Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Equine Assisted World.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson, New York Times best selling
author of The Horse Boy, The Long Ride Home, and The Healing Land.
Before I jump in with today's guest, I just want to say a huge
thank you to you, our audience, for helping to make this happen.
I have a request.
If you like what we do, please like, subscribe, tell a friend.
It really helps us get this work done.
As you might know from my books, I'm an autism dad.
And over the last 20 years, we've developed several
equine assisted, neuroscience backed certification programs.
If you'd like to find out more about them, go to newtrailslearning.
com.
So without further ado, let's meet today's guest.
Welcome back to Equine Assisted World.
With me today, . I've got Catherine Ward and her daughter, Nicole Jones,
who together run a pioneering place in Houston, Texas called One Acre Farm
where they do all kinds of miracles.
So the reason why I want them on the show is a lot of us think of equine
assisted stuff happening in large rural areas where we have a lot of space.
One acre farm is just that, and it's within the city limits of Houston,
and it's a bit of a groundbreaking concept and it shows what really
can be done with very little.
So any of you think, well, I haven't got enough space.
You kind of need to hear a little bit how Catherine and Nicole maximize what
they've got and achieve results that are frankly, quite breathtaking with kids.
So welcome to the show.
Catherine and Nicole, please tell us who you are and what you do.
Catherine Ward: Hey, Robert, thank you for having us.
We're, we're quite honored and excited to be with you.
I'm Catherine Ward.
We live about 35 miles north of Houston in Porter.
I own and run one acre farm.
And it started probably in 1999.
Our very first class was how to Raise Chickens in Your Backyard.
Because of our location where we are while we're kind of rural, we're set in a
very urban or very suburbanite type area.
And so there are a lot of, a lot of women that live in neighborhoods that wanna have
four or five chickens in their backyard.
And so that was our, our goal to kind of kind of get started there.
Then we started classes for Homeschoolers and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.
And then fast forward to from 1999 to 2016 when we met you and then
got our certification in Horse Boy Method and Movement Method and
added that to all of our programs.
And then fast forward to 2021 and we opened an outdoor farm school.
And so now with all of the programs that we have from kids aren't in
play, our Sensory Saturday, our private autism sessions and our
elementary farm school and our early childhood farm school, we service
about a hundred to 150 kids a month.
Rupert Isaacson: Impressive.
Thanks.
Okay.
Nicole, who are you?
Yeah.
In this
Nicole Jones: so I'm obviously a daughter of Catherine.
I'm a mom of two and my two kids come with me to the farm school that we run.
I was a horsey kid.
I was homeschooled all the way through.
So, I was homeschooled on a farm.
Very similar to how a lot of the kids that we work with today are
being schooled and had a lot of interaction with animals growing up.
A lot of autonomy to my day.
A lot of movement involved in my homeschooling and education growing up.
And so currently I am the early childhood teacher at this school.
And then also Catherine.
I co-create curriculum together for things that we're doing on
the farm and for other people who are interested in, in curriculum.
But a lot of what got us, or at least got me to where we are with the school
now was the homeschooling background.
A lot of the horsey stuff growing up.
And then I was also an a, b, a therapist early on in my, teaching
days I wanted to become a teacher.
I got into a BA therapy but very quickly realized it didn't sit right with me.
I was there for about two years and just felt like there was something missing.
I, I loved getting to have the relationship with children and
being able to be one-on-one with kids and grow that relationship.
But being a 19, 20, 20 1-year-old teacher, I was just still not knowing
much and not being in the field very long.
It just wasn't sitting right with my spirit, the things that I was being
told to do, and feeling like the, the happiness of the children and the
joy of early childhood education was just taken out of what we were doing.
And it all was very clinical.
It, it didn't have this while we were building a relationship with kids.
It just didn't have that, that.
Fun aspect you would expect.
And you know, we, I was working with children who were nonverbal who were poop
smears, eating their poop all the way, you know, that might be a morning student.
And then an after Stu afternoon student was someone who could read
and write and talking verbally.
And so putting those two kids in the same class together, it was
just, there was a lot of disconnect.
And didn't, although I was working for a very highly regarded a BA
clinic, I just felt like it just, it wasn't sitting right with me.
And so not too long in the field and just feeling like this isn't
right, I need to find something else.
I found Montessori education very happenstance, and so I was
completing my college observation time in different, you have to go to
different schools and observe classes.
And so I picked a Montessori school to go see 'cause I just never heard of,
heard of it and wanted to see what it was about and walked in and was just, in
10 minutes I was like, this, this is it.
This was the thing.
It was so similar to how I was homeschooled as far as the kids
could walk around the class and pick things they wanted to do.
There was interest led learning.
They could move around, they could go outdoors.
They had this open space to their day of, all right, I can pick
and choose what I want to do.
And the teachers would pop in and out as they were needed and help direct the kids.
But it was, they had so much autonomy to what they were able to do.
So, that night I went home, decided I was gonna get training in Montessori.
I got certified the very next year.
I went through my one year internship and 500 training hours
or whatever, and got that done.
And then went into Montessori education.
A couple years into that is when Catherine and I went to temple Grandin's speech
and found you and then added this whole, whole other aspect added to, oh my gosh.
Here's where, you know, while Montessori education was originally based in
helping kids with special needs, there's this whole other aspect of the science
I didn't understand, and that Dr.
Montessori was also trying to understand and, you know, the neuro
neuro pathways that are formed and all of that with movement.
Anyway, so we had all that added to it, and then COVID happened, you know,
we were doing some, we were doing some sessions with families, but then
COVID happened and a lot changed with everybody, and Catherine and I decided
you know, this might be the time we want to start something at one acre farm.
And we did that.
So I left my Montessori teaching job.
We went into this together and it's been really great since then.
We just, we just keep on trucking.
Right.
So you,
Rupert Isaacson: you started Nicole with special ed and as in America, as we
know, a lot of people are funneled into applied behavioral analysis, A, b, A, and.
You know, like many of us, you found it restrictive.
Catherine Ward: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Coercive not joyful.
Then you found Montessori which is much closer in line with the
autonomy you've used that word.
I want to return to that word.
And why is autonomy important that you'd experience, you know, homeschooling
or being homeschooled in nature?
It's interesting that you were homeschooled because you know,
Catherine, you have been a teacher in the regular school system, right?
Yes.
So can you talk us a little bit through your background and career?
How did you as a regular teacher then decide, well,
actually I want to homeschool.
And then how have you brought those two things together into one acre farm
where you do have a school structure, but of course you're now using I.
Montessori movement method and other modalities, you know, altogether.
Can you just talk us through that trajectory, please?
Catherine Ward: Sure.
I could, let me go back a little bit.
So I was born in Texas, but raised in Louisiana.
My mom remarried when I was very young, and it was a very unique upbringing
because my, my father, my stepfather was one of the richest men in town.
So we lived in a huge mansion, but in our back acreage was all this livestock.
So I was kind of raised in a farm, like farm lifestyle.
I was also given that word a lot of autonomy with being
able to take care of animals.
And my mom was very down to earth and even though we lived such a
lavish life or we had access to that kind of wealth she raised me in a
very down to earth type mentality.
So I'm very grateful for that.
So that I think came to play later in life also, which, we'll,
we'll see the interconnection.
So then I came back to Texas in 1987 and then started college.
Well, I take that back.
When I was in New Orleans, I had.
I started college and my first major was psychology.
No, my first major was marine biology, and then I changed to psychology
and then I changed to pre-med, so I wanted to go into medical school.
And then we moved to Texas.
I finished all of my pre-med and got accepted into UTMB of Galveston
under their physical therapy program.
And they had only had out of, you know how many hundreds of applicants.
Only 30 were accepted.
And so I was accepted and right then before deciding to go to
medical school, I changed my major again and went into education.
And so I had to start my college pretty much all over again.
Went into education and graduated in early childhood or with elementary
pre-K to eighth, early childhood and reading specialization and
and my love of farm animals and teaching just kind of combined.
So when I was married, we had a little bit of acreage and then Nicole was
born to me and then her sister Kristen.
And it was even with my public school teaching.
So after graduation, I did teach in the public school system for a few years.
I taught kindergarten, first grade and third grade.
And then once I had children, I thought, oh my gosh, I don't wanna be away from
them and I know what the system is like, and I know that they are gonna be in this
white room for eight hours that I was in.
And so it became a philosophical and somewhat of a faith decision because I
also felt like, eight hours away from us.
That I, I wanted that influence on them spiritually and in their
faith and in their philosophy.
So the decision to homeschool was made.
I left teaching and then I, we homeschooled the girls their
whole career for homeschooling.
And, and as Nicole referred to, it was a very relaxed atmosphere.
We spent hours and hours outside and it was kind of naturally within me
to wanna follow their interest and follow what they were interested in.
And, oh, I'm so, I have so many squirrel moments.
It's like, oh, look, there's a bug.
Let's go look at that bug.
So we, their, their homeschooling was very casual.
Of course, we had some regimented things like, you have to learn math.
But for the most part because both of the girls were interested in horses, I made
sure that they could get horse lessons.
And so while we couldn't afford those types of things being on
one income we traded our work.
So we would go and muck stalls.
I think one of the places we went had like 23 stalls, and we would go every
day and muck in the morning, 23 stalls so that my girls could have lessons.
And then we borrowed horses from other people so that they could
then learn how to ride barrels.
And we were very fortunate that other people were willing
to work with us like that.
So both of the girls were, were able to follow their, their interest with horses.
Rupert Isaacson: So you are, you are there homeschooling, you are
trading your work for writing lessons.
You are doing it somewhat faith-based, but also because you just don't
want to be away from them.
I've got a question, which is that you, you, you mentioned having grown
up very wealthy, but then you are now a one income family where you need to
trade mucking out for horse lessons.
If you're a listener, you go, Ooh, what happened there?
What happened in that story?
Where'd the money go?
And how come you didn't sort of end up with that entitled attitude that you might
have ended up with, you know, growing up with, with, with money when the time
came that you didn't have money anymore?
Talk.
Talk us through those.
What's the missing bit of that story?
Catherine Ward: So, I mean, the first loss of money was when my mom
subsequently divorced my stepfather.
And so then there, that family unit was no, no longer connected in that split.
They did split the business.
They had several businesses.
We had car dealerships.
They built homes.
They had a boat shop.
He was into real estate, so there were all kinds of things within the, the many
different cookie jars that were in there.
And so, my mom had to start off as a single mom with myself and my sister.
And so she, in the divorce, she took over one of the boat shops.
And over the next few years, she became one of the most renowned
boat dealers in the United States because she was a woman and she grew
that one business into three more.
So she took it from one location to two more locations and and kind of became
a millionaire in her own right Then.
During that time, very sadly my sister was killed in, in an
airplane crash, a private airplane.
And that, that completely changed our family completely overnight.
To watch my mother grieve.
So deeply.
And then to watch my, my grandparents in their own grief, but then having
to help support her and support me.
And you know, when you look at your life as a timeline, my whole
life until the birth of my two daughters, my life always had that.in
my timeline is that was the anchor of my life before my sister
died and after my sister died.
And, and again, until Nicole and Kristen were born, that's how I measured my life.
And, and it did forever change us.
And it forever changed our outlook as a family and our connection.
During that time with my mom having a boat shop or a boat dealership?
There were a few there were a couple of of injuries that happened.
You know, like when you go to a boat show that's in a huge arena
someone tripped and fell and cut themself and of course sued her.
And then there were some other injuries.
And so those lawsuits just totally demolished the business, right.
It, it just destroyed the business.
So we lost money.
Then she got out of the business and decided to go into real estate and then
she made herself a millionaire again.
And and during that time, a lot of people and friends wanted her to co-sign
for their own businesses and she did.
She was very generous.
And and then those would flop and so she lost all of it again.
And then that was when we decided in 1987, you know what,
I'm gonna go back to my roots.
My mom was, would say this, I'm gonna go back to my roots.
Let's go back to Texas and I'll go back to teaching.
'cause she had been a school teacher before.
So we came back to Texas and she went back to teaching.
And then that's when I was entering college shortly after that.
Rupert Isaacson: Got
Catherine Ward: it.
And then, and then the lifestyle was just a very middle s middle class lifestyle.
And then when I got married, the same thing, just middle class.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
You, you mentioned I mean, it, it's very interesting 'cause it gives you multiple
perspectives on life, you know, to go from growing up wealthy to losing it all.
To intense grief to having, to making it again, to seeing a business
how business can be destroyed.
You know, and this is something which I think, you know, a lot of business
owners in America live justifiably in fear of that day that somebody sues
you know, business friendly country, but also business friendly for lawyers.
Sadly, you know, it, it, it can wipe people out, but it certainly,
I think, gives you an interesting place of empathy where you can say,
well, no matter who you're dealing with, I've, I've lived that lifestyle.
And at the end of the day, I know what's important.
You talk about faith-based, obviously for my non-American listeners, you know,
when you're listening from a European perspective and you hear about, you
know, Christian homeschooling, one thinks of, you know, armed compounds
in the woods and you know, ex extremism basically, and people being you know,
homeschooled so that they won't learn about Darwin and that sort of thing.
But your way of teaching at one acre farm is in no way like that.
So when you talk about faith I'd just like you to, to talk
about how, how you guys consider yourselves Christians and how that.
Works in an interplay, not just with science teaching, but also
with, you know, what values are.
You know?
Because again, many of us in, in Europe, we have a, a fear of religious
extremism because all our history is learning about religious wars and
witch burnings and things like that.
I'm like, well, we don't wanna go back there and we don't
want that kind of extremism.
We sometimes see that coming out of the USAA little bit.
But knowing you as ideal, I know that's not you guys at all.
So talk to me a little bit about how you weave your, your faith into what you do.
'cause I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's useful for us on the
European perspective to consider this.
Catherine Ward: I, I think for me, I've gone through some transformations through
the years and I would say that there was a time that I was very tunnel visioned in
that my philosophy was the only philosophy and, and or, or that the tenets of it are
a hundred percent the only way to think.
But then ironically, as I got exposed to the world, it was actually an
aha moment when I was at your ranch in Elgin at a training for Movement
Method and Horse Boy, where I met all these people from all over the world.
Here at the ranch and we were all learning Movement Method and Horse Boy
and, and I had gone there with such.
A thought process that, that I was, I had already prejudged all these
people before I had ever even met them.
And I was now surrounded by people that were so highly intelligent and all
had their own philosophies or faith.
But the, the common thing that I saw was kindness.
Kindness and unconditional love, which are the tenets of Christianity.
But I saw them, I saw it in people that I would've never pinpointed as
being the evangelical Christian type of western Christian that we have.
And that opened my mind to wow, there is, to me, it became a universal
truth in my heart, that kindness is of the utmost importance.
And so I came away from that and I started to do studies on
ancient religions and stuff.
And, and I found that through some of the, the, the basic first religions and
even Native American, that the common tenant through all of that one is that
they all believe there is a creator of whatever, whoever that creator is, at
least they acknowledge there's a creator.
And then second to that was just kindness and unconditional love.
And that I feel like every day when I wake up, that is what drives me every
day is to just to be kind to people.
And and I believe that as I see my daughters, both of them as adults,
that they have such huge, kind and compassionate and empathic.
Empathetic hearts.
I'm, I'm just very proud of them for, for being that way.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
It's, you know, I think what often gets lost in, in religion is spirituality,
you know, because of course, as soon as you, you have a, a church or a temple or
whatever one wants to call it, usually have a bloke, you know, standing there
with a jar that you can put your money in and it sort of goes from there.
Whereas of course, yes, one's relationship with the divine is one's
relationship with the divine and.
If there's a Christ message out there, I think as you say,
it's, it's love by neighbor.
Catherine Ward: Well, you had asked how we deal with that today at, at the school.
Yeah.
And so, we're not, we're not a faith-based school.
We don't advertise ourselves as such.
And, and I think that was a decision that Nicole and I made from the very beginning.
Mm-hmm.
That we did not want that, that, not that we were turning our back
on anything, but that that is not what we wanted as defining us.
And that we wanted to have an eclectic group of people and kids because we wanted
the, like-mindedness to be what is the goal of those parents for their children.
And we wanted, and those people can come from all walks of life
if the goal for their child is to be outdoors and to be free from
institutionalized type classroom.
And so we made that very conscious decision to not advertise
ourselves as faith-based because believe me, in this area I.
Where we are.
It, it, it could have flourished even that way.
But how I speak with, with our kids, 'cause I'm the teacher of
the elementary ages seven to 10.
And, and so we really delve deep in our subject matter
is all of a animal husbandry.
So like, let's say we're talking about chickens, we're gonna do the parts
of the body, the digestive system, reproductive system where did they
originate, how did they migrate?
And so we interconnect geography and history and all of the
subjects but studying chickens.
And we'll talk about DNA and we talk and especially in the reproductive system.
And, and then a lot of times I'll, I'll.
Tell the kids, there are two basic ways to look at the world.
You have one, one belief system that believes that everything
was created by a creator.
And then you have another that believes that everything was
happenstance through evolution.
But, and I tell 'em this is not where we discuss or debate that what
I want y'all is I want y'all to see how they can both be interconnected.
There are, there is science that supports both, and we are going to stay
open-minded and look at the development of chickens or goats or whatever from
that perspective and see that there's probably bits of truth in both of it.
And, and I want them to kind of just become their own independent thinkers.
And the parents have always been very supportive and very
appreciative that we approach science in, in that way with the kids.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I mean, you talk about the need to, this word autonomy has come up and
of course autonomy is an intellectual process as well as deciding what I
want to do from moment to moment.
Nicole, why do you feel autonomy is so important in the development
of, of a human talk, talk, talk, talk to us about this.
Nicole Jones: I think this goes back to as I was writing some things down as my
mom was speaking, because her and I, I, it's been a while since we've talked about
this subject, so I think this is good.
I agree with a, a main goal of mine is to let kids be able to think for themselves
because the, the systems that we put them through, tell them how to think,
tell them what to do, tell them when to do it, and then they come out of the
system and they don't know what to do.
They don't know how to start a business.
They don't know how to balance their, their bank accounts.
They don't know how to take care of animals that like these basic human.
Just everyday requirements that we have as, as adults that my friends at
30 still don't know how to do because they went through the public school.
Like just those things that if you don't know how to do something, that
you can go and figure out how to do it.
So having that self-directed autonomy that homeschooling gives you, that farm
schooling, gives you that movement method.
Those types of based educational methods give you it.
It doesn't matter what walk in life you're going to do, if you want
to change careers or if you, you.
Decide to take a left turn somewhere.
If you have those skills in, okay, I can do this and figure it out because I've
had the autonomy and the practice of I want to start lemonade stand, or I want
to figure out how I can afford to keep a horse for the year, you know, those
kinds of things then you're gonna be able to succeed in, in just about anything.
And I think it's important to start that very, very young.
I teach the kids ages four to seven and these little four year olds, and
sometimes we have three year olds they're feeding the animals themselves.
They come and tell us like, that animal's poop looks different
today than it did yesterday.
Or do we need to check and make sure it's sick?
Like, just those observational things that we have lost being out of nature.
And so being, basically being able to, to allow kids to think for themselves
and be those independent thinkers and autonomy with your day gives you that.
And it doesn't mean that we just let kids go and run around and
do whatever they want to do.
You know, there's a boundary to, okay, you wanna throw mud, that's fine.
You can't throw it at other kids, but you can go throw mud at the fence and
you can figure out how far you can get it and who can get it farther?
Who can, does this mud stick to the tree?
Does it not stick to this tree?
And so we kind of approach everything with that.
And that's based in, in our movement method training and horse boy
training that we did years ago, it, it really kind of pieced together
things that we were already doing and experienced and found very important.
And just was that final piece to, to make it all connect and make sense.
So,
Rupert Isaacson: well you used the word connect, so Yeah.
I mean, it, it's a well-known thing within.
Psychology, as you guys both know, autonomy and connectedness, right?
That's always those, those seem to be the two fundamental human,
psychological, social needs.
We need enough autonomy that we feel self-actualized and we need enough
connectedness that we feel supported.
Connected.
And why would that be?
Well, we're herd animals.
At the end of the day.
We're pack animals, we're middle tier predators.
And our only way of being top predator is by talking to each other and strategizing.
And the moment one of us ends up two autonomous, actually out on a limb,
well, that's when the hyenas get you.
But of course not enough autonomy.
Well then there's no innovation.
And it seems that because in a hunting and gathering society, there are
more opportunities for connectedness than there are for autonomy.
In, in our evolution, our social evolution autonomy has been a bit of
a, sort of a luxury, a novel thing.
So we tend to seek it out in the same way that we seek out sweet foods or
fatty foods, because in the wild, those are in somewhat short supply and they're
nutrition packed and energy packed.
So we're gonna gravitate towards those.
Now we've, you know, got a society where that's kind of all that's on
offer and it's killing us, but we're still, we have a genetic drive for it.
Like we have a genetic drive for autonomy.
But one of the things which we can often see is that.
Too much autonomy, oddly enough, can also stand in the way of happiness and success.
And you, you know, the, when the kids are working out what they
wanna do, how they wanna spend their time, and making these decisions.
You also, of course, are having to teach 'em about connectedness.
How do you work with a group?
And specifically how do you seek out mentorship?
How do you know what you don't know?
And go and find out about that, you know, as you need it.
Talk to how, how do you, how do you foster that in kids?
I, I'll go back to you, Catherine, and then I want to come back to
you as, as well, Nicole, on this.
So the autonomy part?
Yes.
Let's talk about the connectedness part.
Catherine Ward: Well, I think far autonomy there, you can gain
greater autonomy by the more.
You learn, the more skills you have then give you more
independence for other things.
And so as the kids come in we of course train them on the, the routines of what
we have to do for caring for the animals.
So in our outdoor school, it's a five hour school and the first two to two
and a half hours is spent outside.
When they arrive.
We both, the early childhood, Nicole, what Nicole's over and the elementary,
they're given, you know, an hour or so of time to just roam the farm,
go play, connect with their friends.
This is at the start
Rupert Isaacson: of the school day.
Catherine Ward: This is at the start of the school day.
Right.
The
Rupert Isaacson: sort of zero hour, if you like.
Catherine Ward: Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's a rival and it's time for them to transition from
being home to now being here.
Mm-hmm.
And, and they're excited.
I mean, they're social creatures, so of course they want to see their friends.
And so we allow that.
And I.
We know from experience and from also our, our, our both of our backgrounds
and our trainings both formally with, with college and through movement
method and so forth, that kids, kids' brains just need time to, to adjust.
So we give them that time, their freedom in the morning,
and then we kind of regroup.
And at the beginning of the school year, and then as the the months go
on, we're teaching them the skills of how to care for the animals.
They're given farm jobs.
Each child is given a farm job.
When they reach up to elementary age, they're put together as teams.
And so now as a team, they have to do a farm job.
And it might be actually scooping poop, scooping the horse poop,
putting it in the compost pile.
And then we have another compost pile where they have to dig it and
fill up manure bags because we sell manure to the community to make
money back to help pay for the food.
With the, I'll let Nicole speak about her early childhood kids.
I didn't, I I don't wanna step on your toes, Nicole.
The, there is a lot of poop talk because we have so many animals
and there's a lot of poop.
Yeah.
And, and, but with that, they learn how to observe animals.
Poop lets them know immediately if an animal is sick.
And, and so then we're able to tend to the animals.
The the skills of, of how to administer medications, how to, how to muck stalls,
how to just all the things that go surrounding taking care of the animals.
But then we also give them skills on orienteering.
With compasses.
We let 'em we let 'em use tools, we let them dig holes, we let them be dirty.
And then within our, oh, and we Nature Journal, we encourage them to do nature
journaling, and then whatever subject matter we're learning, we try to
encourage them to go find more things out.
Like if we're talking about the chickens, well then they'll do some
observations with chickens or go and just hang out in the chicken
pen and have some interactions.
So there's all of that gets connected.
And then as their skills grow, well then they, they actually
gain more independence.
So by the time we get to later in the school year, well,
they have more independence to go do projects on their own.
And Nicole, you'll have to remind me, there's someone that has said that
I may mess up the quote, but where you allow children to do dangerous
things carefully, is that it?
Nicole Jones: Danger, allow children to do dangerous things.
I don't, no.
Catherine Ward: Carefully ca
Nicole Jones: basically, it's, it's if they're doing it safely.
Yeah.
Like if they're doing it with enough caution, let them
try, let them take the risk.
Yeah.
Is the.
Catherine Ward: That's one of the things that, that we got.
I think also as, I think it's Richard Lu, it's either Richard Lu or Peter Gray.
My personality and Nicole's personality is very hands off.
We want kids to just explore and make mistakes.
And what we've tried to do here at One Acre Farm is within the, the
four walls of the privacy fence that we've provided a safe environment
that it can be a yes environment, which is what we learned from you.
We did, you know, I need to kind of go back.
There was so much that we've learned from you and with you that, that I'd like to
share with your listeners how we met.
And so my daughter Nicole had gone into education and and
with into special education and she wanted to go listen to Dr.
Temple Grandin.
And I said, oh my gosh, I wanna go, I know of her because of her agricultural stuff.
So we go to this place here in Houston to go listen to Temple.
And it's much like when you go to a music concert, you're, you're going
to hear the headlining musician or the headlining band, but then you have
the little opening act beforehand.
So you were the opening act and you walk out on the stage and you're, you looked
like you had just walked off the ranch.
You had your jeans.
Rupert Isaacson: I probably had, yeah, you probably had,
Catherine Ward: yeah, you've got your long hair.
I mean your, your signature look that you have.
And I turned, and I, I looked at my daughter and I kind of rolled my eyes.
Honestly, you hadn't even opened your mouth yet.
And I rolled my eyes.
I think you were
Rupert Isaacson: the first person to have had that reflecting to me.
Catherine Ward: And I looked at her, I said, oh my gosh, we have to listen
to this guy before Temple comes on.
And she's like, it'll be okay, mama.
He probably won't talk that long.
Rupert Isaacson: So, didn't know me that well yet.
Yeah,
Catherine Ward: yeah.
So, but then your mouth opened, you started speaking, you started sharing
your story of Rowan, you started sharing.
The things that you did to help him and how Movement Method and Horse Boy
were all developed and the whole time, Nicole and I are both elbowing each
other because everything that came outta your mouth was exactly how we
homeschooled and how they were raised.
And I just kept having, it was almost like some people when they talk about
going to church and that God is talking to them, that there's that light shining.
So I did, I felt like, I think
Rupert Isaacson: anyone's made that comparison to me before,
Catherine Ward: but I did and I felt like, oh my gosh, this
guy is speaking right to me.
And now I knew that, 'cause I, I had spent so many years feeling
alone 'cause there was nobody else around me homeschooling like this.
And, and we were just kind of the oddballs in the homeschooling community.
So now fast forward, she's an adult, we're listening to you.
And now I didn't want you to stop speaking.
I wanted to keep hearing you.
And of course we were very grateful to, to hear Dr.
Temple also.
But afterwards we made a beeline to go meet you, buy a book, and
then she and I signed up to come to training at your place with them.
I think the ranch that summer, it was like just a couple months later.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And and it was just so, edifying to now find that, that what we had been doing
all along had a name or it had, it had science behind it because you obviously
have done all the science research for it.
So it was a very, it was a very comfortable place.
It was, it was like, this is the very next step that our life needs to take.
And at the end of, and I've heard you do this 'cause I've seen you speak
many times, and when you encourage people to use their life and what they
have to include people with autism into their life, you made it very
clear that, that you may think you're gonna be imparting something to them.
But what in fact actually happens is that you receive so much more from that
person with autism that they give back to you and that they are the dream givers.
And, and that's exactly what happened.
So I came back from training and everything else and we were like, this
is the next step for one acre farm.
So from 1999 to 2016, we had been doing all these classes and then it
was like, no, this is the next step.
We are going to become inclusive with all of our activities and we're
gonna start private autism sessions.
And, and we have never looked back from that decision.
Ever, ever.
So thank you Rupert for that.
Rupert Isaacson: Oh, it's my great pleasure.
I mean you, where are we talking about connectivity?
Connection, connectedness I think.
A a lot of us started in this place, and I'm sure most listeners who
are equine assisted practitioners started in this place or might still
be in this place of loneliness.
When you tread a bit of a pioneering path, it's lonely.
And when you are a special needs parent with a, with a nonverbal kid,
you're, it's lonely because you're, you're not really talking and the,
there, there's a lot of loneliness.
And so for, for me, I know the great gift, one of the many great
gifts of doing this work has been the connectedness of community with
people like you all and like with the people who are listening to this.
So to realize, oh my gosh, we actually are all one tribe.
We actually are all one community.
It's just that we're a little bit spread out geographically from
each other, but we have community.
We're out there and listening to you between the lines, talking about the,
this sort of zero hour where the kids come in and get to socialize before move
and socialize and explore together before they have to sit down and listen to old
boring adult, you know, saying, okay, now let's look at the DNA of chickens.
Interesting as that is, they are the fact that they're allowed to have
their time to not just transition into the school day, but also.
To explore their own connection and community.
And then you begin to organize them in teams.
This is actually quite groundbreaking because you, you know, yes.
You, you hear about project based education.
It's coming in more and more in the mainstream, but it's, you know,
we all know that unless you have a, a, a, a teacher that really
has that personality, it's likely to be a little bit lip service.
You know, you guys really do it.
Can you, Nicole, talk, talk to me about co connectedness
and how do you encourage kids?
Because you, you're encouraging to be independent minded, but you also
need to encourage them to learn how to seek out information, right?
Who to ask, who to research, how to just 'cause somebody says something
doesn't mean it's necessarily true.
Dah dah, dah.
You know, how do you approach all that?
Nicole Jones: Well, I think we have a couple of really
good things working for us.
One being we have the multi age range.
So my class is ages four to seven.
Catherine's class is ages seven to 10.
That comes back being based in the Montessori practices of having a three
year age range and the importance in that.
And so we already, now we do have a small class size.
The early childhood class goes up to about 13 and then elementary
fluctuates anywhere from 13 to 16.
Mm-hmm.
Roundabout per day.
Now that we will have more students than that during the week, because some come
partial week and some come the full week.
But in a given day it's 13 to 16 kids per class.
So in that 13 kids, we've got a third are the oldest, or a third are the middle.
And a third are the youngest typically is how it would go.
So whenever we start a school year, we're not getting this influx of.
Brand new children.
A, a class of brand new children.
It's 60% of the kids are still retained from the following
year or from the previous year.
And the new kids coming on are learning from the kids who
are already having New Year.
Ah, so
Rupert Isaacson: there's mental, there's age to age.
Yes.
Absolute peer mentorship within the Yeah.
Got it.
Nicole Jones: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: If you're in the equine assisted field, or if you're
considering a career in the equine assisted field, you might want to consider
taking one of our three neuroscience backed equine assisted programs.
Horseboy method, now established for 20 years, is the original
Equine assisted program specifically designed for autism, mentored by and
developed in conjunction with Dr.
Temple Grandin and many other neuroscientists.
We work in the saddle with younger children.
Helping them create oxytocin in their bodies and neuroplasticity in the brain.
It works incredibly well.
It's now in about 40 countries.
Check it out.
If you're working without horses, you might want to look at movement
method, which gets a very, very similar effect, but can also be
applied in schools, in homes.
If you're working with families, you can give them really tangible exercises to do
at home that will create neuroplasticity.
when they're not with you.
Finally, we have taquine equine integration.
If you know anything about our programs, you know that we need a
really high standard of horsemanship in order to create the oxytocin
in the body of the person that we're working with, child or adult.
So, this means we need to train a horse in collection, but this
also has a really beneficial effect on the horse's well being.
And it also ends your time conflict, where you're wondering, oh my gosh, how
am I going to condition my horses and maintain them and give them what they
need, as well as Serving my clients.
Takine equine integration aimed at a more adult client base
absolutely gives you this.
Nicole Jones: So, you know.
Five and six year olds are teaching three and four year olds how to how to observe
body animals operate heavy equipment.
No, I'm kidding.
Yeah.
No, no, not yet.
No, not yet.
You know how to feed the animals?
Well, you can't pull that in the garden.
That's an herb.
We, we don't pull that one, but you can pull this weed
and go give it to the goats.
So all of those things that.
While us as teachers could interject more, not, we don't want to, we would have to
be doing that if we didn't have that kind of peer modeling and mentorship going on.
And it's not only good for the, the younger kids who get that peer-to-peer
learning, but it's so beneficial.
For the oldest kids in the classroom that then are building those leadership skills.
And we start to see, especially that third year and this is true
of Montessori classrooms as well.
We see those kids in that third year start to really emerge as leaders because, you
know, they've been through learning from other kids, they've learned from us.
That second year is a lot more experimental in what they
do and the boundaries they push and that sort of thing.
And that third year we get like these really great leaders that know
how everything works on the farm.
They're, they're like the cool kids because they know where all the cool
spots are and well, I know where to find this plant and I know where to get this.
And so all these younger kids come to them and they, and they get to
pass that on to the other kids.
So we all already, with just the multi ages, get that sense of community
building from kids just asking each other questions and kids wanting to, to help.
And we do have a very good retention rate.
We don't lose very many students.
Most of them tend to stay with us.
Typically we will where we lose students the most is that kindergartner,
first grade year, the families that come to us that they're like, I
just want something for a couple years before we send them to public.
We do get that and we understand that.
But the majority of our kids tend to retain and stay with us and, and
then move up to the elementary class.
So we're now in this.
This year was really cool because this was the first year that we had
kids go all the way through the three years in the early childhood class
and then graduate up to elementary.
And we've seen this cool change happen from our pilot year to now where
we've just got these kids that have I don't wanna say more common sense, but
more farm common sense because they, they've been with us for these three
years and they know how everything works and they're, they're able
to go deeper into their questions.
While they may have studied chickens and horses and pollination and composting in
the early childhood class, well now they get to dive even deeper in elementary
and go way more into how this all works at a, at a science based level and not
just, oh, this is, this is a cool lesson.
And so, we already get that building of community just through
the information sharing and the way they structure their day.
Our class tends to get really connected really quickly.
It's, it's a different class in August at the start of the school
year than it is in December.
Usually around November, December, we've seen the friendships deepen a lot.
They've.
They ha the kids have learned how the schedule of the day works, what,
you know, how much freedom they have.
Because a lot of times the, those new kids that come in, they have
not spent a lot of time outdoors.
Most half of our kids have never even had pets of any kind.
I mean, not even a fish that, so a, a big chunk of our kids come
and this is the first time they've ever been around animals at all.
So we do a lot of working with read, observing and reading body language
of animals, the sounds they make.
And a lot of the older kids will help the younger ones learn that as well.
And so anyway, by the time we get to November, December, our class
has really normalized and, and we're not having to step in as much.
We are really able to take a step back a lot and just watch the
children spend their time on the farm and get into their projects and
observe an anthill for 20 minutes.
Go birdwatching.
I mean, we have birds that build nests right next to the classroom,
and then we get to hear the owls in the woods behind us.
So they all go off and do their things and they play tag and do their games.
But there's also so much immersive nature involved in it that the children that
are interested in similar things tend to pair up and, and do things together.
And so the, the friendships go grow really quick.
And by November, December, we've got a really, really solid and connected class.
Catherine Ward: To bounce off of something that she said about some of
the kids that we lose that go to public school at kindergarten or first grade.
They will come because our school are we actually go year round.
So we do a regular 10 month from August to May, but then we have a summer session.
And so those kids have all come back every summer to do their
two months of summer farm school.
In between one of the, the students I don't remember if it was our pilot
year or our second year, Nicole, but we had a, a mom come to us in tears.
So this was during our interview process of her wanting to enroll her child and
she was crying because her child had already been kicked out of three other
preschools kicked out of preschool, and I.
And
Rupert Isaacson: for what?
Catherine Ward: For moving, moving around and not napping, not
sitting down, that sort of thing.
And so being a kid basically.
Yeah.
Being, yeah.
Yeah.
Just being a kid.
And so it didn't, now, while Nicole and I, we didn't show this to her, but
we're we're shocked at the fact that a preschool would even kick a kid out.
That was our shock.
Our shock wasn't about, about the behavior.
And, and so she's like, you're, so, you're gonna take him?
And we're like, yeah, sure.
You're not afraid.
No, we're not afraid.
No.
And do you know that, that we never, not once had any problems with him.
He needed that movement and all of that stuff.
And so I think there are some kids that can conform.
I don't think they perform at their top level, but there are also gonna be those
kids that just cannot conform to an institution, institutionalized classroom.
And and so he then they did send him on to public school after he finished with us.
And but he comes back every, every summer and, and, and you don't
Nicole Jones: have to tell him how to feed the goats and the, he remembers Yeah.
From the year before.
And so it has stuck with him.
So it's, it's been nice to be able to see those kids come back and see
how, how, how much that this place has meant to them and how it stuck with
them even three, four years later.
Yep.
So that's a unique thing that I don't know of any other school that does
that take, because even Montessori schools won't take kids during the
summer that have been previous students.
So it's kind of a unique thing we get to experience.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
You guys have gluttons for punishment 'cause you get, you get no holiday no
Catherine Ward: breaks tough.
No.
None.
And I think too for like, say for that child, 'cause we have other kids
that have gone on to public school.
Actually we had one that went on to public school and then they took 'em out and
brought them back to farm school because they were not performing well at all.
And the kid just really wanted to be back at farm school.
But like with the ones that do, on the ones that do go on, I think the
amount of time that they've been given to become independent and
autonomous and the confidence that they get from learning the skills,
and I think they also learn patience.
They, there are a lot of things that, that just stroke their, their personality,
that they're, they are, they now have the skills to conform to those
demands of an institutional classroom.
Rupert Isaacson: What, what's interesting, what it sounds like
what you're describing is, is emo the teaching of emotional intelligence.
Catherine Ward: Mm-hmm.
Rupert Isaacson: And you know, we all know Yeah.
Academics are one thing.
And we'll get into the academics you, you deliver and how you deliver them next.
But we, listening to you talk makes me think of a, a, a, a really a.
Great movement method teacher that we know in Colorado, Cade, who teaches at
Evans Elementary in Colorado Springs.
And he says that after about is, and this is very much within the,
you know, the regular system, but of course he's taking the same approach.
He says that by the time the kids are about 10 weeks in, their brains have
developed to such a degree through the movement and the project based thing and
the mutual support that they go from the standard sort of them and us teacher, you
know, children versus the teacher thing.
'cause that's obviously what they've, you know, come in with to being able to
go off and learn independently in small groups in other parts of the school.
And he says, you know, I send out my little spies, you know, to see what are
they actually doing, you know, and yes, they are that, it's like he says the,
the, the, the brain development that you have a different child after 10 weeks,
the, the, the, the, the neuroplasticity has really kicked in and we, we see
this time and again, but he's not able to work, you know, as as you are.
Because you know, your campus is your own and you have the
animals and, and so forth.
Talk to me about.
The academics that you deliver.
So if I was a, if I was a, a parent, say, well, this all sounds great guys, but you
know, I want my kid to go on and get their SATs, or if it was in English England, it
would be their GCSEs or whatever, and I want 'em to get onto college and so on.
Can you really tell me that this way you're going to deliver the
national curriculum this way?
I imagine that you're gonna say, well, yeah, sure, but tell me the nuts and
bolts of, of how so, so, Nicole, I, I'll throw that one to you first.
I'm the skeptical parent.
Well, this all sounds great, but it sounds also a bit hippie.
Okay.
Hippies actually rule the world, but hey how can you reassure me that you are going
to equip my child academically in the same way as if they were in the public school?
Nicole Jones: Yeah.
Well usually when I start out, parents typically will meet me at a torque.
And so we walk them through the whole the farm, the classroom, go
over the educational philosophy and go over the curriculum.
And so at some point in there, I will throw in, I was homeschooled
right here in this community, right next door to the farm.
Like, so, and I turned out to be a normal human being.
Normal human being.
I went to college, I graduated high school with college credits,
you know, so like, it, it, first of all, you're talking to somebody
who's proof in the pudding, right?
So Right.
You're the proof of concept.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Right.
Nicole Jones: Exactly.
And so here we are just creating this.
For while, while I did it at a a family level.
Here we are creating this for a classroom, small class size level.
And so, starting off with that, when people find out, oh, you were actually
homeschooled and you went okay, it eases the conversation a little bit.
But then when, when we walk through the indoor portion of class because
the kids do spend two and a half hours outside before we even go
in for any kind of academics.
And then even when we go inside, they're eating first, washing their hands, getting
some movement out a little bit more before we even sit into any kind of a lesson.
And so our classroom, the early childhood classroom is set up as you would
see a typical Montessori classroom.
So we have fine motor work, practical life, all the things to
help develop the hand for writing.
We've got sensorial work, which is working with a lot of pieces,
discrimination objects and things like that, math language and science.
And our science and geography changes monthly depending on what we're
studying and what the seasons bring us.
So while we advertise, we are supplemental curriculum to what you're
doing at home, we really do teach a full curriculum in that two and
a half hours that they're indoors.
And I've had classes as with as many as 40 kids, and in that two and a half
hours, I get more done with those 13 kids than I ever got done in eight
hours, even in a Montessori setting.
And so, and our parents do get.
A pretty comprehensive progress report twice a year of things that they're doing.
And so they can look at those things and match it to, in Texas we have the
teaks, that's the, our Texas educational code of what they're learning as far
as math and reading and things goes.
But we can teach anything from early numeracy and learning letter sounds
to, you know, writing sentences and writing stories to long division.
And so, because we also have the flexibility to be able to make curriculum
as we need it you know, I've had some years, I've had a 6-year-old that
was at like a fourth grade reading level, and so I just made things that
she needed and got and for, you know, what she was on level for and we're
able to adapt what the kids need.
And so because it's a Montessori classroom that's already set up for your age range
of about three years of an age range while it may look like how can you fit three
years of curriculum in here, the materials that we're using and the curriculum that
we create is so flexible in what we can do with them, that we can be using this
for, you know, a 4-year-old and then also be using this for a 7-year-old
in long division and multiplication.
So, it's, it's very, the materials are very comprehensive in what they're,
we're able to, to offer to them.
So usually once we go through the curriculum areas and, and that
sort of thing that we don't have too many skeptics after that.
But, but typically and, and it, you know, we do have those people where it just
doesn't fit with them and that's fine.
We don't want them to come if, if, if that's not what they're about.
It's, but typically the people that seek us out are wanting the small
class size, the movement, the outdoors, the animals that typically is what,
what the families that come to us.
That's one of the things that they're wanting.
And the, the families that get the most out of this are the ones that have
academics lower on their, on their list.
Because as we all know, everything that they do outdoors as far as the
autonomy, going back to that, that creates so much executive functioning
skills that, okay, if you've had two hours outside to be autonomous in what
you wanna do with your day, well then when you get this big huge math problem,
you now have the executive functioning skills to go through this math problem
that might take you 20, 30 minutes.
Whereas if I was leading you through your day and you don't know, I
don't know how to get this math problem done, I need a teacher to
sit here and tell me step by step.
So we try and it's a lot of educating parents because a lot of them already
have a feeling of, okay, I, I feel like this is right, but I don't know why.
Like I, you know, I don't know how to justify it.
And so once we're able to.
To go through the science of it and, and show proof of concept.
We really get a lot of people that just, they take a breath,
okay, this, this is gonna be fine.
And, and then the ones that, that don't, aren't attracted to those
kinds of things, we, we send 'em off.
We, we don't want, we don't want them in our program.
Rupert Isaacson: Give, gimme a concrete example.
Let's say I'm a kid and I, I'm having trouble with long division.
How would you set up my day?
Like I'm sure you're, you're strategizing right?
Saying, okay, Rupert's got trouble with long division, so we're going to
start his day like this, and then we're gonna look at this thing with animals.
We're gonna look at this thing.
We the horse, we're gonna look at this thing with the plants.
And then once I am inside and I've gone through that and now I'm faced with the
long division exercise, how do you present it to me and how do you help me through?
So can you talk me through the day from start to finish?
You've got you, you've got your eye on me.
Okay.
Root need to help with the long division.
Off we go.
Yeah.
Nicole Jones: So I wanna make sure if I know that a kid's been struggling with
something in particular I wanna make sure that they've gotten the opportunity
to get the movement out in the morning.
We have four different types of swings on the farm.
So I, you, we try to have, make sure kids have opportunity for swinging.
I tend to find a lot of the kids that struggle with.
Reading will tend to be on the swing more.
I don't know if that's a specific connection, it's just
an observation that I've had.
And so I don't know if it has to do with those oral skills and things
like that, but I tend to see that.
So we wanna make sure they've done what they want outside.
They've gotten their movement out.
They've spent lots of time with the animals.
Usually that will really help if, if they can go spend more time with the
goats or the chickens or the rabbits.
It tends to calm the, the nervous system down before we go indoors.
So I want to hopefully see them get some animal time as well, and not just
the running and, and energetic stuff.
So that tends to help.
And then by the time we go indoors, we don't structure a kid's day and that okay,
you have to start and we're immediately gonna do this math problem that you hate.
Once kids in the early childhood class reach about six years old, they
actually get a work plan for the week.
And so it's, here's your things that you have to accomplish this week.
You can pick Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and you get to
structure your week as you see fit.
Now that doesn't mean that because you have handwriting and reading this
book with me and long division and multiplication, that you have to do that
all first we allow for some art time or something else before we get to that.
So it's more on the teachers to go, okay, let me observe and, and kind of
help push them and guide them to get it done when we know it's about time.
But we're still making sure that they have time for that autonomy
and get those things done.
So when it comes to that long division problem, maybe they didn't wanna do it on
Monday, maybe it's coming up on Wednesday.
So I know on Wednesday I need to make sure that around 1130 we're gonna get
started with that long division problem.
We, one of the things that's unique about Montessori materials,
especially in the math curriculum, is everything is concrete.
Nothing is done on paper first.
Everything is done with very physical materials first before
you ever get to anything on paper.
And that's also something we have to explain is that you're
not to parents, you're not going to see a lot of work come home.
And while that made to you look like, oh my gosh, my kid didn't do anything
academic because it didn't come home on paper, it's because we're using the
physical materials in school and they might not be at the point where they're
writing it down on paper yet, because that's a little bit too abstract.
Now, eventually we get to that, but we're working with place value.
So the unit bead, the 10 bar, the a hundred square, the thousand cubes.
So they're understanding quantities and place values before we get to
those really hard problems on paper.
So they start doing addition, subtraction, multiplication, division with the
quantities before it ever gets onto paper.
So then by the time they're really familiar with that, well then we
can actually start doing it on.
Paper with the materials, because by then they're already starting to get it.
And these kids will already start to, to visualize the math in their head.
And it's when they get about to the point where they're no longer using
the materials that they're just telling you, oh, I know the answer is 2,192.
Well then, okay, we're ready for paper now.
We can, we can get rid of that and go to paper.
And so a lot of it is the, the preparatory work for the day, just
making sure they've had their outlet for sensory and movement needs.
And then they also have autonomy of when they do those really hard
things that they may not like.
Now it's, it's not that I say, okay, well you get to do whatever you want this week.
You do have to get these certain things done because we do need to ensure you
are getting reading done, you are getting your math done, but there's avenues in
which way you can choose to get that done.
So maybe we're not reading a book, maybe we're matching parts of a story.
So we, you know, we have a book with sentences and they have to match pictures
to the correct page or we're matching pictures towards, so there's different,
different reading aspects we can do.
We've also got where they have to read an activity and so then
it's like, go jump on a rug.
So then they go jump on a rug.
Okay, go find a cup.
And so then we've got movement involved in the reading and they're
moving around the classroom, but they're still doing reading.
So those are the kinds of things that we kind of.
Add into the class to, to make it work.
I don't know if that answers
Rupert Isaacson: No, it totally makes sense.
Okay.
And, and I, I think it's really useful to have this broken down for people because,
you know, you know, and I know we've gone through this period, this process
of having to learn to become educators.
I did it kicking and screaming.
I didn't want to be, I just kind of had to.
And then how to break these things down, as you say, you know, doing
with physical things and then moving from physical things with moving.
'cause when you move, when you use physical things, you are still moving.
Right.
And then to the abstract.
And then as you say, making sure that the, the sensory and
physical needs are met first.
And as you know, with movement method, we sort of sprinkle the concept
into the movement long before we ask a kid to tackle an exercise.
If you, if you like, and I, I know with Montessori it's very similar, you know,
Catherine, when you, when you are now dealing with the elementary kids and
it's getting a little bit more academic based again, how, and, and this kid
might well, will, is gonna have to, at this stage, transition back into
something more mainstream by the time they hit middle school or high school.
So you, you have that presumably in your mind, okay, I have to prepare
these kids to be able to thrive.
I.
When they don't have the luxury of one acre farm what are your
strategies for making sure that that transition happens at least
academically, relatively seamlessly?
Catherine Ward: I would first say that most, most of our elementary
kids are obviously because of their age, they're being homeschooled.
Mm-hmm.
Most of them continue to be homeschooled even after they're done with
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
After they out.
So you, you are like a homeschooling backup.
You like.
Yes.
They would consider sending them to home one acre farm even though it's
a school as part of homeschooling, even though it is actually Yes.
Sort of isn't really homeschooling, but Okay, I see what in those parents'
mind, it comes under that banner.
Catherine Ward: Yes.
Well, and, and Nicole said the, the word earlier that we're supplemental,
so we don't advertise and say we are a full curriculum school.
Right.
We are supplemental education.
Right.
So, now while the early childhood that Nicole is over is a
full four day program mm-hmm.
Some kids only go two days.
The elementary is not offered all four days.
For right now, we've chosen just two days out of the week.
Mainly because our philosophy of thinking is that, well, if you're, if
you have a child at home, age seven to 10, you've chosen to homeschool.
So the bulk of their academics are gonna be taught at home.
And so we're supplemental.
So they come to us for two days out of the week.
Now that doesn't mean that we don't focus on academics.
We certainly do interconnect them, but we're not providing a full math curriculum
or a full language arts curriculum.
So our, our elementary is more focused on the sciences.
Of, of all of the animals, animal husbandry.
But within the studying of those animals and gardening we, we bring
in reading because they then have to read books, do book reports.
We bring in geography and history because we study the migration of animals, whether
it was natural or through explorers.
And, but through that, my main focus, because they think it's fun
at this point, a book report is not something they roll their eyes at.
They're excited to write something about chickens.
And we take it much like Nicole describes taking things in steps.
We start off teaching them observation skills.
When they're outside, we want them to observe.
And then with nature journaling, what are, what are you observing?
Write that down.
What are some?
And if they're not writers yet, then, then we'll, we'll write for them as they
dictate what are, what are the adjectives?
What are we, we want them to become more creative in their writing as they observe.
So then when they come inside then they can take those skills.
And, and I really try to give them observation skills of what are they
observing in the books and how to express yourself in writing, how to
write complete thoughts within sentences.
And.
And so they, they come to that.
So my, while my focus is studying about the animals, I'm not trying
to get them a vet degree, but it is a means to an end, I guess.
So we use the animals and their interest in all of that to
get those other subjects in.
And so hopefully when they're done, if they leave us at age 10, then they've,
they've got those writing skills and those research skills and those things
that they need as a foundation to transition into middle school, whether
it's institutionalized or, or at home.
And and so right now, the way we have the curriculum set up, the
parents don't come in expecting that they're going to be getting algebra
or, or pre-algebra or any of that.
They're very accepting of the curriculum that, that we provide.
Rupert Isaacson: Would you rise to the challenge of
doing algebra and pre-algebra?
Catherine Ward: I, I would, you and I have had these conversations, I
would I would, I would have to take a refresher course myself a little bit.
But one thing I will say that we've added this year that has, we're, 'cause every
year we, we tend to kick it up a notch.
We add more and we make the program a lot a lot more flourishing.
And so this year, while it doesn't have to do with algebra, we are
doing a presentation project.
So the kids, in fact, we're on spring break right now.
They come back next week and they're gonna spend about five weeks
in teams with a subject matter.
And then we're gonna have a presentation night where all the families at the
home of the farm school are invited in and they're gonna have these
display boards and be able to give speeches and talk about their display
and the things that they've learned.
And so that's something we've never done in the elementary program before.
So we're adding that this year.
And we have discussed, I can tell you that, that.
Probably half of our parents in the elementary ask, when
are you gonna offer a four day?
Because they would send their child here for the whole four days.
We, Nicole and I just have not made it to that decision level yet.
There's a lot of working parts.
I'm sure that's a
Rupert Isaacson: staffing issue too.
Yeah, it's,
Catherine Ward: Very much so because the, the other two days that I'm not teaching,
well, that's when I'm on the tractor doing tractor work or, or fence repairs or, so
if I now then had to teach four days when, and I'm still doing, and then the autism
Nicole Jones: sessions as well, right?
Catherine Ward: Yeah.
So when school is over at, in the afternoon, I'm doing
private autism sessions.
So unless you can find a, a doctor to clone a me Yeah.
So, so it's a logistical staffing issue to not expand that more.
But yes, we do have visions of expanding and possibly expanding curriculum.
We're just not, we're just not there yet.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, you'll be pleased to know, i'm on it as well because those
people that know movement method, now math and science curriculums know that I don't
write those because I'm not qualified to.
So I, you know, I, I could figure out the very early basic stuff with
homeschooling, but as you guys know we turned to an amazing man called Dr.
Alfred Ziegler who was a he's retired from there now, but he was a, a
physics professor at the University of Ossner Brook, which is a very
prestigious university in Germany.
And he came up with all our higher math and science movement method curriculum.
And so I've just been making a little note to myself here.
I go back to Dr.
Alfie for our kinetic al algebra stuff, please.
So I'm gonna ask him for those and I'll, I'll probably do that in the next week
or two, and then I'll then circulate that to you all to use as you wish.
That'd be great.
Thank you.
'Cause yeah, it's, it's hard to come up with these things by oneself.
And I think, I think that's, that's one of the difficulties about homeschooling
when I'm advising people is say, you know, don't think of homeschooling as you
and your kids sitting at a table, both driving each other, nuts, both wanting
to kill each other and yourselves.
No, no, no, no, no.
You've gotta, you've gotta reach out for mentorship yourself.
Get the curriculum from people that know how to do the curriculum and build a
team, you know, whatever that looks like.
So that it's not just about maybe that person can teach that thing,
that subject better, but also it's the socialization thing.
You know, we need more than one personality involved.
We need, you know, and, and then as you say, where, where are those
collective homeschool groups so that they can have the socialization
with the other kids as well.
And you guys, of course, have done something rather remarkable, which is
to corral that into a one dedicated physical location rather than having
to do, you know, a homeschool group, you know, session here, homeschool
session over there in that household, that household, that household.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's just logistically easier for
families, I think, you know, to, and, and, and nice also for a kid to have a campus.
So you, you mentioned the staffing issues.
It, it, how many people are there working now currently, and I'm sure you
are under pressure to expand and I'm, I'm sure you're also under pressure
to move into middle high school.
Catherine Ward: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: How, what, what are your plans for that?
Catherine Ward: We certainly talk about it a lot.
I I don't, so your listeners may not know this.
You said something earlier about doing with what you have and, and I
am a self-proclaimed, I am the queen of, I make do with what I've got.
When, when my girls wanted to show animals for four H and we didn't have
a pickup truck, we had a family van, I have shoved pigs and goats in the
back of the family van because that's what's my, what my girls wanted to do.
So that's, that has been a constant in my personality.
And so, with one acre farm, we truly are one acre and I have fit
into that one acre as much as we can over the last 25 years or so.
And then when Nicole and I when we had talked about opening a school, every
time that I would approach the state about it, they wouldn't approve it.
That, oddly enough they, one of the reasons they didn't wanna approve a
school is because they didn't wanna have a mix of animals and kids.
And so, how we were eventually able to start the farm school.
It's actually considered another category of learning pod is
that when COVID happened and all the schools closed, pretty much
everybody became a homeschooler.
And so the state of Texas then redefined the definition of school
and they came up with learning pod.
And so the very people that had declined me, contacted me and
pretty much said, guess what?
We have this place, this, this category of an umbrella that you can exist.
So that's how we then said, guess what?
We're gonna go ahead and open up.
As far as as growth and expansion when we, when we started, it was
gonna be outdoors only the whole time, but then we quickly realized there
needed to be some, some type of indoor portion because, and that's a tall
Rupert Isaacson: order in the Houston climate where it gets Oh, it is.
Well, and yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Catherine Ward: Not just for the comfort of the students and the
teachers, but also resources.
Yeah.
I have had so many books ruin.
In my outdoor classroom, even though I have a bookshelf because of the
humidity and they just mold and so forth.
Yeah.
So I'm very, very fortunate in the structure of my home that it
has very two large living rooms.
And so one living room at the back of the house is attached to the kitchen.
Kitchen.
It's one huge space.
And again, when we started the farm school, it was only the early childhood.
We had not started the elementary yet.
So, we, I took out all of my living room furniture that was no longer a living
room, and we created a classroom in there.
So that's where Nicole's early childhood is.
And there's just bookshelves and bookshelves and all of their work trays
and the, the rugs and, and so we've got a small Montessori inspired classroom there.
And and so then I, I was again, the queen of make do, so we made
do, it's no longer a personal space that's now an indoor classroom.
We thought parents would, now some parents come in thinking this is
a little weird, but then other parents embrace it and love it.
And I'm so encouraged because my, my mother was a teacher at some point.
My grandmother was a teacher and my great-grandmother was a teacher.
And I remember my grandmother opened up.
Kindergarten in half of her house.
So I just kind of felt like this is all natural and normal to me
to put a classroom in your house.
Then when we added the elementary, we did have it strictly outdoors the whole time,
the first year, and then that's when a lot of our resources were just ruining
in the, I put 'em in Ziploc bags, I'd do whatever I could to protect them, but the
humidity was just awful on the resources.
So then I have another humongous living room that Nicole
and I said, you know what?
Well, what if we just kind of divided that room in half?
So half of it still has my TV and my sofa so that I can, you know, enjoy
watching something if I want to.
And then the other half is now bookshelves and classroom.
I have something very unique that my grandfather and my
father built a huge 12 foot.
Oak table as when I was a child, I still have that table.
So that is the table in the, the classroom, but it's also our family
table where we gather on Sundays.
So that room has become very dual purpose from u using, using it as a classroom and
then using it for my own personal space.
Our goal right now and in our fundraising is to try to raise money so that we can
actually build a two room schoolhouse on the farm property and remove it from
the home and, and onto into a classroom.
So there's that expansion.
Well, you
Rupert Isaacson: know what happened with that?
You'll just end up with four classrooms, just two ones in the house will
stay, and then you'll just have two extra ones in the new structure.
Yeah,
Nicole Jones: I know.
Then it goes back to a staffing problem after
Catherine Ward: Right.
Then the staff.
Yeah.
Staffing.
So Nicole is the lead teacher.
I'm the lead teacher, and then she and I both have assistants
and the demographic of the class.
Out of my 16 students four to five are neurodivergent.
We have a couple of them that do need shadows because of communication.
So while they are not staff, my staff, they are two other adults
that are there, but their attention is supposed to be specifically for
those, for those nonverbal kids there.
And then so it's, it's really just two teachers and two assistants.
It can be, it can be hard, like when we've lost teachers before, like we
had one that that ended up moving and I think Nicole, what was it?
We went through like six applicants or something.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, sure.
I mean, it's, it's a set of skills that not everyone can.
Catherine Ward: Yeah.
And, and I would say each one of them like came for a day and then
they're like, yeah, this isn't for us.
Because it is, you've, you've got to love kids, love animals, wanna
understand the yes environment.
There are a lot of people that cannot comprehend and accept the freedom and
the au autonomy that the kids have.
And then you, you gotta be okay with being dirty.
And so the, the finding a person that has that perfect storm can be very,
very, very difficult to, to find.
Yeah.
Nicole, you were gonna say something?
Nicole Jones: Yeah, well, I was gonna say exactly what you said, also, the
being outdoors even, you know, for two to three hours at a time in our climate,
especially in the summer, it just, people are like, Nope, I can't do it.
And even though they might be on board with everything else, that's
something that keeps it away.
So, yeah, I think unfortunately your climate
Rupert Isaacson: is particularly extreme.
Yeah, yeah,
Nicole Jones: yeah, yeah.
Yep.
Rupert Isaacson: How do you fund it?
So obviously people pay to send their kids to you but you know, you can only
have a certain number of kids because you are a certain number of people.
You've got a certain amount of space.
So what outside of the actual school fees that you charge,
how, how do you fund what you do?
Catherine Ward: The, the school programs are very fortunate that
they do fund the programs completely.
And then the other programs that we have during the week or during the month,
like the story time and the autism sessions and the kids aren't in play.
Those programs also funnel money into it.
So as far as, you know, paying, paying the feed bill and paying salaries and
that kind of stuff is all covered there.
What becomes a challenge is the huge chunks of money that we need for
like a new classroom or something.
Before we had the elementary, I was a lot more connected and going to all
of the Chamber of Commerce meetings.
And in the evenings I would go and speak to different community groups and stuff.
But now that the administrative duties and the teaching duties and everything
else, I, my time is just so stretched.
I have now been so disconnected from being able to be out there presenting it to,
to the, to the community for those kinds of donations and, so while we, we do fund
our projects, like we ha a hurricane came through and blew down all of our fencing.
And so we've been having to rebuild fencing.
We've been able to take care of that stuff.
But as far as growth for taking on another staff member or taking on an assistant
for me, 'cause we have a waiting list for, for families of children with
autism and we just can't help everybody.
And if I could be, if I could know that I had the funding to pay somebody, then I
could go ahead and train someone to be an assistant and take on more clients there.
And then also the funding for the classroom.
And so we have all of that and we speak it out in positive vibes to the
universe and prayers to God and, and we just keep doing whether, whether,
whether it's gonna happen quickly or not.
We just, like I said, we make do with what we have and we just keep pushing on
and, and looking to grow as we can do it.
Rupert Isaacson: Well in the years I've known you I've
never seen you guys not do it.
Yeah.
So, I think you guys are, you know, absolutely.
Will continue to thrive.
One of the things I've always thought is what is needed is a ton of little
one acre farm campuses dotted around.
Catherine Ward: Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: All over the world really.
Are you beginning to think about how to train people to put together.
What you do.
'cause it's, it's very specific.
Like, you know, we go and do movement method trainings or horse
method trainings, and then we say to people, here's the framework.
Use it in your context, the way you want to use it.
But with you, it's, it's, it's even more it's even more complex because
you're, you're, you're really taking on the the academic responsibility.
We, we, we supplement, we show people how to homeschool, we show, we train
schools how to use movement method.
We give them the lesson plans and so on.
But it's really us training professionals who are already doing it.
You guys are the professionals.
If somebody wanted, that's, maybe they're sitting in the Netherlands
listening to this or somewhere, places where space is at a premium, or I mean
any, any given suburban environment like yours, are you, are you gonna put
together a tra a framework for trainees?
Can people contact you for that?
Catherine Ward: We do, we are in the works on that.
And, and it's a continuing, evolving thing as we do it.
And the more we do it, the more we're like, oh, we need to do this too.
And so Nicole and I you had told us a long time ago, you just wait.
People are gonna be seeking y'all out.
And I thought, eh, they're not gonna know anything about one acre farm.
But sure enough, we have people that seek us out from all over the place.
So Nicole and I are now doing consulting and some people just
need a, a couple of visits with us.
You know, zoom calls like this where 'cause there are a lot
of people that wanna do forest schooling or wild schooling.
I mean, there's all kind of little buzzwords out there and there are a
lot of people that they will, they just wanna put a group of people
together and go to a, a, a park and do some type of learning at a park.
So we have branched out on that.
And our goal is to have a, a one acre farm or, or, or to have a curriculum
that we can eventually sell to people.
Maybe some videos.
Our consulting, we would love, I think our, and I'll let
Nicole expand on this too.
I think we would love to somehow become a connector of, of people
that, that have the, the skills of teaching, but may not have the land.
And then people that have land but don't have the skills because
Oh yeah, it's a great idea.
We're, we're, we're just very unique that we are very fortunate to have.
One acre farm, and we're both teachers, so we've, we've been
very fortunate we that we had that.
But, but there's, there's gotta be people out there that say, man,
I've got all this land, I have these animals, but I don't know how to teach.
But I would love to let somebody come on my ranch or my small farm and teach.
And then there's gotta be teachers out there that are like, oh, I wanna do this.
I wanna teach stuff, but I don't have any land or animals.
So I, I think agree.
Nicole, would you agree that that's one of the Yeah.
The ways we wanna go, the, the
Nicole Jones: people who reach out to us are usually either farmers
and like, how do, how do you do this on an acre with your animals?
I don't really know how to teach.
And so then they want the curriculum type thing, and then
we've got teachers that reach out.
They're like, oh my gosh, I could totally teach this.
I love this, but I just don't have the space.
And so mm-hmm.
It's, we, like she said, we're unique in that we had both, we, we've got the
farmer background and we're teachers and we had the acre to work it on.
But yeah, connecting the two, and I think we're now at a point in time
in America where people are more willing to do something like that.
I think before COVID this, this would not have gone over well.
Yeah, I agree.
But the, you know, the, the, the decline we're seeing in profits that small farmers
are making specifically small farmers.
I'm not talking commercial, I'm talking small.
50 acre, 10 acre, five acre farms.
To be able to have that income come in of X amount per month, that, okay, I
lease this one acre portion of my land.
And I get that per month, that's great.
And then the teachers be able to go, I can leave this know full-time
institutionalized job that I hate now, and go and create this thing
and do it for less hours, a more intentional program outdoors.
So I I, and we're seeing that across Facebook groups and people we talk to.
This is something that people are looking for all over the country, not just Texas.
It, it's happening all over.
And so have you, have you got
Rupert Isaacson: some, have you got some projects that you've put together
now where you've, you've, you've put those people together with land
and teaching skills and seen them.
Not yet.
Nicole Jones: We have we've done some consultations that two specifically did
go ahead and start their programs and they've been on, been very successful.
One is a, we did a consult with someone who is in Idaho, and she
does her Montessori classroom out of a yurt, and that was really cool.
And then another one, she's specifically more of homeschool educational classes.
She'll do like a six to eight week rotation in classes, and that's
gone off really well with her.
And so, yeah, that's been cool to see those start and that those people just
needed the encouragement to do it.
That, you know, a lot of people, the people that are ready to jump
on this just need to hear that they're not crazy and that it's,
yeah, you're on the right track.
People will sign up.
People do want this.
It's, it's okay.
And so I go, going back to the loneliness aspect, once you.
Can connect with people and tell 'em you're, you know,
we're all in the same boat.
Like this is a, you know, pioneer this even though you have nobody
in your area that's doing this.
Just, just do it.
And, and because both these people already had land, you know, that they
were in a similar situation with us where they were just able to start it.
But the, the connecting, the, the two different types of people is something
we'd like to be able to do in the future.
Rupert Isaacson: What about mobile?
One acre farms?
What about being able to, you know, pack your one acre farm in a trailer
and then take it onto a school campus?
Catherine Ward: Well, I actually did that, Catherine done that before.
I did that.
I did that for years.
That's exactly what I did.
Before, I mean, I would have a few classes and workshops at the farm.
But no, I, it was, it was very lucrative too.
And so I, I built I had a flatbed trailer and I built this red frame structure
around it to make it look like a barn.
And it just said more like, so a tiny house
Rupert Isaacson: on the back of your pickup?
Yeah,
Catherine Ward: exactly.
Exactly.
And I'd put all the animals in there.
Oh, a great idea.
I did.
And so I got paid to, to, I did a few birthday parties, but that really
wasn't my, that, that's not my gig.
So I, I marketed myself to all of the preschools and daycares around.
And so I would go and set up for several hours and they would rotate
all their classes through, and I gave like a 30 minute demonstration.
And I talked about the chickens and the rabbits.
And so it wasn't a petting zoo at all.
It was very educational.
And then I got a contract with the local school district to do it.
And and so I was going to all of the elementary schools and
it, it was so labor intensive.
It was at least two hours of prep, loading, loading animals
making sure we had water and food.
And again, because of our heat and humidity down here, watching and
caring for the animals' health in these parking lots while I'm doing
this, and then loading them back up, coming home and unloading it was, I,
I burned out really, really quickly.
I would've, I would've done it for, I probably, I.
If it weren't for, for what I'm, I'm, what I'm about to lead into,
I probably would've kept with it.
But my mom, my mother ended up having a stroke and very debilitating.
And paralyzed.
She couldn't move, she couldn't talk anymore.
And we were in this, you know, middle class limbo where we couldn't
afford full-time care to help.
So I became her, her caregiver, right?
And so I ended up having to shut that down.
I had just had to sell off about half of my animals.
I didn't wanna get rid of all of them, but I bring up her stroke
because her, her doctor had explained to me, he said, you know, don't.
Please work with her every day, help her learn how to feed herself again,
help her learn how to talk again.
And so he gave this visual of like, if so I'm here in Texas, so between Houston
and Dallas is the highway called 45.
And he said, if you wanna get from Houston to Dallas, you would normally take I 45.
But the road is blocked now.
You can't.
So now you've gotta go all these little country roads might take longer, but
you can still get from Houston to Dallas and it's gonna, but you're just gonna
have to go down these other paths.
That's what you're doing with your mother's brain.
This part of her brain is, is destroyed, but you can retrain
it and create these new paths.
So all of that happened and then we meet you and we learn the science
behind movement method and what happens with a child's brain that may have
autism and about forming pathways and neuroplasticity and all of that.
So all of those life experiences that I had that brought me then to
meeting you and movement method have just now fast forwarded to where we
are and, and, and what we're doing.
Rupert Isaacson: if you're a horse nerd, and if you're on this podcast,
I'm guessing you are, then you've probably also always wondered a little
bit about the old master system.
of dressage training.
If you go and check out our Helios Harmony program, we outline there step by step
exactly how to train your horse from the ground to become the dressage horse
of your dreams in a way that absolutely serves the physical, mental and emotional
well being of the horse and the rider.
Intrigued?
Like to know more?
Go to our website, Helios Harmony.
Check out the free introduction course.
Take it from there.
I wonder if it might be possible, I'm just thinking obviously, of you guys,
but I'm also thinking about other people who might be listening who are thinking,
well, you know, I'd like to do something like this, but I'm already maxed out, you
know, with the, with the program I've got.
And I think that's very much the experience of.
Pretty much anyone who, who runs any of these programs unless somebody
comes in and we, you know, with a big checkbook and says, alright, you
are now able to hire all the staff.
Because then even if you do, then suddenly you are the administrator
and you are now doing that full-time.
So it's okay, you might expand your capacity, but in terms of your
own personal time, you, you are as stretch as you ever were, if not more.
But what I was wondering, listening to your story about going round,
because we, we used to do this from our new trails ranch.
We would also put the horses and trailers and go onto school campuses and so on.
And one of, but we take the other animals and then we run some lessons.
And I know some of the other horse boy movement method people have done it too.
I think if I was in your shoes though, is it possible to
find, to almost outsource that?
Could you find people that you don't have to pay directly, but you could
train and say, okay, you know, I will set you up with the clientele.
You could go out to the schools and say, who, who wants this?
You know, or, or the homeschooling groups who, who can't come to you and
then you say, all right, you, this person have gone through a training.
Now your job is to load up the animals, go that blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
This is what you need.
You're gonna need to be under a big tree because of the, he,
you know, the blah, blah, blah.
You're gonna need this, you're gonna need that.
You're gonna need the other this.
And then they go off and deliver that.
While you continue, but you don't have to necessarily pay them directly.
They are a an independent contractor that gets paid and then they
just give you, you know, a small percentage of their, that daily fee.
But then perhaps at a certain point you have 10 of those people going
up and then that becomes, you know, enough money to fund some more
construction staff members on property.
But it also expands your reach.
Have, you know, could one do, do it sort of that way?
Catherine Ward: I've never thought about it, but I think that's
something certainly a put thought to.
Yes.
I think that
Rupert Isaacson: could be done because there are people out there with a vehicle
and people without, you know, and it might be that they could just, okay,
they can't put the full farm in there.
They can't do, you know, that very whimsical thing on the back of a pickup
truck, but they might be able to put two, two chickens and a dog in the back
of the thing and, and go and deliver really meaningful curriculum that way.
And that, the reason I think about chickens is we have a, a, a really
wonderful place here in Germany.
The Green Care farm at up in Munster and they go out to schools as well
as having schools come to them.
And they got a call to go in where there'd been a threat of.
Luckily it didn't materialize, but of a school shooting, which is very,
very rare for this part of the world.
And it was because of complications between Ukrainian and Russian and
Syrian and Iraqi refugee families.
There's it, it blew up and the kids were pretty traumatized, and they
took the farm into the school and they said that the thing that really
got the kids was the chickens.
Somehow the following of the chickens.
The, the organizing of the chickens that the social stuff that chickens go
through that they aren't, they aren't always so nice to each other, as you know.
Yeah.
But yet they always kind of work it out that, that the idea
that there's a tangible product, there's the egg, you know, there's
the meat, there's the feather.
You can do these things with it.
It's, and at the same time it's, it's so full of personality and it's such a
simple thing to do a chicken, you know?
Mm-hmm.
A small group of chickens.
So I'm just wondering if I might put that out there to you and to anyone
else who's listening, you know?
Ha.
Has anyone else been doing that or.
If, if you did decide to do that, I'd love to hear a report.
Yeah.
Catherine Ward: To my knowledge, I don't think there was anyone else.
I mean, certainly there were petting zoos that set up, its petting
zoos, but I don't think there was anyone that was doing it like, like
we were as far as education, so.
Right.
I know if I put thought to that there would be an immediate source of clientele
that would, that would want that done.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Okay.
Well, maybe you wouldn't work on that together.
That would not
Catherine Ward: be hard to organize at all.
Rupert Isaacson: It might even be the sort of thing that you, you get
like a working student to come in.
Maybe that's somebody who wants to come and add this to their cv, to their resume,
you know, and they're coming in from abroad or they're coming in from another
state and they're maybe in between doing their school and college or between their
BA and their MA or whatever, and they want to, and you can say to that person, okay,
you know, you go off and handle that.
You, you can drive, you know you're good with animals.
I'll give you this training.
You go off and handle that, and that money will be largely yours.
We just need a small percentage of it or whatever.
Yeah.
Catherine Ward: Mm-hmm.
Very doable.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm-hmm.
I'm taking notes.
Catherine Ward: Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: One thing we haven't talked about this is e this, this,
this podcast is equine assisted world and you guys, you know,
do have equines on the property.
One of the things I obviously like to do, when I'm training people and
talking to people is to tell them, while I want you to train your horses
really, really well, I also don't want you to be too horse focused,
because not every kid is into horses.
You, they can't be on horses, you know, the entire day most of the time.
So what are you doing with the rest of that time?
But you guys have actually answered what are you doing with the rest of that time?
So admirably.
Talk to us a little bit about the equine side of what you do.
Catherine Ward: Oddly enough, even though that was going to be the start
of our focus when we started with the autism therapy sessions, it, it greatly,
it very quickly moved to more of the smaller animals and the livestock.
A lot of times the kids that we come can be intimidated by a larger horse.
So at the time when we started, we had Nicole's horse and her sister's
horse, and they were one was in Arabian and one was a quarter horse.
No, we, we were both
Nicole Jones: quarter horses.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
They, up and a quarter.
Yeah.
Catherine Ward: Okay.
And so we started with them and then, the, a lot of the kids just didn't really even
have that much interest in the horses.
They immediately wanted to go be with the bunnies or be with the chickens.
And I found myself like, well, no, wait, there's horses right here.
Don't you wanna, don't you wanna be with the horses that
are like, no, we wanna do this.
And so with our philosophy of following the child, and and so then
that became more of the method that was being used with, with the kids.
So now we do have a pony, a Welsh pony, and she is being she's not
fully trained, but I do train her in the, the horse boy method.
And we have a couple of kids that are interested in her.
But we also have a little mini horse, a, a white, I don't know, he's like
32 inches tall and solid white.
His name is Gus, and he's a very good introduction to to horses because
he's so small and because he's white, we've allowed kids to paint
on him like a big piece of paper.
And, and so, currently right now with the clients that we have, I have only
one student that wants to do any, any back riding on honey on our Welsh pony.
So right now they're not being utilized as I thought they would in the
beginning of the conception of this.
Nicole Jones: I, I will add though, even though they're not being.
Ridden the, the students that need the horse time, get their horse time,
but Right, like she was saying, we gravely overestimated how important the
horses were gonna be to the children.
And now there are certain ones that, that's honey.
The Welsh pony is the first one they go and say hi to and they bring her
treats every morning or, you know, so there, there are those that go
and talk to the horses and pet them, and that's really important to them.
But the majority of our kids find the rabbits, the goats,
the chickens to be their place.
And so it really just depends.
So they're there and they assist the kids that need it, but for the
most part, it's a small animals that carry, carry the weight of the kids.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
It's very interesting.
I, and I find these things go in a sort of seasonal thing almost.
Like in the course of our own practice, just my own home practice here in
Germany, I find that it goes really up and down the number of hours or kids
that are really, really horse focused.
And sometimes I go through like a semester where it's really almost
not about the horses at all.
Or maybe we're just using the horses to.
Get to a certain area of the forest where the kids want to play and explore.
And actually they're quite happy to walk there.
They like having the horses with, but they appreciate having the horse to get back.
So you gotta get back up the hill from the creek or whatever.
And that's when they wanna sit on the horse and ride.
And then they'll often really interact, say, oh, I love this, I love the riding.
Or but their focus is not there.
And I can see what they get from it neurologically, and I can see
how the oxytocin gets them, gets them communicating and speaking.
And then there'll be another semester where it's like all about the horses.
And I have kids that want to learn how to train horses from the ground and
they're doing pf and massage and they're doing, and then another semester comes,
it's sort of not about the horses again.
What, what do you, talk to me about that kind of flexibility of follow the
child because this is very, you know, you're a horsey person, Nicole, and
you, you know that this is actually one of the difficulties about the
horsey personality as we're, we're so horse focused, we can actually have a
bit of trouble moving away from that if that's not where the person is at.
You know, talk to us about that learning curve that you've gone through.
Nicole Jones: Yeah, I, I think now we've both just kind of accepted it.
I think at the beginning it was a little bit harder and also
Catherine Ward: I.
Nicole Jones: I, you know, I remember being a child and being so obsessed
with everything about horses that I think, how can you, you've got
a horse right in front of you.
How can you not just want to do everything about this, but really I, I think once
you just get to this point where you can let go of you being the one in control,
I mean, it, it's less about, I think it's less about the, the horse aspect, but just
once you can let go of, this is not about me, this is about what the kids want, and
the kids are telling you what they want.
Once you can get to that point, then everything else becomes.
Easier.
And so, you know, as, as much as the horses are, you know, lesser utilized
than some of the other animals on the farm you know, most of our visitors when they
come, even though they're not riding or doing anything in particular, honey goes
up and greets every kid that comes in.
She'll walk right up to the gate, the kids petter when they come in.
So horses are still kind of the, and she, you know, tells them by
when they leave, 'cause she goes, she, her pen is right where the kids
enter and exit for the school day.
And so even though they might not be directly interacting with her
in the way that we see, she is still the start and the end to
their day, which is really cool.
And, and the kids, everybody who visits, whether it's you know, not specifically
farm school, but other classes or events that Catherine puts on honey
is the one that the kids talk about.
Because she's right there where, where all the activities are.
So, I, I think just once we let go of that feeling that, oh my gosh,
we need to get the horses more involved in this and just, it's okay.
Like, you know, the horses are there for the kids who need it.
But it just didn't have to be this, our, our whole program didn't
have to be wrapped around it.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
It's, it's so hard for horsey personalities because as you
say, we are so obsessed we can't imagine that other people aren't.
Mm-hmm.
And then we almost become a bit evangelic as I know, but surely you
want the haw, you know, so, and they're like, well yeah, well not really.
You're like, really?
Well, how can that be?
And I think that there is a personality type that goes with being
horsey that is a bit controlling.
I mean, I think you have to be a bit bossy to be good with horses
because you have to have that slightly leadershipy, bossy side that horses
themselves actually often have.
And I agree with you.
I think letting that go is the hardest skill to learn.
At what point for both of you, because you know, you, you, you, Catherine you
know, for a while you were involved in a, a fairly controlled and controlling side
of Christianity, you know, and it sounds like also listening to the story of your
childhood and the ups and the downs there must have been a desire for control,
you know, the, to find order and chaos.
And I think a lot of us that end up with slightly controlling
personalities, it's often in response to chaotic events, you know?
And trying to find that kind of sense of safety.
I'd like both of you just to talk a little bit about your own journeys with
how you managed to kind of give up the obsession with control, because I think
this is something that is an absolute.
Must for anyone who's going to do our kind of work.
And it comes as a bit of a surprise, I think, as you say, for a lot of people
that, oh, I'm gonna set up a, you know, an equine assisted program and say, yeah, but
what if the person's not really into it?
You know?
So Catherine talk to, how did you, how did you give that up?
Catherine Ward: I don't know if it was a giving up or if it was just an
evolution and, and growing and moving on.
I think at the time in my life when there was that much structure and rules,
there was probably some, some type of comfort there far because, because it
does give you structure and it does give you a, a, a bubble of protection.
Yeah.
And, and then a sense
Rupert Isaacson: of security.
Yeah.
Catherine Ward: Yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely it does.
And and I would never speak on, on that.
I mean, I chose that life, so, I.
And there were great benefits to that and, and a great love and, and faith
to, to my creator and God in that.
But I think as my mind grew it was just, it wasn't growing out of not,
not wanting to have a faith in him, but I grew beyond the structure of the
boundaries and, and just began to see the world through a, a different filter
than just the filter of those rules.
And so then my filter, and I'll just go back to it, just truly became
about kindness and, and seeing every individual for being a human being who
they are, and that every person has intrinsic value and that every person
has intelligence and, and especially in working with kids with autism, something
that, that I learned through you, but I think I'd already had that thought in
my mind, is that to just always assume intelligence, always assume there is
while they, while a person may not be able to verbalize and, and communicate
in a certain way that we never devalue what is in their mind and their soul.
And so I, I think I just, while I did leave some tenets of organized religion
behind, I didn't leave my faith behind.
And I just grew more in my acceptance and unconditional love of people and
and truly try to, impart that to the, the kids that, that are here and and
just find a balance, I guess maybe.
I, I feel like now I just have a, a balance in life with that
Rupert Isaacson: Nicole.
Nicole Jones: I think a lot of that changed for me during my time at
the A BA clinic because that was a highly controlled environment.
Every, every minute of the kids' day were planned out.
And while that can seem beneficial to someone who's more controlling in their
personality or, or just the, the sense of control, you know, eases your mind.
I saw how quickly it wasn't working and that in the process of, okay, we, yeah,
we might have these kids under control but we're also breaking their spirit because
we're taking all of that away from them.
So I very quickly just started to realize this, this is not how you
work with children and by taking this.
Switching to Montessori and then really taking your control out of it.
You can prepare you can prepare the environment, prepare the
materials but really you let go of control and then it's okay, let
the kids go and let them teach you.
And so having that realization of let go of the control and observe and then watch
the kids flourish that, so it was about a year's time where I really felt like this
deep change in my teaching heart, I guess.
And so now once that happened and it's like, okay, let 'em, let 'em do stuff,
and, and I mean, I still have my moments, you know, I, I might cringe a little
bit when they mix the Play-Doh colors together, but I don't say anything.
So it's, but yeah, that's where I thing, I mean, you can, you still
feel it, but oh my gosh, you have to know that, that this is, this is fine.
So,
Catherine Ward: yeah.
Yeah.
And that, that could sometimes be the, the biggest atrocity of the day.
At the end of the day when we're cleaning up, we're like, oh my God,
the Play-Doh colors are mixed up.
So I actually gave to some of my kids, 'cause we've got modeling clay in the
elementary, and, and I gave one of 'em.
I said, here, here's your job.
Somebody mixed up all these balls.
I need you to separate the colors out.
And they did.
They were happy to do it.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I mean, there you go.
There's an opportunity right there.
There's a learning opportunity right there.
But, and, and then one has to get out first.
You've gotta have your reaction.
Oh my God.
They just go, you know?
Yeah.
And then you look back and think, my God, I wasted like a month of reactions before.
I thought, why don't I just give it to the kids to sort out that, so, right.
Oh yeah, yeah.
We're so interesting.
Aren't we humans?
And it, it, it, I, I guess it all comes down to fear.
But you know, you, you were talking about let the, the quote let
children do dangerous things safely.
I found that actually with Jordan.
Jordan Peterson.
Catherine Ward: Oh, that's who said it?
Yes, that's right.
I should have known that.
Rupert Isaacson: But it, it is, it is very true that if you grow
up on a farm, you are gonna handle blades, machines, livestock.
And it's so interesting with my three kids, you know, I've
watched them all going through it.
Touch wood, they don't tend to cut themselves because you are constantly
with them sort of showing them what to do.
They observe you cutting yourself.
They sort of don't want to repeat that.
Occasionally they give themselves a small nick or so on, but doesn't
everybody have the right to do that?
Then of course, it's very different when it's my kids as
opposed to somebody else's kids.
So when we've got.
People coming, you know, onto the farm.
Obviously we do our best to make sure that the quote unquote
dangerous stuff is not just lying around and, and so on and so on.
But we also make it very clear that we cannot and will not control every moment.
But what we will do is try to provide mentorship and leadership because at a
certain point, the kids are going to need to learn how to handle fire, or a blade
or, you know, a tool of, of some sort.
And you know, it's interesting.
Temple Grandin is big on this.
You know, she, she says you've got to let kids work out the technologies,
the physical technologies, not the software technologies of life.
If you want them to be able to order later things, which means they've gotta
make some mistakes, which means you got, but isn't it interesting how much
fewer mistakes with a Big M they seem to make if they're allowed to make
a lot of mistakes with small lambs?
You know, have you not found that, what.
Nicole Jones: Yeah.
Well, and even just going to thinking back and teaching at other schools,
I was writing out incident reports multiple times a day for injuries
and things that were happening.
Yeah.
And now it, we don't have injuries and things that happen at the farm.
Now, the first few weeks when children come, we'll get bumps and bruises and
somebody gets hit by the swing 'cause they're not used to where it is.
You know, that happens.
But after that we don't deal with we don't deal with injuries and stuff.
I mean, you know, it, occasionally we'll have things come up, but because kids
are allowed to, to try and take the risk, because typically at more you know,
playground settings, they're jumping off of higher things 'cause they're bored.
They don't, they're, or they're so controlled and you can't go up the slide.
And, you know, so they're, and they're boiling
Rupert Isaacson: over with energy.
Yeah.
Nicole Jones: Yes.
Exactly.
Overwhelms
Rupert Isaacson: their thought process because they've
been sat still for so long.
Yeah.
Nicole Jones: Right, right.
And so here, because they're, we're, there's, you know, freedom within
boundaries and reasonable boundaries.
And so once they learn where those reasonable boundaries are very
quickly, they, they're able to just go and, and do their thing.
And we, we don't have the same amount of injuries and nicks and bruises that
I saw at a typical school setting.
Catherine Ward: Well, we, we talked about earlier about giving them skills.
So, so for example, when, when October and November comes around and we get people
that are donating their pumpkins that have been out, you know, in their decorations.
We'll get, I, I don't know, one year we got over a hundred pumpkins or something.
So we have pumpkin smashing at school and, and so what fun, we don't just,
we don't just say, here, go, go at it.
We show them proper.
Handling the way you hold a hammer.
And we say you can use the blunt end or you can use the hook end, but when
you swing, be aware of where your legs are, you don't want your feet together.
'cause if you swing, you might hit your shin.
And so we go through this lecture of safety, and then we
usually give them a hula hoop.
So they're, each child is inside of a hula hoop with their pumpkin and hula
hoops have to be so hi so far away.
And then, and then after they've been given the instructions and the skills,
then they, then they're able to go at it and they're just smashing those pumpkins.
And, and you wouldn't, you wouldn't normally think you would allow 20,
25 kids to be smashing pumpkins?
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
What about, what about things like firewood?
You know, using, using an AXA split word saw, you know, knives for whittling
or, or, you know, all of that sort of thing, which of course there's no way
in any school anyone's gonna let you do.
Catherine Ward: Those are usually reserved for the elementary kids.
Now.
Both, both the early childhood and the elementary both have campfires
and we go through campfire training and safety and all of that stuff.
And, but oddly enough, here in Texas, we only have maybe.
A week or two weeks where we are that you can actually have a fire.
Yeah.
Because we're, we're summertime most of the time.
The, the kids, now that they've been through a whole half of a
year now, the elementary kids will be doing more with more tools.
'cause we wanna give them more time on learning self-control because while they
have freedom, that age group can still be really squirrely and everything.
Yeah.
And so when we can trust them to have some self-control is when
we'll introduce some of that.
Rupert Isaacson: Talk to me about bullying.
So I've generally noticed that in these outdoor environments, you tend not to
really see it unless it's something that's being brought from a regular
classroom out into the natural thing.
'cause the kids are just not in nature that often.
So in their minds, they're still sort of back in the, the, the playground politics.
Talk to us about, you've both been in the public school system, plenty of bullying.
Talk to us about that or the lack of that at one acre farm and, and if it's a lack
of it, what do you attribute that to?
Two.
Nicole Jones: You want me to start?
You can start and then I'll, yeah.
Okay.
Usually where we.
See it cummin.
Now we, we don't deal with a bullying issue at school.
And, and that's even with having a wide range of.
Of children and very diverse backgrounds of children.
So yeah, with, with that all in play, we don't deal with it.
The only time we've had issues come in is, like you just said, when we have
a kid coming in from the public school system and they come in and that's
just like they're operating motive.
'cause they just think I gotta survive and that's what I gotta do.
And then.
It's October, November, December.
We see that all wane because they realize, okay, I'm a part of this
community and I don't need to fight this.
I don't need to hold my own.
Like there are people looking out for me.
I have friends who it well, and they quickly learn too.
That doesn't work with the social dynamics here.
If I start talking like that, nobody wants to play with me.
And so there, there is that part of natural part of it that we let play out
because we're not going to tell their kids, oh, hey, you have to play with
so and so because that's what we do.
You know, if somebody doesn't wanna play with you, well, why do you
think they don't wanna play with you?
Did you knock down their castle?
Did you go and stomp on their mud out?
Did you tell them?
You know, whatever.
So there's a ton of conversations that happen between teachers and kids.
And then eventually our goal is later in the year is that the kids are having
those conversations and they're not come having to come to the teachers anymore
to help you know, lead that conversation.
So the first few months, there is a lot of that.
Oh, so and so said this to me, so and so hurt my feelings.
So and so said this.
And then we get the two together, we help them talk it out and
then they go back to play.
And so we, we don't do like, there's no timeouts, there's no taking recess away.
There's nothing like that.
Now if you're being unsafe, that's, that's where we do have a.
You know, the boundaries get bumped up.
Then if you're being unsafe with an animal or if you're being unsafe with a kid, well
then we have to take some privileges away.
You can't go in the animal pen by yourself because you're being unsafe.
You can't go over there where I can't see you as well because you're being unsafe.
So once they learn, my privileges get taken away they, they quickly,
they quickly kind of change course.
And so, it's been very rare that we've had issues last beyond a few weeks.
It, it tends to write itself pretty, pretty quickly.
I would say when we do tours, especially with, with the age group I work
with, that is a question of about.
30 to 50% of my parents at walked through, they ask about bullying and
how the social dynamics are here.
Mm-hmm.
So it is something, it tells me like, even it's so prevalent that even before
kids are school age, like parents are already thinking about this.
And so that's something that we really want to strive.
We want to provide a peaceful environment for these kids here, but we also
want them to be able to have enough freedom to work out, you know what?
I said that that way and that didn't work out and now that
kid doesn't wanna play with me.
So there is, there's that expectation of kindness, but also you have enough
freedom that you can try things and then learn from your mistakes.
So, but that's a hard boundary to teach and it's something that even as
it comes up in real time, sometimes as teachers we have to talk about, you
know, how are we gonna handle this?
Because it's, it's not a black and white, oh, you said this now this
is a consequence type of deal.
Because that's how life is.
Everything is so dynamic day to day.
And so we just try and approach it with an attitude of solving it as best as possible
and keeping a peaceful environment.
Catherine Ward: Now with the ages of seven to 10, there, there's, you know,
an, an elevation of maturity there.
And that age group is very much more competitive and segregate themselves.
Now we've got the boy girl dynamic going on, boys against
girls, that kind of stuff.
And again, the ones that come in from a public school
situation will be the bullies.
This, this age group tends to very much appreciate if I treat them as
the growing up adults that they are.
And I will tell them that I'm like, you know, if you're gonna act like
a baby, then I may have to treat you like a baby, but I want to treat
you like the growing up adult that you were, that you were becoming.
And so I have expectations of you.
And they like the, the way that we teach in the elementary class is very Socratic.
So it's not just me standing up and talking.
It's, it's a circle and it's very discussion oriented
and interactive with them.
And they like talking through this kind of stuff.
I can tell you that is my short fuse.
And if you wanna see Ms.
Catherine blow a gasket, it will be to.
Do something to an animal like kick dirt on a rabbit or poke a stick at a goat.
Oh, Nicole will have to hold me back from wanting to annihilate a kid.
I mean, I have to watch my temper on that.
And then the other one is bullying or saying anything negative to somebody.
'Cause you'll hear kids say, Ew, you have that in your lunch.
Oh, that's so gross.
I don't like that.
And so then I try to use that as a teaching opportunity that people
have different tastes, people have different whatevers with the.
Ages seven to 10.
We use a lot of object lessons.
If I start to see that the kids are getting really catty and how they talk
to each other and the whatevers and that kind of stuff, I will usually
try to take a child aside and just talk to 'em, Hey, what's going on?
Where did you learn to talk like that?
Or something.
And or, or how do you think that makes the other person feel?
But then we'll do object lessons.
I'll just, I, I won't address the whole group and say, okay, we're having a
bullying problem, let's talk about it.
I'll just make some kind of community group activity that we have to do that
fosters teamwork or some type of object lesson that, that I, the first one I
usually use at the beginning of every school year when they start getting that
way, is about with a tube of toothpaste.
And I think a lot of teachers have used this, like, okay,
let's, let's see how fast.
We have two teams and, and they have to squeeze the toothpaste out as
fast as they can into the plate and who, who was the fastest to get the
toothpaste out and they're screaming for each other and all of that.
And then I'm like, okay, I have a dollar bill right here who can get
the toothpaste back into the tube.
And then they're looking at, they're like, now some of the smart
ones will be like, well, let's cut it open and put it back in.
And I'm like, no, you gotta get it back in the same way it came out.
And so that it's, goes through this whole thing.
And so then the, the gist of that lesson at the end is like,
well, that's like your words.
It is so easy for you to get words out, but once they're out, you can't.
Put them back in.
So be very, very careful and mindful of the words that you, you put out.
And so every year, the kids that have been here before, they're like,
when are we doing the toothpaste?
So, so for that age group, I try to use object lessons.
And a lot of times I'll get on Google and be like, object lessons
for being kind to one another.
And, and I'll get ideas from that.
Rupert Isaacson: I mean, so much of this really comes down to the, I think all
schools go through this and all education, all, all places go through this.
It's the culture is really, comes from the top down, right?
I mean it, if you, if your main focus is kindness rather than equestrian
skills or this therapy, or if you say no, let's just start with kindness,
then the other stuff will fall into a category and a framework of kindness.
But if we say, let's start with equestrian skills, or let's start with an idea
of a particular therapeutic outcome or an academic outcome, then kindness
might be sidelined in relation to that.
So I retake my hat off to you guys and you know, for listeners who.
Well, maybe that sounds a bit too good to be true.
It isn't.
I've, I've gone out there and over years seen what Catherine and Nicole do and
it's, it's, it's not just impressive.
It's quite unique.
And we need more of it.
So, and it's successful.
That's the thing.
I've, I've just seen you constantly, constantly achieve success.
So you guys are mentors and that's really why I want you on the show.
We, we, we've sort of gone over the two hour mark, so we should wrap up.
How do people contact you if they want consultations, if they wanna learn,
if they want to put their own one acre farm together, if they want to know,
you know, the ideas for lesson plans and so on, whether it's homeschooling
or regular schooling, just talk us through how they can contact you.
Catherine Ward: Well, if they go to the website, they which is www dot, and this
is all spelled out, one acre farm tx.com,
so that's O-N-E-A-C-R-E.
F-A-R-M-T x.com
Well then we have a contact page where they can send us an email if they wanna
speak specifically about early childhood.
Nicole's email is on there.
Elementary, my email is on there.
And so, and then our phone number is there.
So if they're in the US they can also text us.
And then we are on Facebook.
Also is one Acre Farm TX on Facebook.
So those are probably the, the major ways that they can get in contact with us.
Rupert Isaacson: Fantastic.
Catherine Ward: Oh, here, I'll put out the number now.
So if they wanna text us, it's eight three two eight three two.
Well my phone's gonna blow up now.
Eight eight three two eight six zero four seven five six.
And it's kind of funny.
Say that one more time
Rupert Isaacson: just so people are grabbing their pen.
Catherine Ward: Yes.
8 3 2 8 6 0 4 7 5 6.
I can tell you if you call it will go to voicemail because I
can very rarely answer my phone.
And in the voicemail it will tell you, please text me.
'cause if you text, I can usually shoot out a quick text and say, Hey, let's
make a phone appointment or something.
Rupert Isaacson: And you have WhatsApp on that number too?
Catherine Ward: Oh yes, I do.
I do, yes.
So if they have a WhatsApp then internationally we can,
they can get me through there.
Yes.
Rupert Isaacson: Super.
Okay then.
Listen guys I think we should have you back at a later date
to go into some further things about specific, you know, teaching
specifics in specific ways and so on.
Yeah.
But it's been an absolute delight to have you on.
And I just look forward to seeing more and more of the same successes
and watching you guys grow.
And my, my ideal would be, yeah, if there's one acre
farm in every neighborhood.
Catherine Ward: Thank you.
I would, I would love that as a vision.
It's been a joy.
Thank you for having us, Rupert.
Rupert Isaacson: Well, well
Catherine Ward: thank you very much.
Rupert Isaacson: Thank you, Nicole.
Thank you, Catherine.
We'll see you next time.
Catherine Ward: Yes.
Alright.
Rupert Isaacson: Bye.
Catherine Ward: Bye.
Rupert Isaacson: I hope you enjoyed today's conversation as much as I did.
If you like what we're doing here, please do like, subscribe, tell a friend.
It so helps us to get this valuable work done and the message of
Equine Assisted Stuff out there.
And if you're interested in more conversations, you might want to check
out I'll live free ride free podcast.
And if you'd like to support the podcasts, please go to rupertisakson.
com and click on the Patreon link.
If you're a professional in the equine assisted field or considering a career
in the equine assisted field, you might want to check out our three
certification programs, horseboy method, movement method, and taquin.
Equine integration.
You can find all of those over on new Trails learning.com.
And finally, if you want to check out our cool rock and roll themed
merch back on rupert isaacson.com,
please click on Shop.
You'll find all kinds of fun goodies there.
And if you're looking for a way to spend time until the next podcast, you might
want to consider reading the books that kicked all this off The Horse Boy, the
Long Ride Home and The Healing Land.
So see you next time on Equine Assistant.
world.
Join us for the adventure.