The Fall Shift

There’s a shift that happens around the barn every fall.

At first, it’s subtle.

The sun starts setting a little earlier. Hoodies start getting tossed over the arena fence. The horses start growing the beginnings of their winter fuzz. The flies finally, mercifully, start losing the battle.

Then one day you look around and realize summer is just... over.

And when you have a barn full of kids, especially teenage girls, you can feel that change in a whole lot more than the weather.

Summer has a freedom to it. Long days. Later nights. Rodeos. Lessons. Horses. Sleeping in.

Spending half the day at the barn because there really isn’t anywhere else you have to be.

Then school starts and suddenly everybody has somewhere to be.

We have volleyball players and cheerleaders. Theatre kids and marching band kids. FFA members and 4-H kids. And farm kids entering that magical time of year when every plan comes with the disclaimer, “Well... unless we're in the field.”

Harvest waits for no lesson schedule.

There are football games and school dances. Practices and performances. Club meetings, homework and tests.

Chemistry and algebra have rudely reentered the chat.

And Spanish, a subject that seems to be particularly beloved by the teenagers around here.

That was sarcasm.

Mucho sarcasmo.

Fall at a barn full of teenage girls is basically one giant scheduling puzzle where none of the pieces stay the same shape for more than three days.

And honestly?

I kind of love it.

Because summer at the barn can feel like we're all suspended in this little horse-filled world.

Fall reminds me that these kids have whole lives growing around them.

And they're growing right along with those lives.

Some of the kids who used to depend on someone else to get them here are getting their driver's licenses now. Others are racking up permit hours and getting closer.

There is something mildly terrifying about watching a kid you've spent years yelling “LOOK WHERE YOU'RE GOING!” at pull into your driveway behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.

But here we are.

They're getting older. Their worlds are getting bigger. And horses are learning to share space with all the other pieces of who they're becoming.

I think that's exactly how it should be.

Go play volleyball. March at halftime. Get on the stage. Go to the FFA event. Show the 4-H project. Ride in the combine. Cheer under the Friday night lights. Go to homecoming. Hang out with your friends.

And yes, get the boyfriend.

Boyfriends are allowed here.

We just have some... unofficial expectations.

Treat our girls right. Support them. Understand that the horses were here before you. And understand that the girl you're dating is probably a whole lot more badass than you realized when you signed up for this.

You may be asked to hold something. Carry something. Video something. Stand beside an arena for an unreasonable amount of time. Attend a rodeo that lasts approximately seventeen hours.

You will probably get dirty.

So far, only one has been brave enough to keep coming back consistently.

We really like him.

That's part of growing up too.

Their worlds are expanding. New people become important. Priorities shift. They're figuring out who they are outside of the little kids some of them were when they first walked into this barn.

And we get a pretty cool front-row seat to all of it.

Meanwhile, the horses are still here.

And rodeo season is still underway.

Somewhere in the middle of all this chaos, these kids are quietly doing some pretty damn cool things.

One of our Senior Girls is currently sitting 30th out of 475 riders nationally in barrel racing and 15th out of 149 in trail, with five of the six qualifying placings she needs for Finals already earned in both events. She's also sitting 54th out of 532 Senior Girls in the All-Around.

One of our littlest cowgirls is sitting 39th out of 215 in poles, with five of her six Finals qualifying placings already under her belt.

Her twin is working her way there too, with three qualifying placings in both barrels and poles.

Another girl has started putting points on the board in poles.

Another has officially stepped into the national standings after just beginning her rodeo season.

And then there's one who doesn't have a single point or ranking I can brag about yet.

And I might be just as proud of her.

She walked into her very first rodeo with a horse who had also never competed in trail.

Neither one of them really knew what to expect.

They didn't get a time in either trail class.

But she went through the gate.

She tried the obstacles. She listened. She learned.

And then she came back and tried again.

That matters here.

Because standings are fun. Points are exciting. Finals qualifications are a big freaking deal.

But they're not the only way we measure progress.

Sometimes progress is sitting 15th in the nation.

Sometimes it's earning another Finals qualification.

Sometimes it's finally putting points on the board.

Sometimes it's shaving time off a run or figuring out the one spot in a pattern that's been eating your lunch for weeks.

And sometimes progress is simply having enough courage to ride through a gate into something completely unfamiliar and say,

“Okay. Let's try.”

That's the part I don't ever want these kids to lose sight of.

Because the goals didn't disappear when the school bell rang.

We're still working patterns, fixing little holes, building confidence, improving mechanics, learning new skills and occasionally revisiting old ones that somebody was very sure they already knew.

We're just doing it differently now.

Summer gives us room to chase things.

Fall teaches us how to keep making room for the things we love.

Some nights they'll come straight from practice with their hair still pulled up.

Some will have homework waiting when they leave.

Someone will be complaining about algebra. Someone will be questioning why chemistry is necessary for her future survival. And someone, somewhere, will be deeply and personally offended by the Spanish language.

Somebody else will roll in with no makeup, hair stuffed into a bonnet and looking like she barely survived the school day.

Then another will show up with her hair done, makeup perfect and a fresh manicure she's suddenly convinced makes tacking up her own horse physically impossible.

Fine.

I'll help.

Fresh nails are fresh nails. I get it.

We're not making it a habit.

That's fall around here.

It's messy schedules and arena lights coming on earlier. It's sweatshirts over riding clothes and checking the time because there's still homework to do.

It's “Can we move my lesson?”

“I have a game that night.”

“We have a performance.”

“I have FFA.”

“We might be harvesting.”

And occasionally...

“Can he come watch?”

Sure.

Bring him.

We'll see what he's made of.

It's trying to squeeze a rodeo between approximately 47 other commitments and somehow getting everybody, their horses, their tack and their sanity to the same place at roughly the same time.

And through all of it, they keep coming back.

Maybe not for those endless summer afternoons anymore.

Maybe it's only an hour tucked between practice and homework.

Maybe they come through the door tired, frustrated or carrying everything that happened at school that day.

But they come.

They pull into the driveway. They grab their boots. They walk into the barn.

And for a little while, life gets simpler.

There's a horse waiting.

There's work to do.

There's usually somebody here to laugh with.

And there's a familiar place where they can just be horse kids again for a minute.

There's a much bigger story in that, and maybe we'll talk about that one another day.

For now, we're settling into our fall rhythm.

The days are getting shorter.

The schedules are getting fuller.

The kids are getting a little older.

The arena lights are coming on a little earlier.

The trailers are still rolling.

Lessons are still happening.

Rodeo isn't finished with us yet.

And somewhere between school, sports, theatre, marching band, FFA, 4-H, harvest, homework, fresh nails, driver's permits, licenses, friends, boyfriends, chemistry, algebra and mucho freaking Spanish...

we're still making room for horses.

And maybe that's the fall shift.

Summer gives us all the time in the world to love this life.

Fall shows us just how much we love it by the things we're willing to make room for.

And these kids?

They're still making room.

So are we.