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Showing posts from 2012

Best Quotes of the Holidays

The holidays always produce a few "laugh out loud" moments. Here are a few of my highlights. At our office holiday luncheon, Maryann and I were eating the peanut M&M's off the dessert table while everyone else was eating appetizers. Someone jokingly said, "You can't eat those, they're on the dessert table!" Maryann looked at me, picked up the bowl of M&M's and put it on the appetizer table. "Problem solved," she said. At the same luncheon, Lin was telling us all about a new theater that recently opened up and the hypnotist show her niece went to see. "They hypnotized her and she did that thing where you talk and swear at the same time," Lin said. "Oh, you mean rap," Deb asked. "Yes, that's it!" We all laughed. My brother and I were both Christmas shopping at the same time, in different stores. He was shopping for me and called and said, "I'm going to get you a present at

Farewell to my Barn Dog

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Ivy arrived at my parent's horse barn while I was living in Maine. A couple of years later when I came back (via Massachusetts and Nevada), she was one of a group of goats my brother had. I've never liked goats. But I noticed that the other goats picked on Ivy. When it was raining out, she would be outside, because they didn't let her in the goat house (which was big enough for everyone). When they did let her in, she was usually off by herself. Having a soft spot in my heart for an underdog, I decided to help Ivy out, literally. I let her out of the goat pen and turned her into my "barn dog." She had the complete run of the barn, and she loved it. Ivy had her own pen, the same size as the other goat pen, but she didn't have to share. She never left, was usually underfoot, and could hear the tack room door open from yards away; and was somehow instantaneously in the tack room stealing grain. Ivy in summer 2009, enjoying her job as barn dog She l

Happy Thoughts

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Amidst all of the sadness of the past week with the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, there have also been a lot of really great moments in the past week. I feel guilty having a good week, when there are so many people with so much sadness in their life, but I think its important to embrace the good moments in life too. I spent the weekend in North Carolina with my sister and her two children. They are ages one and three. We made gingerbread houses, we had brunch with Santa at the Country Club. We made cookies. One of my friends from First Descents came over for dinner and we spent some quality time catching up. It was a great weekend. Yesterday was another day with lots of little things that brought a smile to my face. John's whinny as I walked into the barn in the morning. A couple of good phone calls. Conversations with friends. A Christmas card in the mail with the reminder of an upcoming adventure for 2013. And the closing line of an email that made me l

Remembering Sandy Hook

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I’ve spent the last four days in much the same way everyone else in Connecticut has. Watching the news, reading updated reports online and talking to friends and family about the horrific events in Sandy Hook; and the same questions and heartbreak keep coming up. The Sandy Hook I remember was a quiet, peaceful town. It’s been about 12 years since I visited the town. When we were state FFA officers, two officers lived in Sandy Hook, and I went to their house several times for meetings. I still remember how to get there. From all of the reports I am reading; Sandy Hook and Newtown haven’t changed much; until Friday, it still was a peaceful town. I live next door to an elementary school. Once in a while, I’m around in the morning when the neighborhood kids are walking over to school. On these mornings, I see two little boys and one little girl race to school. They look like they are in first grade. I root for the little guy that wears the monkey hat every day, and if I’m in

Once In A Lifetime Experience

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When I talk to people about my recent trip to Peru with First Descents , almost everyone says, "Wow, that was a once in a lifetime experience." My friend took this photo of me hiking in Peru And I think, well, yes it was, but I want to do something like that again very soon. Why should we only have these awesome things happen to us once in a lifetime (besides the pesky facts that they are expensive, require vacation time from work, someone to feed your horses, etc)? Over the last couple of weeks, I've been working on an article for Massachusetts Horse magazine and have talked to some really incredible horse people. One horse trainer I talked to did the "Best of America by Horseback" ride in 2009 from Mexico to Canada with two of her geldings. She also regularly goes riding with Windwalker Expeditions in Arizona. These guys are endurance riders that take people out riding through Arizona. I can guarantee you that will be on my next Trail Ride Bucke

We'll Be Singing....

When We're Sleeping? This post is for all of you that have ever slept in the same camper at a horse show, or barn at a fair as me. We'll start with the background information to the above statement. The year was 1996 - I was 16 years old and it was the weekend of the Tolland County 4-H Fair. My horse was one of two horses staying at the fair and I slept over in the barn with her. In the same barn were the beef cows and some turkeys. It should be noted here that I hate turkeys (and all poultry in general). I woke up in the morning and was feeding my horse and all of that fun stuff when Mrs. Holden, who had been chaperoning us overnight in the barn, came back to the barn looking like she wanted to kill me. I said, "What did I do?!?" Natalie started laughing. Apparently sometime in the middle of the night I had started screaming bloody murder and woke everyone (except myself) up. Mrs. Holden said she nearly had a heart attack and asked what I had been dream

5 Reasons My Gelding is Fatter Than My Mares

I originally posted this in March 2011, but it still makes me laugh - especially now as John heads back into work from some time off - because it is so true. This is the original post: He works twice as hard as the mares, but he is fatter than either of them. I've spent a few days thinking and a few days watching them. This is what I have come up with: 1. Both mares are taller than he is, but I feed them all the same. Probably ought to change my feeding habits. 2. When the girls run around because a school bus drives by, John stands there and eats. 3. When the girls go visit the other horses over the fence, John stands there and eats. 4. When the girls run to the gate because I pull in the driveway, John stands there and eats. 5. I think four reasons is enough. Not much comes between John and his hay, so I guess I better come between John and his hay :) *On a side note, I could probably add a fifth reason - John knows exactly how to tug at my heart strings and get t

A Day on Cape Cod

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I spent the day in Brewster, Massachusetts yesterday (Cape Cod) exploring the trails of Nickerson State Park for a trail guide for the February/March issue of Massachusetts State Park. It was a very cool day.

The Winter Package

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When the farrier arrived on Friday, he asked, "What's on today's schedule." My reply was, "A bunch of trims, and maybe shoes. But I haven't decided on the shoes yet, so lets start with anyone besides Secret." Geoff has been my farrier for years, and he and his wife are always great about answering my questions, or waiting while I'm indecisive. Usually, I pull shoes for the winter and don't work my horses much, just some fun rides. We did three trims, and there was Secret, blocking the gate to the field so I had to pull her in next. It seems odd she was blocking the gate, she hates the farrier (well, not Geoff in particular, but the process of having her feet done). Decision time. I had him put the winter package on. Shoes all the way around, pads, and studs. We're ready for the snow. I've been having a really hard time getting motivated about dressage this fall. Even when we were at Tri-State showing in July, I wasn'

Where's John?

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You may have noticed, that in every post I've written about riding, I've been riding Secret. If you didn't notice, I did! But it may have you wondering, where's John? John has been holding down the pasture all summer and fall, keeping everyone in order (including Tim!) and mostly enjoying the good life while Secret has taken on the responsibility of keeping me entertained. I posted back in July about the tough choice I made not to do any more CTRs with him this year. That decision was hard for me, but the ensuing months were harder. I would occasionally take John out for a ride, but every time I did, I was second guessing whether the tendon was fully healed from Crooked River and if I was making it worse. I took him out in August and he got spooked badly by a deer eating corn along our access strip. To be fair, the deer spooked me badly too. I made light of it in my blog post about wildlife a few weeks later, but in reality he did re-injure his tendon w

That's My Horse

Last week, my brother thought he would be helpful, and decided to put the horses in. Everything went without incident until he got to John. He slipped John's halter off when they got to the stall door, and John, being an opportunist, wheeled around and went back outside to eat grass in the square. The square isn't very big. Especially after Tim closed a couple of gates. But John managed to keep the game up for half an hour, before he let Tim catch him. And yes, I asked, he tried grain, peppermints, and all of that. I think John was getting a kick out of irritating Tim. Last night, I was putting horses in, and as usual, took Secret in first. I put her in her stall, took her halter off, patted her and then went back outside. The gate to the pasture had caught on some mud, and stayed open. I'm slightly distracted this week and didn't even notice. John noticed. He was standing in the pasture, stretching his neck as far as he could through the open gate

Turkey Trot

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Twenty-two riders gathered at Bluff Point State Park in Groton on Sunday for Connecticut Morgan Horse Association’s 3rd Annual Turkey Trot. The registration funds benefit the Sue Brander Sport Horse Scholarship, and I’m pleased to say that we raised $390 for the scholarship fund on Sunday. Will and Bill volunteered to take care of food (coffee and donuts in the morning and lunch after the ride) and stay with the horse trailers. That meant I got to ride, so I was very appreciative of their continued support! After checking in the horses and riders, filling out NEHT paperwork and getting Will set up to handle the prizes, Tim and I tacked up Scout and Secret. Debbie and her daughter had hung around the parking lot waiting for me to be ready, and the four of us rode out together. Libby was riding Angie, a horse I’ve known since she was two (she’s nine now), who has transformed from a rearing, high maintenance two-year old to a kid-safe mount. I hadn’t seen her in a year and a half

Bluff Point

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I went to Bluff Point State Park in Groton last Saturday to check the parking lot and trails ahead of the Connecticut Morgan Horse Association’s Turkey Trot being held there this today. The sun was out, and despite the fact that it had snowed a few days earlier, the temperature was near 60. I don’t think I’ve ever been to Bluff Point, at least not in my adult years, without a horse. I took this opportunity to go by myself and explore all of the foot trails that we ride by and say, “Huh, if we didn’t have our horses, we could go down there.” There is also a sign at the foot of the beach that says equestrians are strongly discouraged from riding their horses on the beach. We always ride past this sign and take the horses out to introduce them to the waves, but if there are many people around, we don’t stay long. Since I didn’t have a horse, I stopped my watch when I got to the beach (I was running the trail), and walked out to the gull nesting area on the beach. After the beach

I'm Thankful For...

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First Descents ! If you have been on facebook lately (or been near any form of social media in the month of November), you notice all of the people posting about what they are thankful for. It's a very fitting month to do that, so I decided to join the crowd. As you are all aware, First Descents provides life changing outdoor adventure camps for young adult cancer survivors. The friends I've made through FD and the experiences we've shared have been invaluable in mentally and spiritually recovering from cancer. I didn't realize what a huge impact cancer had on me until I was further removed from diagnosis and treatment. Cancer and chemotherapy shook me to the core. Getting back to "who I was before cancer" was a tough road, and First Descents played an integral role in helping me find myself again. I am out living it again, and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to First Descents for helping to make that possible. Through TeamFD, I'm once again g

Equine Affaire

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I have mixed feelings about Equine Affaire. When I go, I am always happy to be there; seeing lots of friends, beautiful horses, clinics, shopping and everything that goes with Equine Affaire. The thought of the crowds and noise usually deters me from jumping right in and driving up there though. This year I had decided not to go, plenty of other stuff going on in my life, I didn't need to spend an extra day in Massachusetts, I could go next year. Plus, I could spend that extra day with my own horses. But, Linda didn't have very many people volunteering to work in the ECTRA (our competitive trail riding club) booth. So I emailed her and told her to pick a time slot she needed covered and I would go do it. I ended up working the ECTRA booth Sunday morning from 9-12. As in years past, once I got to Equine Affaire, I had a great time. Working in the ECTRA booth is fun, tons of people stop by the booth and ask about the sport. I had a lot of fun telling people what we d

Book Review - The $80 Champion

When my sister picked me up from the airport after my trip to Peru, she gave me the book: The Eighty-Dollar Champion: Snowman, The Horse That Inspired A Nation written by Elizabeth Letts. She had bought the book in an airport bookstore on a recent trip and really enjoyed it, so passed it along. After a couple of pages, I was drawn into the story of Snowman and his owner Harry too. Harry immigrated to the U.S. from Holland after World War II and bought Snowman, a very sorry looking grey gelding, off the slaughter house truck. He used Snowman as a lesson horse at the girls boarding school where he taught and won the Show Jumping Triple Crown with him twice in the late 1950s. What struck me more about the story was the heart that Snowman had - or as Harry put it - bottom. The horse had bottom and would jump courses 6 feet tall and win jump offs against younger horses with much more pampered lives. Harry and his family also had an incredible amount of love for Snowman, he was th

Eastern Regional Trail Ride

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A road sign blown over by Super Storm Sandy on Route 20 in Massachusetts. Hurry up and wait, Tim drinking coffee while we waited for our ride time. Tim riding Scout with Secret and I close behind, she likes following a brave horse. My brother Tim and I went to the 13th Annual Eastern Regional Competitive Trail Ride at the North Brookfield Sportsmen's Club in North Brookfield, Massachusetts on Sunday. I've had good intentions about attending this ride for the last three years, without ever making it up there, so it seemed like a major accomplishment just to pull in the driveway of the club. Tim rode his Paint gelding Scout, and I brought Secret. Since she has only done one judged pleasure ride before (her very spastic performance at Tyrone Farm in September) and Scout had never done one, we entered them both in the Novice Horse division of the 8-mile ride. A 17-mile ride was also offered. Over one hundred horses were entered in the various divisions. When we got the

Loss

Last week I received a yahoo group email from the moderator of our competitive trail ride group that had the simple subject line of "loss." It's amazing how such a short word can mean so much. I didn't want to open the email, knowing it couldn't be good news, but I did anyway. I'll get to the contents of the email later in this post, but first, I have to go further back in October. Two years ago, my circle of friends and family had a fall filled with loss. It began on Halloween, when my friend Sarah's mother died. Sue had been a mentor and friend my entire life. The next week, a farm employee died of cancer. The week after that, a neighbor died of cancer. And then Katrina was murdered. That month was hard on so many of us, and still is. This summer, they held the trial for the man that murdered Katrina. He was found guilty, and his sentencing was scheduled for October. Long before the appointed date, I received an email that went out to all

FDX Day Ten

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It goes without saying that Day Ten is the reason I signed up for this trip, just days after it was announced in January. Machu Picchu is a “bucket list” item for me. It has been a distant memory from high school and curiosity that never seemed to go away. I was worried that Machu Picchu wouldn’t be able to live up to the high expectations I had set for it, but I never should have worried. After a half hour bus ride, we were unloading and in through the main gates. We looked around briefly, taking it all in, before heading over to Wayna Picchu. They had bought us tickets to Wayna Picchu in advance (only two hundred people are allowed up a day) and we wanted to begin the two-hour hike promptly at 8 am. Wayna Picchu is tough; especially after the hike we had just completed days ago. Its about 1000 vertical feet up on stone steps. Just imagining how it was built was insane. I had been waiting for some friends behind me, but ended up hiking up Wayna Picchu by myself. It was

FDX Day Nine

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We woke up early again today, as we were on a tight time schedule. We had a four-hour hike down to our bus, and then had to drive an hour to the train station, where we would catch the 4:30 pm train to Machu Picchu. We made great time down the rest of the mountain and ended up with time to kill at the agreed meeting point. We thanked our chefs and horsemen, whom none of this would have been possible without and spent some time talking about what we had just accomplished. The bus arrived and we loaded up and headed for the train station. We had a light snack at the station and then found Machu Picchu. Our group of seven girls ended up in a different car than the rest of the group and sat with another local guide who told us more about Machu Picchu, and what we would be seeing. We arrived at the train station, grabbed our luggage and headed to our hotel. After quick (and cold!) showers, we went out for dinner and then to bed early to prepare for the day ahead.

FDX Day Eight

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From the get-go, we knew that day two of the trek was going to be the hardest. We had an eight our hike ahead as we summated the mountain and headed back down the other side. After our “hike” during our horseback ride, I had decided that my lightweight trail running shoes would be a better choice for the first two days of the hike over my heavy hiking boots. Day two was as challenging as it sounded on paper. We were headed uphill for most of the day. Staff member Sweet D had told us to just take one step at a time and to think about the hike that way, rather than as the entire hike. At one point, I came around a bend in the trail and Sweet D was waiting to tell each of us as we passed that we had just reached the summit of the Grand Teton in Wyoming, the highest point in the contiguous United States. With renewed energy, we continued our upward ascent. We stopped several times for snack breaks and to gather the whole group together. Several of us also found that a quick pho

FDX Day Seven

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We had breakfast at the hotel, before loading up the van at seven for the three-hour drive to the Lares Trail. We stopped for supplies in one local town and then stopped at a Hot Springs where some of the group soaked. After a hearty lunch, we began our hike. I settled in behind one of our guides, Mayra, who was leading the group, and began the trek. This was the part of the trip that made me the most nervous because I had been working so much. I didn’t have a lot of time to work out leading up to the trip. But, on we walked and we settled into a comfortable pace and it really wasn’t very difficult. The most difficult part of the day was the weather. As the rainy season approaches, and being up in the mountains, the weather changed quite a bit. We put our rain jackets on; and a few minutes later we took them off and tied them around our waist. But, if the worst part of the day was struggling to find a happy medium with the weather, it was a really good day! Again, we enjoy

FDX Day Six

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Day six was a free day, so five of us decided to head to the Saqsaywaman (pronounced Sexy Woman) ruins and explore. Our hotel called us a cab and Ducky, Omey, Limbo, Caesar and I piled out on top of the hill at Sexy Woman. After Ducky and Caesar negotiated us a better rate for our tickets into the ruins, we went inside to explore. I asked a woman to take our picture, and it turned out she was a tour guide as well. We negotiated with Clara and ended up paying her 20 soles to give us a tour of the ruins. Clara told us about the history of Sexy Woman, how it was built and about the Spaniards invading. We tried to soak up all of the history, but were really having more fun taking pictures and enjoying the fact that we were in Peru! At the end of our tour, Clara left us and we did some final exploring on our own, including building a human pyramid and having a guy from Montreal take our pictures. After Sexy Woman we went back to downtown Cusco to do some shopping. Most of the st

FDX Peru Day 5

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The day began with rain, which didn’t seem to matter much since we were just going to get on the river and get wet anyway. It was our last day to raft – at lunchtime we would arrive at the takeout and head back across the mountain roads to Cusco. The faces in the raft changed some as Limbo and Hot Rod joined our raft and Omey and Caesar headed over to the “Noodle” for the day. We went through some big rapids again today, but with fewer rocks. Both days included Class 3 and 4 rapids and ended up being a lot of fun. We hit the deck a few times, bounced off a few rock walls on the side of the river and overall had a great time. Too soon the bridge came into sight and we had arrived at the take out. The “road” was up a steep rocky embankment and was a one-car wide gravel path. We set up another line and passed gear and rafts up the hill to load up. After another great lunch, we piled into the van for the four-hour ride back to Cusco. I hopped into the front seat to avoid any

FDX Peru Day 4

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After breakfast, we broke down our camp and started loading the rafts back up to continue our journey down the river. Apurimac means “the God that speaks” and we enjoyed hearing about the history of the river and Peru from Juanito. Our boat for the day was: Omey, Caesar, Hefty, Sunshine, Carnage and myself. We spent a lot of time laughing, taking surveys and enjoying our time on the river. There were a couple more portages and a few nerve-wracking moments too. Peru has lots of rocks. This particular section of the river seemed to have an abundance. It didn’t help that the river was low; the rainy season will be starting soon. At one point, we though, or I guess Juanito thought, we could squeak through a tight spot surrounded by rocks, and we ended up vertical on a rock. Water was gushing into the boat, but Juanito calmly climbed out of the raft and pushed us back off the rock and into the river. A little while later we ended up in a similar situation with more rocks and H

FDX Peru Day 3

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We loaded into a van early in the morning for the four-hour drive to the put-in on the Apurimac River. I sat near the back with Omey until the switchbacks high on the mountain roads and the gun it/slam on the brakes driving technique of our driver proved fateful to my stomach. I moved up to the front seat (thanks Ducky!) and we continued our drive. The front seat wasn’t much better though; I was slightly horrified to discover that our driver was falling asleep at the wheel while driving us down narrow mountain roads. The road was really only wide enough for one vehicle and one wrong move would send us plummeting over the edge and far beleow. We got out once when the two-wheel drive van couldn’t manage to climb a hill on a “road” with all of us in it. Somehow we managed to arrive safely at the put-in and after a brief downpour while we unloaded the van, we ate lunch and watched while they ferried all of the rafts and gear down the hill to the river. The put-in for the river was