart is seeking transformational relational wisdom, and I am blocked in the intellectual, informational, head knowledge world. So I complain. The reason for my complaint is that at the time the Scripture would begin to open to me, I’ve already left my [...]

Freya is still growing. And she grows more beautiful each day. This is the other new animal in training. Meet Anuk, the 10 week old Siberian Husky from Bedford Humane Society. Donate to WSS Horses Our horses are a community affair. Would you consider donating for hay, farrier care, repairs to tack, medication, or even sponsoring Freya or your favorite horse? Please join us on the the horse adventure! Every time we try something new, there’s always a first time. Freya is my first horse to fully train. I’ve done bits and pieces with other horses on our string, but never the start to finish before. I believe I was my own biggest nay-sayer. And why not train? Well, if you listen to many horse trainers, the one thing you consistently hear is…its dangerous. :0 I’m also training a new puppy now, a white Siberian Husky named Anuk. I am often so thankful she doesn’t weight 1,000 lbs like Freya does. They are both animals, so there are some similarities in training. For [...]

Freya's loves to be right in your back pocket! Children love Freya - and the feeling is reciprocated. Major love affairs are brewing. WSS Summers end 2023- It's been a great summer (busy ministry season) and the Holy Spirit has been putting in overtime! (Or we've been trying to play catch-up) What is Freya up to now that she is 17 months old? A couple differences from her younger days 😊 She is overall a much calmer animal. She has learned to trust and follow. There is less protest about trying something new and more quiet inquisitiveness. She is beginning to link things together. When we catch her from the field, good things are going to happen, and she is going to be rewarded for her work. As Larry Surrett, one of my teachers said, you get paid to go to work, and your horse likes to be paid. How do you pay a little training horse? Here’s a couple ways: 1) take the pressure off immediately when she makes a good choice 2) accept mistakes and [...]

Freya's beautiful adult (ish) profile. She loves children. She looks like a little girl playing dress-up. An awkward duck. We are almost at the halfway point of White Sulphur Springs summer! Freya is 15 months old and her body is changing. She is growing every day to look more and more like an adult horse. Additionally, another curious change is happening with her... While working with her over the last two months I’ve begun to be able to better see inside of her. Prior to that, she would look at me with some uncertainty during our trainings. She wasn't sure if she wanted to follow me. She would do what I asked out of obedience, but there was not trust there yet. That has begun to change. Now, the more I work with her, the more I find that she is trying to understand.  She is trying to find a way to do what I’m asking. And if I mess up, she’ll wait patiently until we can work together to figure it out. That doesn’t mean that [...]

Who is that masked horse? :) Freya's protection from the flies Circle Game Squeeze Game Greetings Freya fans! There’s been a lot going on at White Sulphur Springs in May. Whew! We hosted: 1) many guest groups in the hotel 2) the Harrison house ribbon cutting ceremony 3) our WSS volunteer time. 4) another sold-out Horse Adventure Weekend (which was soooooo much fun!) Additionally, our summer senior staff (college-aged young adults) have arrived, and we’ve launched into training. To add to all that goodness, Katy Pistole and Richard Kurz came in and worked with Freya in May to help us understand the next steps with our big little horse. It’s been blessedly busy, and I’ve had less time with Freya than I would like. But the time we’ve had, has been good. Freya is beginning to build more stories. She’s got character! She’s connected deeply with Daisy, another mare in our herd. It’s been a beautiful process to watch because previously Daisy was very disconnected- she was obedient, but not connected to humans [...]

Wearing loose side reins connected to her halter What is the drive line? (video with Katy Pistole, Beautiful Brokenness Ministries) April 29, 2023 Training All the building blocks! - Freya is 13 months. As I think about her training, a few things become evident. First, the time is short. Once she is a fully trained horse, she (Lord willing) will be enjoyed and ridden for many years to come. Secondly, she has wonderful energy around her. She is soft and connective, She is curious and kind. I want to preserve all those characteristics in her as she grows up. Primarily she is still operating in mostly a naturalistic (instinctual) way to new stimuli. Her life is a series of moments, and she has the default horse wiring to tell her what her response should be- But what is being layered into her now -over, and over, and over again- is focus. Keeping her attention on me as I ask her to complete very accomplishable tasks. One little learning lego block after another. There are [...]

Enjoying the sweet spring grass What is a surcingle and why is Freya wearing one? Ladies and Gentlemen- we have a yearling! It’s going to be the year of firsts. Let me say, as a lay-horse-trainer, the learning is both challenging and relaxing. Here’s an example: Everywhere Freya goes, she first goes backwards. She walks backwards before she walks forwards. This is the “gold” standard of teaching according to Katy Pistole of Beautifully Broken Ministries. Any why? It has to do with the specific way that God built Freya’s brain. Freya is a left-brained (dominant or confident) extrovert (curious) horse. The positive side of this is that she is very engaging. She loves to be where the action is, where the people are- to be the center of it all. The negative side, if left unchecked, is that she could become pushy, dominating, and unaware of people in her presence. We desire to see her become all the beauty that God has built into her little horse spirit. And not just for her, but for all the [...]