Horse Whisperer

Over the past couple of months, I've spent more time around horses than I have in my entire life. Last month Park and I spent a morning at Deanna Rose Farmstead in Overland Park and then a couple of weeks later we hit another farm/petting Zoo when we were out in San Diego. Before that, my only real contact with a horse was during an ill-fated horseback ride in Colorado and a horse aptly named Slowpoke. Recently, it's been my work at the university that has had me hanging out at the stables. As part of our Do More. Be More. campaign focusing on experience-based learning opportunities at Wichita State, we've been filming a woman who runs an organization called Horses to Humans that uses horses in equine-assisted psychotherapy to help people overcome everything from depression to PTSD. It's really pretty fascinating stuff. But the cool thing for me is that I've gotten to interact with horses like I never have before. So much so, that the other day when we were shooting, a horse named Patsy took such a liking to me I had to actually leave the area because all she would do was follow me around. All of this seems to come at a perfect time as Park is completely fascinated by virtually every barnyard animal and asks me 101 questions every time I come home from a shoot. As time has gone on, I've done my homework before leaving the stables—asking each horse's name as well as several other vital statistics that we can go over together during our pre night-night talks.

Here are a couple of the shots I've taken during the TV shoot.