Dear Friends of Touchstone, Pony Farm and Horse Power,
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| Centered Riding Clinic with Mitzi Summers |
Springtime is the best time of year to get up early and hear
the Peepers, those tiny little frogs who make such big noises. On my daily
morning walks with the dogs, I have even seen a Woodcock take flight. What a delight-filled time of year spring is
on any farm, but at Touchstone, we are especially delighted. With the clear
promise of new growth both in the fields and woods surrounding us, but also
with the exciting growth in all of our programs, I cannot wait to greet each
new day to see what wonderful thing is going to happen. I hope you will come and share this
springtime fun with us! The welcome mat
is always out at Touchstone Farm!
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| Boo teaching a jumping lesson. |
Our lesson programs are growing every day. With our terrific team of teachers, each
rider from the littlest “Peanut on Ponies”, to our oldest drivers, to our folks
wanting to compete or go on trail rides,
to our devotes of Centered Riding and Natural Horsemanship, we are enjoying
having a wide array of offerings as we work to being “Everything Equine”, to
use Neal Goldman’s words. He is one of our great TSF Board Members who led a
good group of friends of the farm through an exciting weekend about how to
better market the farm. By the end of
much good brainstorming, he said …Yes, we are all about “Everything Equine”!
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| Meeting with Sandy and Mike |
To truly become “Everything Equine”, our key staff members
had a fantastic meeting last week with Sandy Eneguess and Mike Crowe who are
going to lead the team to replace all our riding arena fences and put in
glorious new ring footing. After much
research, we have all agreed on the Triple Crown Deluxe ring fencing that comes
with a 30 year guarantee and never another ring painting party! The footing has also been carefully designed
so that each ring is correctly prepared for a particular use. The Jumping Ring,
which is the one we use daily for jumping and several times a year for open
horse shows, will have the footing with the most give in it to help the horses
by adding soft landings after every jump. For the main rings used by Horse
Power riders who need side walkers for safety, we are putting in a footing that
is more firm so that the sainted souls who work with our students will not get
exhausted after an hour of helping!
Finally, the two main driving arenas will have the firmest footing of
all to allow the horses to pull the carriages with ease. Imagine not ever having to pick rocks
again!!!
This weekend coming up we will showcase our newest
instructor, Andi Oxier, who will be our clinician at our horse show clinic,
followed by a critiqued horse show. She
is honing her judging skills to be able to achieve her status as a rated judge
with the New England Horseman’s Counsel. She will lead the riders through their
paces both on the flat and over fences on the first day of the clinic. She will then offer her suggestions on Sunday
as we run a variety of typical horse show classes. Entries will be judged and ribbons will be
given out by Kris Young as she is the mastermind of this new clinic format for
TSF. We welcome you to come to watch any
part of the clinic or horse show. Together, we can lend good cheer and
encouragement to our riders.
The next clinic coming up is a carriage driving clinic
featuring John Greenall. He is well known as a wonderful teacher, sprinkling
expertise and great stories throughout his instruction. Drivers from all over New England will be
joining us for what is turning out to be a three day clinic!!! John was originally hired for one day, which
turned into two, and is now three days of driving delight. Again, we welcome auditors especially for the
Friday night April 13th Touchstone Farm Driving Club Dinner Party and
Presentation by John. It promises to be
fun and informative!!! Take a look at
our website to see more about the TSF Driving Program.
Because my health is so vastly improved, I have been able to
drive every day. My dream of hooking up
a driving pair was achieved yesterday.
With Dave Bradham, Kris Retter, Liz Herrick, Don Hart and Chris Nolte,
our trusty core driving “pit crew” we did indeed hook up Chunk and Charlie to
our hay wagon. They loved it and behaved
perfectly even through the standing to fit the harness to the new wagon. I can’t wait to give you a hay ride when you
are next here at the farm. It is my
total delight and pleasure. Thanks to
all of you who helped!
Finally, I am so excited to welcome our Fathers and
Daughters, as well as our Spring Fling Families, to the lodge and the farm this
coming April and May. We love seeing our
camp families return year after year to uphold this spring tradition. We also so enjoy getting to know new camp or
lesson families who want to join us for a new experience of the farm. The hay rides will be ready, the bonfire
bright, the chicks hatched and the bunnies eager to come stay at the lodge…not
to mention the trails and the horses and the rings and, and, and! In short, we can’t wait to welcome you to our
fun family weekends coming up.
I hope you are feeling the spirit of adventure, new growth,
fun learning and happy times that abounds these days at Touchstone Farm, home
of both Pony Farm and Horse Power. With
the transition to Touchstone Farm complete and well done, we are delighted to
turn our time and talents to making the farm and all its programs even better.
We hope you will look around and see the results of our good planning and hard
work. We cherish this farm almost as
much as we enjoy having you share its delights with us. Hurry up and join us. We promise a warm welcome and lots of great
things to do and enjoy. After all, our
motto is “Building foundations that last a lifetime”. Let’s build those foundations together this
spring at TSF!
Warmly,
Boo
Founder & Executive Director
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