Last Sunday Pony Clubbers interested in Le Trek came to Winsong Farm for a half day outing. Four activities filled the schedule: learning how to orienteer, safety features of four horse trailers, roping a “cow†and a demonstration by Zelador and Zeloso.
Le Trek involves compass work and map reading. Bill and I set up an orienteering course on our 25 acres. We created an orienteering map eight years ago, dusted it off and made a few corrections. One major change occurred about four years ago, in the springtime. A small pond (about three metres in diameter) grew to over fifty metres. The thing was marching towards our house! Bill borrowed a neighbor’s small bull-dozer and dug the “grand canyonâ€. It went from the pond (which is smack, dab on top of a hill) towards low land to the northeast. This canyon took Bill weeks to create. If the weather had cooperated, he could have finished in a few days, but the spring rains kept coming and the bull-dozer kept sliding…
Zelador loves the grand canyon. We’ve spotted him jumping the less steep area several times. But I digress…
The orienteering started with the participants creating a map of the inside of the arena. The bridge, gate and pedestals all appeared on the map. One volunteer went outside while the rest of us placed small orienteering markers in the arena and marked the locations where they could be found on the map they’d created. The volunteer returned, read the map, found the markers and everyone “understood†orienteering.
The pony clubbers had thirty minutes to find the orienteering controls hung all over Winsong Farm. It was quite a treat to watch them walking along, studying the maps. No one got lost!
When the orienteers returned, Zelador did work at liberty, then Bill rode Zeloso over, around and through the Working Equitation apparatus we have in the arena.
I hope you enjoy the great photos taken that day by Stephanie Ellul.
