Ekone kids are learning about garbage and peace this week, making stuff with trash and learning how to live more peacefully on the earth and with each other.  This week’s projects included building stools with plastic bottles; weaving with bailing twine and scrap fabric ends; making jewelry with bottle caps, bike tubes, can tabs and plastic containers; and starting a couch from plastic bags and containers.  The kids also learned about our off-grid system-- including solar panels, wind turbines and biodiesel production—and other sustainable pro

This week is off to a great start, and it sounds like the weather might actually warm up and feel like summer soon.  It has been unusually cool and windy, and last week we even got a surprise afternoon shower!

We have a good combination of returning campers and new campers, and this really helps us get off to a good start. The returning campers know what is expected and how it all works around here and they love to share that knowledge with the new campers.

Well, the first week of camp has come to an end and our new friends have all gone home.  We had a wonderful week, full of lots of horses, plenty of good food, new friends, and important lessons learned.  Let's do it again next summer!

Come back again soon y'all!

As part of our Friday evening festivities, we had the chance to talk a little bit about kindness and generosity, and to share with each other some moments of kindness or generosity that we noticed this week. Many people spoke of the generous spirit of the horses, and of the kindness they learned from working with the horses. We were also thankful for the kindness of our friends, who comforted us, made us laugh, and even loaned us socks when we had none.

It's hard to believe that today is Thursday already, it seems like everyone just arrived! 

Today is cool and overcast, and a good day for trail rides.  Everyone has been practicing hard in the arena, and now we get to take the horses out on the trail.  Riding along the beautiful Rock Creek Canyon is pretty special, and something that most of us don't get to see every day!

Another season full of children and horses has arrived, and the first week of camp is off to a great start!  We have a small group this week, and that means lots of fun and lots of riding.  With only 9 campers that range in age from 8 to 14, it really does feel like a big family! 

Yesterday we celebrated two birthdays (one was our wonderful cook Chris) with flower crowns and yummy chocolate cake. 

As summer ends, so begins fall, then winter, and around comes spring....the changing seasons at Ekone Ranch are marked by golden leaves, and the horses puting on their thick winter coats.  Then winter with its quiet days and long nights, and breaking ice on the water troughs. Then finaly spring shows her face with new growth, yellow daffodils, and birds coming back to build their nests. 

But spring means summer is almost here, and that brings SUMMER CAMP!!!!

Ever eager to combine work and fun, beauty and usefulness, this week the cowgirls got started on another barbed-wire ball. Not many people know this, but Ekone Ranch is actually home to the biggest barbed-wire ball in the county...granted, it may well be the only barbed wire ball in the county...

Well, we apologize for the lack of blog postings this week, but it has just been so dang HOT that we were aftraid our computer might melt if we used it too much! Luckily, we cowgirls have some time-tested tricks to beat the heat, so on Tuesday we woke up at the crack of dawn to go riding in the cool of the morning, and then after a late breakfast we headed on down to the river. There is sure no cure for the 102-degrees-in-the-shade blues like spending all day neck deep in cool water!

The cowgirls this week have certainly become very at home on the range, from putting in hay to taking some more advanced trail rides to working in the garden to building—and utilizing!—some jump courses. We have so appreciated the good spirit, enthusiastic work ethic, and deepening friendships of this camp.