Saturday, November 15th:

- Tom & Meghan Kranz

Friday Night, Late:

Well, as the YouTube description says, "If you have a deck on your house that's 40' above a slate bottom creek, and you have rotten pumpkins left over from Halloween, "What would YOU do?"

We thought about holding a "Pumpkin Bombing Party" for friends of Longacres who live nearby, but everyone was busy with various Halloween parties. You guys missed it!

Friday, Nov. 14th:

Check back later tonight! We're going out to dinner with Uncle Billy in a few minutes, but when I get home I'm going to post a very cool video. It will be up late tonight if you are, or you can see it tomorrow morning!

Thursday, Nov. 13:

Well, there has been a flood of news from all of you this week! Best thing for me to do is just post a bunch of your emails. Also, after a lull because of the rough economy, we are again getting enrollments for next year. This is the week of the North Carolina girls, with Jamie Signing up last week, and Meghan having a great talk with Natasha tonight. Below are some of your messages from the past two days. (I am handing out LOTS of Diesel Brownie points!)

From Alexa:

From Laura:

Tuesday, Nov. 11th:

You regular readers know that I really like Diesel - you will get special Brownie Points if you write in with comments about my favorite "big boy"!!

- Tom Kranz

Monday, Evening:

Hi everyone. And thanks for so many of you writing to us recently - we're not so lonely anymore! New messages came in from Jaclyn, Laura, Ofelia, Martha, Jenn's dad, Don, Hannah, and Annie. Especially Annie!

It's been a while since we've had one of Annie's "novels" in our inbox. Annie is a fine writer and I especially liked today's volume. Here it is, I think you'll enjoy hearing about the "New" Bremmie!

Monday, Nov. 10th:

Sunday, Nov. 9th:

Saturday night, 3AM:

I know, I know, what nut updates websites at 3AM? But Meghan and I just got home from the Toronto horse show where we had a great time and I'm not particularly tired at the moment. We will post a number of pictures from the show tomorrow. It was terrific, and we got some good ideas for Longacres while we were there.

Also we had a phone message when we returned tonight that there might be a home for Boo. We'll keep our fingers crossed!

Friday night, late:

The video will be posted very soon! Enjoy a light hearted moment in Longacres history!

Meghan and I are off to Toronto tomorrow morning to spend a day at the Royal Winter Fair horse show. It's always fun and part of our "continuing education" in the horse business.

Thanks to Alexa and Griffin for writing us this week and helping to keep us from being too lonely for summer.

Good news - it looks like we are getting a new full season student for next season. Details to come later.

Below: Today's Video Clip

Friday, Nov. 7th:

Coming: A cute video of a Longacres "historic event" later today!

Wednesday, Nov. 5th:

Regardless of your politics, it is an interesting year. We have a front row seat to history being made.

Here at Longacres Indian Summer continues with another perfect day. I had a long flight with my model airplane on the way to breakfast. We'll be doing stone and cement work at the old pond dam this afternoon, trying to take best advantage of the final good weather days of the season.

Joel finished priming the new barn porch posts yesterday and Tom spent some time with the weed trimmer getting all the grass under the fences and next to the barn trimmed up so it will grow in evenly next spring. The place is looking very good!

Thank you Kelly and thank you Jaclyn for the nice emails. It's good to hear from you. We have not been getting so many messages from Longacres riders lately, so hearing from both of you cheered us up. November is quite a while after the end of the 2008 season and well before the 2009 season - it is the time of year when we get the fewest messages from our friends and customers. So if you DO write us this month, we read your messages at least twice (twice for EACH of us!!). Keep the news coming!

Monday, 11PM:

Here's a Longacres "Welcome" to new student, Jamie S. from North Carolina. Jamie is a 14 year old rider who will be with us for the first July session. She's got good riding and jumping experience and should fit right into our group. Meghan and I both had a chance to talk with Jamie on the phone last week and look forward to having her here next summer. Jamie's enrollment is the first official sign-up since the economy took such a beating last month. It's good to know that there are still horse loving girls out there who are in a position to sign up for horse camp!!!! Way to go, Jamie!

As of now, we have 24 returning students from this year and five riders coming to Longacres for the first time in 2009. Most sessions are about 75% full, with a wait list for Mother - Daughter week and just two spots for the second half of July. We were almost full in all sessions at this time last year, but this is not bad considering the tough times out there and the caution that all of us must take in making our plans.

Below is the YouTube link for "Tom & Meghan's Tractor Work Day"

Monday, Nov. 3rd:

If you're over 18, be sure to vote tomorrow. Whatever your choice, voting is a great privilege and a duty. If you're not an adult yet, think about how you'd vote if you were old enough, and why.

Here at Longacres we're having our "Indian Summer" this week. Just wonderful weather the next few days! We worked outside much of the day, some on our trails projects and some on drainage and landscaping near the main bathroom building below the dining hall. We're doing lots and lots of work on drainage, roads, trails, and other infrastructure here at the farm this fall.

Every other year, we treat ourselves to a long RV trip out west after the summer show season. This year was our year to stay home and work, and we sure have! Later tonight we'll post a YouTube video of some of our work projects today, including some nice shots of tractor work. We dedicate the video to Sebastian, Ofelia's younger brother. He likes it when we have video of machines doing gnarly work!

Toronto?

Meghan and I go to the Royal Winter Fair horse show in Toronto almost every fall. We'll be there this Saturday night, November 8th, in case any of you are there. We'd love to say "hello". We know that some of you from this area go to the big show in Syracuse, also. We'll post the dates if some of you are getting together there.

New Year's Reunion:

Laura is thinking about coming all the way from New Jersey for our New Year's reunion, and "not-so-little Michelle" is also interested. If several of you plan on coming from a distance, we might make this a two night deal instead of just one. Let us know who is interested!

Sunday, Nov. 2nd:

Hi everyone! It was nice to hear from you, Michelle, and we hope you can come to the New Year's reunion. We will confirm the date soon, but likely it will include arriving at Longacres mid-day on December 30th, staying overnight, and leaving on New Year's Eve. We'll hope we have snow so we can give you all snowmobile rides around the farm. We'll visit some of our horses that are wintering near here, and maybe we can hitch up Diesel and have him pull us around on a sled or toboggan.

Note to Parents: We are doing some website updates that will include much more information about visiting Longacres and the East Aurora area during the summer. If any of you are interested in writing short "reviews" of your favorite local restaurants, places to visit, or motels and hotels or Bed & Breakfasts, please send them in. We want to have some better information for first time families visiting their Longacres students.

Saturday, November 1st:

It was a quiet day at Longacres. We took a lazy Saturday morning, but then drove the truck over to the building supply store to pick up drain pipe and gravel. Joel put in a good half day installing new drainage near the bathrooms so if we have another wet summer, we won't see standing water in that area. Meghan caught up on house work which all gets postponed during the summer.

Me? What else, more work on new horse trails! We'll take a video of a tour of the trails soon and post it on YouTube.

There was very little wind today after quite a windy week, so I took advantage of the conditions and flew one of my model airplanes. Good fun! Then we were off to a movie. It was a pretty relaxing day.

Thursday, Oct. 29, late PM:

Meghan and I enjoyed a nice visit with my mother in Connecticut the past couple of days, but we're back at the farm tonight. We've got some good weather coming during the next week, so I'll be back out on the tractor with the chain saw building horse trails. Nights are getting cold here, though!

Watch our news posts for details about the possible New Years reunion at Longacres. Let us know if you might be interested in spending a night at Longacres between Christmas and New Years. We'd visit a few of our horses stabled close by and explore Longacres in the snow (hopefully a white Christmas!)

Monday, Oct. 27, 7PM:

Tom cleared lots more trail this afternoon. We're putting out an invitation for any of you to visit us the day before New Years, especially if there's snow. If there is, we'll give you all snowmobile rides around the farm and show you all the new trails. One of the trails I cleared today overlooks a beautiful waterfall with a cave under it that you rarely see walking around the camp. You get a great view of it from this new trail that loops around behind the old junior barn.

Tom & Meghan are visiting family Tuesday and Wednesday of this week and we won't be updating the website until we return Thursday night. "Unupdateless-ness" run rampant!

See you all soon!

Sunday, Oct. 26, 9PM:

- - - More Trail Work! I promise not to tear up all the Longacres forests making my new trails. But I am on a roll taking advantage of the last of this year's good weather for working outside around the farm. I went back out on the tractor after dinner and squeezed in just a bit more trail work before dark. I finished the main loop over by the old Junior Barn. I almost nearly got the big tractor stuck down in the gulley where it might have spent the whole winter! But I managed to crawl it out in four wheel drive with the differential locked. I almost had to go get the other tractor and have Meghan drive one or perhaps the ATV to tow me out!

We are almost done with trail building for next year. We have just a little more to clear by a secondary loop next to the old Junior Barn, and we are going to clear an existing trail next to Dark Stranger cabin that has become overgrown and abandoned. That will do it. We'll have almost 40% more trail available for general trail riding than we had last summer.

Sunday, Oct. 26th:

Yeah! I finished the "unexplored wilderness trail" today! Fall of 2008 is becoming the year of trail building. In addition to the new "wilderness loop" trail, we're working on a whole new series of trails near the old junior barn/isolation barn. I just mapped out a new loop there this morning.

Meghan has learned the art of surveying and gets a kick out of it. I think I posted a picture of her a few days ago with surveyors tape and tools when she was helping me lay out the wilderness trail. She has a good sense of how to weave a trail through the trees without having to cut any larger trees.

We do want to certify to all of our "green" friends that no large trees were harmed during the creation of our new trail systems this fall. (Lots of thorn shrubs were harmed, but they got their revenge on me during the "fight"!)

More snow is due to fall at the farm this week. We'll report if any of it sticks, though we will be away visiting Tom's mother in Connecticut on Tuesday and Wednesday when snow is most likely.

Saturday, Oct. 25, 3PM:

I am becoming something of a "hard body" - at least as much as is possible for an old guy, as I throw logs ad brush around every day this week! I finished another two hundred feet of trail through heavy brush yesterday. I've got just one more session and about a hundred feet to go until I get to my "Golden Spike" spot where one end of my new trail meets the other.

Monday should be our last day of having horses at our barn this fall. We're moving our few remaining horses to be boarded at Anne's (who has had many Longacres horses over the years), and Mary's (we take her horses for training every summer). Meghan and I have had a lot of fun caring for horses much longer this fall than most years. We'll miss them after we close our barn for the winter this week. The timing is good since they are expecting a good chance of heavy lake effect snopw this week!

Wednesday, 10PM:

Here's a Longacres "Hello" to Gretchen S. and her daughter, and to Chelsea R., both of whom inquired about 2009 sessions this evening. We look forward to talking with you folks and answering your questions about Longacres. In these uncertain times for the economy, we're pleased to still be getting new inquiries for next summer!

Wednesday, Oct. 22, 6PM:

I am pretty beat up! This is the third day in a row of wielding chain saws and weed trimmers as I work my way through thickets of vines and thorn bushes cutting out new horse trails. I cleared about 500 feet of brand new trail today through heavy brush and many small trees. This new trail will loop off the "powerline trails" way over on the far loop trail that goes through the apple trees and the swampy area. It will be a new loop through land that we have never used before - pure wild forest and brush. Dozens of deer make their year round homes in this dense woods. Because this wooded area is so dense, we've seldom even walked through it. It's almost like an unexplored wilderness!

And way out in the farthest corner I found a sudden opening with a shaded clearing where the pine trees and scrub apple give way to a stand of tall Maples and Oaks. It is really pretty.

So, I have accomplished a LOT of work in the past couple of days. I feel good about that, even though every joint in my old body aches and I can barely move!!!! When I get going outside on this kind of project and the chainsaw is in my hands, I forget sometimes how old I am. After I come back inside and lay down to rest, I remember!!!!!!

Wednesday, 8AM:

Meghan just called me from the barn where she is feeding to report that big fluffy snowflakes are falling, and that the horses are frisky and looking gorgeous as they snort and prance around waiting for their morning grain! One of the good moments in having horses on the farm.

Tuesday, Oct. 21. Noon:

Monday, 10AM:

Well, we know it is about time to close our barn for the winter when the forecast calls for snow flurries possible the next two nights! Indeed, with no winterized water at the barn, we'll have to place Patti, Boo, and Diesel at another barn beginning next week. We have a couple of prospects for affordable board, but no one to really adopt them for the winter the way we usually place our horses :(

Here's a Longacres "Hello" to Catherine and Mackenzie - Mackenzie is considering coming to Longacres from western Canada next summer. She still has to work out things like how to bring her own jumper 2000 miles so she can show with us! Good luck, Mackenzie, we hope things work out.

Around the farm today we're doing the final few projects outdoors like replacing barn porch posts before we hunker down for the long western New York winter. I'll be doing the final grass cutting, and then we may spend a few days laying in a supply of firewood for Meghan's downstairs office. One thing we have in abundance here at Longacres is firewood!

We hope your families are all doing as well as can be expected with your investments and the more cautious economy. Things are still looking generally pretty good here in western New York. We went to Galleria Mall Saturday and had to park farther out than ever before with long lines for the restaurants. But we are in an unusual situation in the Buffalo area; we have been a depressed area for a long time and our part of the country never had a big increase in real estate value like so much of the east and west coast saw. There was never an economic "bubble" here at all, so there is none to burst. I know that's not true for all of you.

Sunday, 4PM:

Below is the YouTube link showing Diesel "driving" - see the story lower on this page written by Diesel, himself!

Sunday, Oct. 19th, 2PM:

We had the coldest night of the fall season and there was more than "frost on the pumpkins"! It was COLD last night. But the horses were feeling fine when we fed this morning. It was a windless night and the sun was bright on their growing winter coats when Meghan fed, so they were happy.

Meghan and I took a little drive after breakfast (and after Tom flying model planes!). We went out the other side of town and looked at all the new windmills being erected on the ridges to our east. They look impressive on a nice fall day.

Then we returned to the farm and took a slow ATV ride through the trails making plans for more improvements to the trails for next year. The new gravel on the muddy trails behind Pegasus cabin is settling in and it will make for a much nicer ride from the barn to the trail system, especially in wet weather.

We also did some filling and grading of low spots and places where water collects along the barn drive and down in front of the barn. We also admired Joel's work on repairing some of the posts on the barn porch that had been rotting out underground so that the roof sagged a bit in a few places. We repaired two a couple of years ago and Joel is doing two posts this fall. That's four repaired posts done and only 76 more to go! That's one of the prices of being an old established riding school - stuff wears out and needs to be fixed.

Do remember to think about who might want to give Patti a winter home - she may be the last horse with no home, if we place Diesel and Boo with stables that have talked with Meghan the past few days. We have only ten days before we must close the barn for the season.

Friday, 10PM:

Diesel Says:

Hi everyone! Tom and Meghan have been "testing" me the past few days. Seems that they didn't quite believe that i know how to be driven in harness. Well, it has been a couple of years, but how hard does Tom think it is for a sensible horse like me to stop and go? Duh!

I think he posted pictures yesterday showing him walking proudly behind me showing off. Honestly, now, who was out in front? Who do you think REALLY know what they were doing in those pictures?

I thought I settled the question of knowing how to drive yesterday, but No-o-o-o-o-o, Tom wanted to play more games today. I saw him coming in the pasture gate, and I'll admit, I do like people and sociability, so I trotted down the pasture to meet him and lowered my head to let him slip the halter on. He gets a kick out of me doing that, but why wouldn't a sensible horse stick his nose down into the halter? Who wants to have their ears all beat up and crushed while some clumsy human stands on tip-toe to get a halter headstall on?

Well, Tom and I walked out the gate and into the barn. I kinda knew we were going to be doing more of the driving experiments, since Tom and Meghan were so whoopy-doo thrilled after I showed them my talents yesterday. So I wondered what kind of wagon or cart they might have for me to pull around today, and where they might get a draft horse harness on short notice.

You would NOT believe what Tom had sittin in the barn aisle when I walked in the barn door. A DOG SLED! I kid you not! This tiny little varnished wood sled dog thing right out of the Alaskan wilderness. Mind you, even though I have been spoiled this fall, with almost no work and lots of feed and hay and grass, and - - well, yes, I have a bit of a belly and some flab - - - I DO weigh over 2000 pounds and I CAN pull a pretty heavy load!

I thought that this dog sled thing was just one of Tom's jokes and he would show me the real cart or buggy in a moment. And where was my new harness?

Surprise number two: Tom puts me on the cross ties and comes back in a minute carrying a bunch of little ropes and a piece of old green canvass torn off the tarp covering the sawdust bedding pile. I turned my head to try to figure out what on earth he was doing. Well, Tom starts tearing up this grungy piece of canvas and tying various ropes to it. Then he puts the silly little dog sled in the barn aisle right behind me. I'm beginning to guess what's about to happen. Sure enough, Tom slips the canvas over my head so one piece is across my back and another wide piece of canvas is around my chest like a breast plate. A poor man's harness, if you will; a VERY poor man's harness! A decent piece of rope for me to pull against would have worked a lot better in my opinion, but Tom & Meghan pay the feed bills, so I kept my mouth shut. I didn't even snicker - nicker - whatever. And I think Tom had his heart in the right place. He didn't want rope cutting into my massive, rippling chest muscles, so he was at least trying. But I was beginning to figure that this project might end with some humor. Sure enough, Meghan shows up with a video camera, and I HOPE they got tape of what happened next.

Tom was patient, I'll give him that. First he led me out of the barn and kept stopping me and starting again. He led me all around the little ring by the barn with that dopey little dog sled following behind. I THINK he was worried that I might spook when the sled was following me. Is he nuts? A 2000 pound Belgian draft horse spook when a 25 pound spindly dog sled is behind me? Not like I haven't pulled REAL sleds and carts before!

So finally he gets all ready and his courage gets built up for the big event. He climbs onto the wimpy little dog sled, gives the reins a little shake and says, "Walk, Diesel." This I can do, though I have my doubts about how long this contraption of ropes and old grungy canvas will hold together!

Just like yesterday, Tom and Meghan practically wet their pants with excitement seeing that I can do what any decent draft horse does. I pull when I'm asked and I stop when I'm asked, even though I feel like an octopus is attacking me with all those little ropes and pieces of canvas rubbing against my sides and legs. Calling the "contraption" a harness would be very charitable. And sure enough, not ten seconds into our pulling demonstration, I hear this long, slow "ri-i-i-i-p" as the grungy canvas tears in half. Well, OK - I stop and just stand there waiting for these friendly humans to admit that they are very bogus harness makers! They are all excited again just because I stop and patiently wait for them to do something. What else did they expect me to do? Frak out or something? Don't they know my personality by now? It takes a lot to bother me very much!

- Diesel

Thursday, midnight:

When we bought Diesel this spring we were told that he had been trained to drive more than two years ago. We weren't sure just how much training he had or what he could do. So we just did our thing all summer working on his basic riding training and starting him jumping. We pretty much forgot that he was supposed to be a driving horse.

Well, Anne Handy came over to look at him today to see if she might be able to give him a home over the winter. Anne has had many Longacres horses for the winters over the years, including Patti. And - - she has a driving horse of her own (Hannibal). So she was more than a little curious about what Diesel might remember of his experiences two or more years ago in harness.

So just to see if he had any idea at all of how to behave in a driving situation, I put a long lead rope on one side of his halter and a longe line on the other, walked back behind him, gave the reins a little shake, and said, "walk". - - - And he walked - - and turned - - and stopped - - and backed- - and trotted; ALL with nothing but a halter and two ropes! He couldn't have behaved any better if he had just come out of a harness training program. We are definitely going to get a harness and have some fun next summer. We probably won't have a fancy varnished show carriage, but we'll figure out something that he can pull.

The fact that I have been doing a lot of ground work with Diesel the past few weeks probably helped him remember his driving training. If Meghan and I have time tomorrow we'll take a little video of him being "driven" and post it on YouTube.

Enjoy the pictures as much as Meghan and I enjoyed the surprise of finding out how well Diesel behaved when we long lined him!

Thursday, 6PM:

We had an exciting afternoon! We tried something new and it went better than we could have hoped. Pictures and story to come later tonight!

Thursday, Oct. 16th, noon:

It's a gray, dreary day at Longacres, and after we do some light maintenace work around the farm to clean up from the rain, we might just take the afternoon off and go to a movie! After we show Diesel to Anne, of course! Horse stuff comes first. We do ask you all at home to sit for a few minutes sometime this week and see if you can think of a stable near you that might want Patti, Boo, or Diesel for the winter (if Anne doesn't take him). We are getting close to the time we have to close our barn for the winter, and something has to be done with these few remaining horses.

"What is it?" contest winner is Griffin & her dad Mike. They correctly identified the "What is it?" picture as a water pump, even though it looks a lot like some kind of motor. To be more specific, it is a high pressure three cylinder fire truck pump. It is significant to the history of Longacres because if it weren't for this particular pump, we would have no dining lodge building at Longacres!

Back in the late 1970's and early 1980's Longacres owned a fully operational fire truck that we had purchased surplus from our local fire department. We used it to water horse show rings and to clean out the old swimming pond. During the middle of the night one spring, my phone rang and a neighbor told me our dining hall was on fire, with flames pouring out the windows. (we had rented the dining hall to a girl scout troop for the weekend before the summer season, and the refrigerator they used overheated after they left, starting the fire)

I called the fire department, and then remembered that I had been testing our own fire truck as part of spring maintenace that day and that it was full of water. I ran out, jumped in the truck, and drove down to the dining hall. I began pumping water and was fighting the fire for a full eight minutes before the real fire department arrived and they took over.

The fire marshalls who inspected the building after the fire was out told me that from the charring on the dining hall ceiling they could tell that we would have lost the whole building if I had got there just two minutes later.

As it was, we lost the separate wing of the building that once housed the kitchen. It was burned out completely. For those of you from the present, I'll explain that the small storage room between the dish room and the driveway used to be much larger and once housed a large kitchen. The part of our dining hall that is now the kitchen was just additional seating area for dining use back then.

When we eventually junked the fire truck we saved the fire pump as an important relic from the history of Longacres!

Wednesday, 8PM:

Wednesday, Oct. 15, 3PM:

Another fine day at Longacres and Meghan and I just got back to the house after spending two hours out on the trails just enjoying the farm and making some plans for next year. If you've been reading this space the past few days, you know that I've been out working on the existing trails filling in muddy spots and trimming the brush back.

Speaking of pictures, I think we should be able to come up with a few for tonight. We only took 700 pictures today! OK, about half of them were of Tom flying his model airplane, since the camera was set on high speed and Meghan often took 20 in a row to try to get one good one!

You will see pictures in today's album of that Old Junior Barn. We only use it occasionally now as an isolation or quarantine barn if we have a sick horse. But it has a lot of history from the early days at Longacres. It was the only barn we had back then and all the horses were kept outdoors in pipe stalls, which you will also see in the pictures. It has an upstairs hay loft, and you can - - well, imagine some of the stories that loft could tell if it could talk!

Anyway, we are sentimental about that barn and we're considering moving it to a more convenient spot on the farm and refurbishing it to use as a maintenance equipment barn, something that we could use now. It will require partially dismantling the building and moving it about 1/4 mile. Quite a project, but something we're likely to do in the spring.

Tuesday, 10 PM:

I just got back to the house after spending some time at the barn in the full moonlight. I went into the pasture and said "hello" to my buddy, Diesel. He wasn't as eager for human company as he usually is - he was still pretty fixated on his evening ration of hay! But he looked great in the moonlight with his very clean long mane (thanks Griffin and Katie!).

Patti and Boo were also enjoying eating.

It was a nice surprise to come back to the house after enjoying the moon to find an email from Leslie Anne with an appropriate poem:

- - And a nice message from Laura and Rocky:

So I tried to forget photography most of the time. I spent a period of time just sitting in the woods on my tractor and watching the falling leaves. It was a good time.

We had some possibly very good news tonight about a home for Diesel. Anne Handy has been a friend of Longacres for many years. She has experience with driving horses, owning a draft horse mix, "Hannibal", that she sent to Longacres a few years ago. We taught him to jump that summer. Anne has also sent her horse, Sady, to Longacres, and she has taken Longacres horses before. She is coming to look at Diesel day after tomorrow and might board him for us right next to Hannibal. Everyone cross your fingers that this will work out - it would be a great place for Diesel to winter!

Tuesday, Oct. 14:

We're still busy around the farm this week clearing and improving trails, and working on replacing some weak posts on the barn porch. Meghan is also working hard trying to find places to board Diesel, Patti, and Boo when we close our barn in two weeks. (Anyone have a barn nearby with open stalls and inexpensive board?)

Monday, Oct. 13th, 8PM:

We do thank all of you out there who have tried to help us find homes for the horses. We had nine horses with no winter home at the end of the summer and we're down to only three left homeless, so we are making progress - and we owe a lot to our friends who have helped get the word out!

There is a perfect full moon out tonight, so after dark Meghan and I drove down to the barn and spent a little time just watching the horses munch in the moonlight. It reminded us so much of the summer when Meghan and I often spent time with some of you during moonlight rides. We remember Kelly and Ruby and many others riding and even jumping in the moonlight!

As we were leaving the barn and had just turned on the car lights, we saw a deer on the show field. As he crossed in front of us we saw that he was a large stag with impressive antlers. (And we saw a fx at the barn last night - quite the wildlife this week!)

Then before heading back to the house, I surprised Meghan with a stop at Kone King, since we were already reminiscing about the summer. (She had a Butter Finger Twister!)

We've got one more quite warm day before true fall weather returns later in the week.

News: Leslie and Max have a new trainer and she jumped 3'6" recently. Way to go, Leslie.

We're going to begin rotating new pictures at the top of this page, and today's "Meghan choice picture" is of Boo and Amanda at Erie County Fair.

Sunday, 9PM:

We wish today would never end. It's been so nice out that we had a long list of stuff we wish we still had time to do after the sun went down! Fortunately tomorrow is still going to be a fine warm day so I can get the work done grading and improving the horse trail behind Pegasus, finish what might be the final trimming of the grass around the farm this fall, (fly my model plane again! - thanks, Derrick!) and so much more fun stuff. I just asked Meghan what she planned for tomorrow, and she says she's starting very early and feeding the horses when the sun comes up because there is a very special atmosphere in the pasture at sunrise. Then she's going to "boogey around the farm on the ATV" (her words), and make time to visit the bench by the creek - maybe even with a book!

This kind of fall makes you feel very grateful to be living and working and playing on a horse farm!

Sunday, Oct. 12th, 1PM:

We don't know if an "Indian Summer" has to be in November, but whatever this grand fall weather is called, we'll take it! The fall foliage is getting close to peak and it is in the 70's today and tomorrow. Just a grand time of year. I wish these days could be 20 hours long, since I have lots of things I like doing in these conditions. I'm getting my model airplane flying sessions in almost every morning and evening when the wind gets light. I've mowed nearly every inch of grass on the farm and we're been out improving the trails. Meghan and I get in at least one short foliage viewing drive every day. Life is good!

Horse Still Need Homes:

We do not have homes for Patti, Diesel, or Boo yet. The prospects we had last week have not worked out, so if you know anyone who might like one of these good horses as a trail horse, general riding horse, lesson horse, or just as a pasture buddy for your horse, call us! We have to close our barn in three weeks when it starts to freeze regularly, and we'll have to begin paying board on any of the horses left with no home. If you would consider taking one or two to your farm at a low board to help us out, that might work, too.

Saturday, Oct. 11th, 6PM:

We had a great time at the
Give Diesel a Bath Party" today! Some of the regulars from the area who might have come went to the Genessee Steeplechase races instead, but we had a fine time with Griffin, Katie, Uncle Billy, Katie's mom, Griffin's mom, a new girl interested in exercising the horses named Lauren, and her friend Margie. There were lots of hands to help bath horses and plenty of help to exercise them!

Griffin and Katie were especially helpful during the Diesel bath! (We all got wet!)

Thursday, 10PM:

"Great Pumpkin Party?"

Anyone interested in a "Great Pumpkin Bombing Party"? A few years back we hosted a pre-Holloween Party at Longacres for our western New York friends and horse show people. Everyone brings a pumpkin or two and the grand finale of the party is the "Pumpkin Bombing Contest" - you throw your pumpkin off the 40' tall deck outside our office room down onto the slate creek bed. We have a target and a prize for the most accurate throw, the most disgusting noise upon impact, and prizes for the smallest, biggest, and cutest pumpkins! We're thinking of Thursday or Friday evening, October 16th or 17th. Anyone interested? All Summer Series people and friends of Longacres welcome!

Thursday, 3PM:

Join us for the "Give Diesel a Bath Party" at 1PM this Saturday!

If you'd like to ride while you're here, we'd be glad to have Boo get some exercise, (or Patti) so bring your saddle or use one of ours. Longacres is beautiful at this time of the fall, so feel free to take a walk or bring a picnic lunch.

Thursday, noon:

Meghan always checks the horses over in pasture when she feeds to make sure none have any new cuts or problems. They seem to like the attention! This morning after haying they were all contentedly munching so Meghan walked to the end of the fence where Boo was in his usual all alone spot. She was going over him first as he ate, when suddenly she heard, "CLUMP, CLUMP, CLUMP", and turned to see Diesel trotting up. He was jealous that Boo was getting attention and actually left his hay pile to come over and push Boo out of the way so that Meghan would pay attention to him.

Meghan checked Diesel out and he was then happy to go back to munching hay. Then she went back to finish checking Boo and they weren't disturbed again - - - Patti is much more independant and was very content to just eat while Meghan paid attention to the other horses.

It's a lovely fall day here at Longacres. We went for a short drive after breakfast out east of town to an area where a massive windmill farm is being built. Wow! They are doing serious work! There were huge trucks with oversize loads of windmill blades moving all over and cranes everyplace. They are interesting things to watch and I'm glad they will be close by for occasional little drives. But I'm just as happy that they are not in our back yard!

Tuesday, 10PM:

Canteen refund checks for "Lazy Days" week are at the post office. Thanks again for your patience!

Meghan spent the day doing the accounting and writing checks, slowed down briefly by a computer glitch. But we have good backups, so no real problem. (Our Data Tech Department (Tom!), keeps six external hard drives with backups of all our files and pictures. Some connected to our network and others in different locations.)

Tom spent the day working on improving the drainage and spreading new gravel on the trail behind Pegasus bunk where it crosses the creek and goes up towards the power line trails. On a dry summer this is good, dry trail. But in a wet summer like we just had, it is very muddy as you all knw=ow. It will now be much better next year!

Tuesday, Oct. 8, 10AM:

We are going to do our little bit to stimulate the economy today - we're finally going to get the refund checks in the mail to the ten families who have been so patient about getting their refunds of left over spending money from "Lazy Days" week. We are very embarrassed about the long delay. Meghan, Cheryl, and Ashley worked hard on spending money accounting this summer and rarely took more than three or four days after each session to enter the various expenses and send out refunds.

But when we finished the season at the end of August we were tired, and the challenge of finding winter homes for nearly half our horses faced us. So we procrastinated on your refunds for that final session. Today we have set aside everything else and the checks will be mailed by midnight tonight - we will report when it is done! Thanks again for being patient about our slovenly efforts! If you have forgottan that you have some money coming back to you, go out and spend it to boost the economy!

Monday, midnight:

Below is the informal video Meghan and I took of our time at the barn today. Be sure to watch all the way through to the final few minutes where Diesel follows Tom like a puppy with no halter on!

Monday, 9PM:

HI again,

We're still working on the YouTube film from today. You will like seeing Meghan taking care of the horses and Tom playing with Diesel. Diesel started following Tom around even after we took his halter and lead rope off. He even broke into a trot following Tom with no halter on! Very cute.

Monday, Oct. 6th, 11AM:

We've had a lot of correspondence the past day or two. We got a long letter from Mike and Hannah about Horatio's new home. Thanks, Mike, and we hope you're feeling better Hannah! This morning I got a very nice message from Robyn, who rode Quantum so well this summer.

And a Longacres "Hello" goes out to Liz, Joey & Maddy, Jamie,Margo, Tabitha & Tabitha's friend, all of whom have been talking with us this past week about 2009 sessions at Longacres. We hope Longacres works out for you guys! You all sound like properly horse loving people who would fit in here.

This morning we stopped by at Quakerfield to visit Merlin, Brownie, Ginger, and Brody. They all look fat and happy at their winter home. We had a good talk with Amber and Diane, and they told us how the horses were doing. Brody is being ridden by Cassidy, who really likes him and does a good job with him!

Sunday, Oct. 5th, 10 PM:

I REALLY like Diesel! I had some free time today, so I decided to go down to the barn alone and work with the big guy for a bit. This is an amazing animal! He so likes people and attention and so wants to please.

I went out in the pasture and he walked up to meet me as I carried his halter and a lead rope. Many horses don't want to be caught unless it's feeding time. No such problem with "big boy". I reached out with the halter and he seems to know how big he is and that no normal person could reach up to put the halter over his ears if he is standing tall. He bent his great big head down and actually burrowed his nose into the noseband of the halter. I was fumbling a little with the head stall, but he kept his head down until I managed to get it over his ears.

He was filthy from rolling and lying down in pasture the past week while he has been out all the time. I spent about half an hour crawling all around his massive legs and standing on the mounting ladder to curry his back and rump. He thoroughly enjoyed the attention. I got most all of the caked on mud and dirt off, but he really needs a bath - which he may get in another day or two when it warms up a bit. There was about a quarter of an inch of dirt all over the concrete floor at the front of the barn when I was done!

I took him out to the lawn and played around leading him and stopping him. This is where his eagerness to please really shows up. He's one of the few horses I've worked with that trots the instant you break into a jog yourself, with no extra encouragement. And he is so gentle and careful of people (not that he didn't step on a few Longacres riders last summer!). When I was trotting him on a lead, if I stopped and said, Whoa, he instantly comes to a dead stop. Meghan came down later and laughed when I showed her. We'll take some video in a few days and post it.

Then I did some longing. He has been lounged to the right before - he is pretty OK with that. But he doesn't understand what's expected when you try to get him going to the left. He gets frustrated and just stops and looks at me and gets a littel scared of the lounge whip if I try to use it to move him left. Going clockwise is fine.

I am really looking forward to finishing this fine animal's training next summer. All he needs is some very consistant riding and training, so he knows what we want from him.

I know that many of you found him to be very hard work to ride last summer. It's not because he is lazy or bad or the slightest bit mean. He just doesn't know what we want him to do a lot of the time.

I had fun today. This is a great animal. Thanks to Hannah, Amanda, Rachael, and the others who did like him and took extra time to work with him and train him this past summer. Your work is already paying off and we'll finish it in 2009!

- Tom (Diesel admirer!)

Sunday, October 5th, noon:

If the "Sky is Falling", it hasn't hit the ground yet!

After listening to some of the politicians and many of the commentators, we wondered if there would be any economy at all in the United States when we returned. Would all our remaining horses have to stay at Longacres all winter? Would half of you who are already signed up for 2009 have emailed and told us you had to withdraw your reservation for next summer? Would new customer prospects have dried up completely? Well, no.

Instead, when we got to the US border two nights ago and could check our email and phone messages, we found nothing but good news. Thanks to several of YOU helping spread the word, we have prospects for winter homes for every horse but Patti. No one has yet told us they need to cancel a 2009 reservation (though we know that still might happen). Best of all, we have had SIX new serious inquiries about 2009 sessions from brand new prospects!

Yesterday as we drove through Syracuse we stopped at the large Carousel Mall. We could barely find a parking spot and it was jammed with shoppers. Many of them carrying shopping bags with purchases. Maybe money is really about to dry up and people are just out spending the last of what they've got before the big crash. But our first impressions after watching the US economy supposedly disintegrate while we traveled the past 9 days are that most of us are still going about our lives managing to do the things we like to do. More carefully, hopefully, but still living and enjoying life.

So if the "Sky is Falling", really, it hasn't hit the ground yet!

Or, as Meghan said as we walked the crowded Syracuse mall after answered all our new email camp inquiries, "Depression, my a$$!"

(PS - We do not mean to make light of financial hardships and sacrifices that some will certainly endure - but many of you are doing well so far, we are glad to report!)

Sunday, Oct. 5, 3PM:

There is lots more news to report from Longacres, so check back frequently this week. Besides the good news that we had six new families inquire about Longacres this past week, we are very encouraged about next year's staff. We had some very good counselors and instructors this past summer, but we also had some turnover and a few other issues with staff that were disruptive during a part of the season.

We're already making arrangements for what we think will be an excellent 2009 staff that has a lot of continuity from this year. Experience at Longacres is very useful! Cheryl will be back for her third year running our food service. She is doing more and more for Meghan outside of her position feeding us. She's been doing more and more of our office work, handles customer relations things like giving rides to the airport, and this year she took over the job of head horse show secretary. A VERY useful person at Longacres! Joel's Maintenance Service started doing just that kind of work for Meghan two years ago, but each season he's getting more involved in other aspects of our operation and is now feeding and looking out for the horses along with all his other work. He'll be back for a third year.

We're pretty sure that Ashley will return to her multifaceted job of secretary, "horse show mom", and all around booster of morale. It will be her third year.

Taylor Murphy will return in an expanded role. She did mostly behind the scenes work this year painting jumps, helping with repairs, and anything else where she was needed. Taylor got to know many of you pretty well towards the end of the summer, and we like her attitude. She is going to be working more directly with all of you as a counselor and another responsible adult on the staff in addition to all her behind the scenes work.

Three of our best Counselors in Training from 2008, Alexa, Hannah, and Carly, have all expressed an interest in returning as regular counselors and they were each outstanding. Each of them spent a good part of this past summer at Longacres, kept their cool, had great work ethic, and were NICE! We will be offering all three jobs - we just have to work out the details.

Shelly, Mandy, and Lillian were also outstanding, of course, and would be welcomed back at Longacres, but we don't know if they are going to be available. We'll make them offers.

So, you can see that we already have a good line on a very strong staff for 2009. We feel good about this.

Thursday, late evening:

Bobert:

Diesel Gets Re-aquainted!

Try this link later tonight for a simple YouTube video of Diesel the first time we turned him back out with his friends after he had been away for a week at JoAnne's. He was having fun!

Thursday, Sept. 25th:

Lots of news today:

Noreen and Amber from Quakerfield stopped by this morning and we all had a nice visit. They are taking Brownie and they already have Merlin and Ginger, so Quakerfield is fast becoming "Longacres West"! They do a fine job with their students and we're glad to have our horses with them.

More news from Quakerfield is that Noreen's fine 12 year old gelding, "Cavanaugh Classic" (Calvin) is for sale. Noreen has done everything with this fine animal but now is concentrating on an up and coming new horse. Longacres can vouch for Calvin - we've known him for years. He will not be inexpensive, but if you know someone in the market for a first class show horse that can go anywhere and do it all, give us a call or contact Quakerfield directly. Tell them you heard about Calvin on the Longacres website.

It is the old "Roadtrip" file we use when we're traveling.

Bobert is doing well with JoAnne, the Sheriff lady who tried Diesel. She is thinking of taking a second Longacres horse. She really liked Brownie, but we had already promised him to Quakerfield. So she's thinking about Boo and Brody. Pretty soon we'll be down to just Diesel and Patti left at Longacres!

Wednesday, Sept. 24:

The horses are doing fine and we thank all of you who are helping spread the word trying to find homes for Boo, Brody, Brownie, Patti, and Diesel. A couple of friends of Longacres in our area are counting up their hay supply to see if they can give a home to one of our left overs. Two girls who used to take Brownie in the winter many years ago are coming tonight to look at Boo and Brody. Things are looking up!

Joel is doing a great job on the decorative stone walls on the sides of the creek crossing we've been working on this week. It should look very nice for you all next summer when you walk from the dining hall to the barn.

We drained the summer water system on the farm today. Once upon a time that job took a full day. We've added lots of new drain valves and now we can do it all in about an hour. The fun part will always be the same - taking every last drop of water out of the toilets with little paper cups and sponges! But it has to be done so the winter freeze doesn't break the pipes and toilets. During the next two weeks we have to put all the winter shutters up on the dining hall windows and lock all the buildings. The barn will be the last building shut up for the season, since we expect to have horses here until the end of October!

Tuesday, sept. 23, 1PM:

Below is the e-mail from Justin!

Tuesday, Sept. 23rd, noon:

And THANK YOU! - Many of you have been making calls and putting us in touch with possible winter homes for our remaining horses. We had Bobert leave yesterday with JoAnne who had been trying Diesel. Patti might have a home with a guy who wants to just trail ride, and we have inquiries about Boo and Brody from both local people and stables that Ofelia and Laura put us in touch with. Plus Griffin's family has some ideas. Thanks to all of you! In the meantime, we are really enjoying having the horses here during this fine fall weather. I am especially enjoying having Diesel back for the fall - he is such a joy to have around. I took video of him running out into the pasture when he first returned to Longacres yesterday. We was so glad to be greeting his old pasture buddies. He jumped and bucked a bit - it will be on YouTube later tonight.

Justin' s Message!

Tonight I will also post a long letter we got from Justin, the horse. No kidding. It is hilarious and heart warming at the same time!

Mr. Skunk:

Monday, Sept. 22nd:

Hi Griffin!

Griffin lives right in East Aurora, and she has offered to help exercise horses also. Thanks, Griffin! Now all we have to do is fit everyone's schedules together and maybe we can have some alumni horse days at Longacres this fall. In the meantime,

EVERYONE THINK ABOUT Winter Horse Homes!

$50 Reward for a Winter Home!

Longacres still has six horses to place at adoptive "winter homes". It is time for us to start thinking outside the box. Put your thinking caps on and let us know if you have any ideas about what to do to find homes for some very nice horses for the winter! Just for fun, we'll offer $50 Rewards if anyone puts us in contact with a stable or individual that takes one of our remaining horses, or we'll give the reward to you if you take one yourself. $50 does not go far towards caring for a horse, but it's the idea that counts - just something new to encourage you to help spread the word that some of your good horse friends at Longacres have no place to stay this winter.

We have been feeling pretty sad about that recently, until we spoke with the owner of another horse camp that usually sends all their horses out to winter homes just like we do. They have 19 horses left with no homes right now! So it is not just us. The tough times in the national and local economies are really hurting the kind of people who usualy borrow our horses for the winter.

And I am not sure that things will get much better next year. We may be in for a few years when there are more horses available than people who want to lease them for a season. So give us your ideas. We already have good relationships with several nice show and lesson barns that take a few of our horses every year. Quakerfield and Lehman Farms are two in western New York that take our horses regularly. We would be glad to send horses much farther away if your stable is interested. Thanks to Laura and Ofelia who are both trying to talk their stables into taking one or two horses from Longacres. That's the kind of help we need!

And if you want to sponsor a Longacres horse that we have to actually pay someone to board for the winter, let us know. The horses would be very grateful! We're thinking we may have to board two to four, which will be costly for Longacres.

Sunday, September 21st:

Sorry for "updateless-ness" for three days! We worked hard around the farm on Friday and then took a trip to visit some old friends from the truck racing business today. We're back and hard at work here tonight!

Sadly, Diesel is coming back tomorrow. Sadly only because it seemed like he had a perfect winter home - we'll be very glad to see him again. Jo-Anne really liked him and tried him for more than a week. He just is still a bit too green to handel the work load she needs from a horse.

Quakerfield is likely to take one or more of our horses additionally. They already have Merlin who is PERFECT for them, and they have been trying out Ginger, who is also fitting into the Quakerfield lesson program very well. They may try out Brody and Boo this week.

Tonight is "Jaclyn Night"!!!!! Usually we are very good about responding to emails and other messages from all of you, but I just realized that I never responded to Jaclyn's generous offer of coming over to exercise the horses left at the barn. She wrote last week and told me she could do that. Thanks, Jaclyn! Let me know if you have a buddy who can come with you to keep you company and we'd love to have you work some of the horses. (Don't the rest of you from all over the country wish YOU were close enough to just drive around the corner and ride your Longacres horse friends in the off season?) Anyway, I declare September 21st to be "Jaclyn Day" to make up for me forgetting to write her back last week. We love you, Jaclyn!

Thursday, Sept. 18, 2PM:

We are still unsure whether Diesel will stay at his winter home. JoAnne loves him and said he did well at their first Sheriff's mounted division session. One of the tests for Sheriff's horses is that they have to walk up to a huge 6 foot ball without spooking. Diesel walked right up the first time, stuck out his nose as if to say, "What's this? Huh - OK, cool!" Yesterday JoAnne's 6 year old daughter was riding Diesel around the arena bareback while she waited for her school bus in the morning.

But he has not completely been accepted by the mounted division. For one thing, they are not sure Diesel exactly "fits" the image of a sheriff's horse (we respectfully disagree!!!) For another thing - well, you're supposed to be able to mount your sheriff's horse from the ground - JoAnne is still working on that!

Wednesday, Sept. 17th:

The Economy and Longacres

We are aware of the momentous events taking place in the financial world. We're working on a story about what this will all mean to Longacres. In a nutshell, we are hopeful that not too many Longacres families work in the investment banking and high finance worlds! We hope you all weather these unsettled times and are able to continue to support your horse activities.

Here at Longacres we are very glad that we have just finished a five year plan of major maintenance , reconstruction , investment in our facilities, our jumps, and our great string of horses. We are also glad that we are pretty conservative in doing business and that we've been able to do all the work over the past five years paying as we went and have no debt at all. It puts us in a very good position to ride out any tough economic times.

The immediate impact of the weak economy has so far been mild at Longacres. Last year at this time our traditional July and August camp sessions were about 90% full. We are about 75% full for those sessions next year right now, and we are actually ahead of last year's rate of early enrollment for our pre and post season special sessions. We know things could change for the worse if the country goes into a full scale depression, but we are cautiously optimistic about the future.

Tuesday, 10:30 PM:

Tuesday, Sept. 16, 9PM:

When I was a child at Longacres (half a century ago!!), we used to sing a song on camp fire night and I still remember some of the words. Maybe you know them?

"I see the moon

And the moon sees me

And the moon sees the one

That I want to see - - - "

I thought of those lyrics tonight as Meghan and I drove up from the barn under a brilliant harvest moon. We were thinking about some of the lovely moonlight rides Meghan and I shared with some of you this past summer, especially Kelly, Ruby, and the rest of you younger kids from our first session.

If any of you are checking the website tonight and get this message, go outside for just a moment and look up at that moon which sees us and will see you, too! Write in and tell me if you have a chance to share our Longacres Harvest Moon tonight. I am going outside again at 10:15 and looking up at that moon, and it will be joyful to hear that one or more of you shared the moment with me even if it is from hundreds or even thousands of miles away from Longacres, but very close in spirit.

I don't know how many of you will be checking in tonight - in the summer hundreds of you read this website every night, but vastly fewer at this time of year. Greetings if you are thinking of us!

Monday, 11PM:

Monday, September 15, 11AM:

What a difference a day makes! It was quite warm and a bit too humid yesterday, but the passage of what was left of tropical storm "Ike" last night has brought us much cooler fall like weather. "Ike" also gave us a taste of his fierce winds with gale force winds blasting through our Longacres trees for a few hours late last night. There were hundreds of small tree branches down just in the driveway to our main house this morning and thousands in the woods. It would have been much worse, but for the fact that Mother Nature sent us her tree trimming crew in the form of two very strong wind storms last winter that took out most of our weak trees and rotten tree branches.

The horses survived the storm fine, though they were all pleased to see Meghan when she showed up to feed this morning!

Canteen Refunds: We owe most of you who were at Lazy Days week small refunds on your spending money accounts and we mean to get those out to you in the next few days now that we are caught up to date on many other Longacres book keeping jobs. We mailed in our federal and state tax returns for the past fiscal year this morning. That's a load off our backs!

We are also pretty well caught up on confirming 2009 enrollment requests. If any of you out there sent in a request and have not heard from Meghan in the past two weeks, call us - we think we've spoken to all of you.

We are full for mother - daughter week and we are full for students older than 12 for the July 12 to 26th session. We do have two spots available that session for girls age 12 and under. All other sessions have two or three spots still available.

More to come tomorrow!

Sunday, 8PM:

It was a warm and humid but pleasant day at Longacres even though the remnants of "Ike" are passing close to our north in Canada as I write. We've had a good, soaking rain the past few days so our grass will be really shooting up the next week. I'll be busy on the mower!

You all know that we've still got lots of horses that need winter homes. What is ironic is that the first three we found homes for since the end of our season were the three that are usually hardest to place, ShaBang, Quantum, and Diesel. The horses that still need homes are some of our most calm and versatile. Brody, Boo, Bobert, Brownie, and Patti are still looking to be adopted for the winter by someone.

Sunday, Sept. 14th:

So far so good - Diesel is trying to put his best (big) foot forward during his trial at his possible winter home with sheriff's lieutenant, JoAnne. She gave us an update and told us he was perfect in the trailer on his way home with her. They groomed him, put "show sheen" on, and played with braiding his mane. They tell us he is easier to handle than some of their mini horses! He is a good guy. He did get in a little mischief this morning knocking over a temporary fence while he tried to get at some especially yummy hay. I hope they forgive him for that - he DOES like his food! We'll put together a little picture album and video tribute to Diesel in the next day or so.

Saturday, 6PM:

This has been a great day at Longacres, but a very sad one at the same time. We do think we have found a very appropriate home for Diesel, and he left a few minutes ago for a week's trial. We can't imagine a better use for Diesel than as a "good will ambassador" for a County Sheriff's mounted division officer! They do all sorts of special events where there are crowds and people come up to them and pet the horses. Diesel will love it, as all Longacres regulars know!

But it is hard saying "goodbye" to him even for a few months. I deeply respect and care about horses like Brownie (greatest pony in the world), Merlin (perhaps the most versatile and talented Longacres horse), Patti (greatest all time record as a show jumper of all Longacres jumpers, and there have been many!), Quantum (what more can be said about THIS great jumper!!!!!), and more of them. But something about Diesel has really grabbed me this summer. Most 2008 students know how much joy I got watching him each time he learned something new. And the past few weeks when we've had half a dozen horses left here from the summer, there's not a day that goes by that I don't visit the barn and say "hi, Big Boy"!!!! This is one horse I will enjoy visiting during the winter.

I find myself almost hoping that the Sheriff's officer doesn't like him after all and sends him back so we can enjoy him a while longer this fall!

- a sad Tom, already missing Diesel!

Saturday, Sept. 13th:

Some of our horses have new "loves". We visited Becka and Quantum last night and she definitely has fallen for him in a big way. It is now confirmed that Quantum will be staying with Becka for the winter at Brookfield, one of the nicest new stables in western New York. Really nice place! Becka is a very soft rider and a good fit for Quantum. She will be working him on the flat six days a week and will take jumping lessons with a good trainer twice a week. Just about the perfect work load to keep Quantum in good shape for next summer!

And this afternoon we had visitors from another stable. They came first to look at Bobert, but when they got here they all fell in love with Diesel. They all road him and the first thing each one said when they climbed up the stump and got on was, "Whoa!!!!!" Diesel was great both with adults and with little kids. If they take him for the winter he will be both a farm pet and he will work in a Sheriff's mounted patrol - we think he will like that!

Friday, Sept. 12th Update:

6 Horses Still NEED Winter Homes!

Help!

Do you know anyone who might be interested in a free horse loan for the winter? Spread the word at your stable or consider taking one of our remaining guys to keep your horse company! Brownie, Brody, Bobert, Boo (all the "B's"), Patti, and Diesel are still here at the farm with no winter home prospects.

This is the first time in 25 years that we've had horses with no homes for the winter by the middle of September. It is an interesting insight on the state of the economy in western New York. More upscale families that own their own horses are generally doing fine and certainly are keeping their horses. But the middle class families who often take advantage of our offer of a "free" horse loan for the winter have largely vanished from the horse world in our part of New York. We have now spent almost three times as much advertising for "winter horse homes" as last year, but few people even call for information. One family that considered taking a horse talked with us and said flat out that not putting the money into taking a horse for the winter would pay for Christmas and a vacation for the family. They couldn't afford both.

So pass the word. These are some of our best horses left. If we don't find loan homes for them, we'll be looking for opportunities to board the remaining horses someplace during November through mid April. So if you know a stable with lots of pasture and even just run in shelter so the horses can live mostly outside over the winter, let us know. Cost is a factor, obviously, if we have to pay to board four to six horses!

Thursday, Sept. 11, Update:

Working on Jumps Already!

Joel and Meghan were busy checking out each and every jump stand when they were put away last week. They set aside 18 of our old stands that had loose or worn "feet" which made some of the jumps uneven or wobbly. This week Joel made new foot pieces for all 18 of these jumps and we'll have them repaired to like new condition before winter sets in. We'll begin next season with all our present jumps in great shape AND we plan to build many more new jumps next spring. We're ordering 20 new jump rails this week so they'll be able to dry out over the winter and be ready for paint in the spring.

"What Goes Up Must Come Down - Eventually!"

or

"It's All Derrick's Fault!"

We're talking about model airplanes here. For two years radio control model planes were a big time part of my life and my main hobby outside of Longacres work. But I set them aside about a year ago after busting up one of my favorite planes in a hard crash.

Fast forward to this year when one of our favorite students, Danita, brought her brother to our special "Lazy Days" week. Turns out Derrick is really interested in radio control planes. So I figured it would be nice to get one of my old slow beginner planes out of storage, charge up the batteries, and give Derrick a flying demonstration while he was at Longacres in August. Just one flight, of course, and then put the plane away in the attic again.

Well, that's not what happened. I got hooked again! That's why what happened yesterday and today is "Derrick's fault".

Not only did I begin practicing with and flying my old beginner plane, but I got out all the broken parts of my high performance plane and glued them back together. Then I began flying that for more practice and THEN I went to my favorite Hobby Shop and bought a really, really fast high performance plane (brushless Stryker, if any of you readers follow this stuff).

I was doing pretty well flying all three planes. I did have one "hard landing" with the new plane. And flying the old high performance plane is tricky since it weighs about half again what it should with all the Epoxy glue and tape repairs I've had to make over two years of learning to fly through the school of hard knocks. It is like a brick to get going and barely flies if I am careful. So it is not surprising that I made a turn too wide up near the small show ring and the plane went into a clump of trees in a neighbor's back yard.

First I used a bow and arrow with a bow fishing line attached. That's a good way to get planes out of trees usually. You shoot the arrow up over a branch near the stuck airplane and it pulls a heavy fishing line behind the arrow so you can shake the branches causing the plane to fall back to the ground. But the plane was stuck so high in this tree that I could barely reach it with the bow and arrow. So we got the tractor high lift and Meghan picked me up in the air about fifteen feet and I tried with the bow and arrow again. I got close several times and we shook the tree branches like a storm would - but the plane was stuck tight. Then we tried throwing apples at the plane! No kidding, and I hit it twice. But it was stuck tight. Then I got mad and tried shooting arrows with no fishing line at the plane, thinking that if I got a direct hit, it would surely knock it down. Well, I "wounded" it, all right, but the plane stayed in the tree with an arrow stuck sticking out of the fusilage. Finally Joel brought tall ladders from the shop and he was able to get about half way up the tree and standing on the top of the ladder (dangerous!) he reached out with three pieces of plastic pipe he fastened together and was able to move the plane slightly, just as it got too fark to work safely. We gave up for the night, and then Joel brought a lighter, longer plastic pipe from home today and he was able to finally knock my plane out of the tree.

By this time, between myself, Meghan, and Joel, we had invested enough valuable labor time for me to just go out and buy a new plane and leave this one in Norm's tree over the winter as a decoration. So much for sensible time budgeting!

Other Real Work

We have done some real work this week. We're concentrating on our farm roads and drainage after enduring quite a wet season. At least we know where all the mud puddles form! We have the spot where the main camp road crosses the little creek between the dining hall and cabins all torn up as we prepare to pour concrete over the drain culverts. And every morning after breakfast I'm driving to the building supply place in town and bringing home a truckload of gravel to fill in a new drainage area next to the office driveway. As usual, quite a bit of our annual budget is spent "under ground".

AND just for Fun!

Meghan and I did do something this week just for fun. We drove all the way to Wooster, Ohio to see one of our favorite country music groups at the Wayne County Fair. (The Oakridge Boys) We also had a chance to see the Budweiser 8 horse hitch - we think our Diesel is just as gorgeous as the Bud Clydsdales!

Wednesday, September 10th:

It's been a busy day at Longacres as we finished up our 2008 accounting and dropped our tax info off at the accountant's office. Phew!

Welcome to Andrea who sent in her 2009 enrollment today! We've got a great group planning to be here for the second half of the summer and the big shows! We've got a few more spots open in August if YOU are interested.

Tomorrow we're beginning to work on the creek crossing down near the big creek on the road from the cabins to the dining hall. Lots of concrete forms to build and cement and stone to lay down. This has been a big year for bridges, road building, and landscaping at Longacres. More to come.

Sunday, Sept. 7th:

A quiet day at Longacres and, yes, Meghan slept well last night after I took her out for Pizza and a glass of wine to celebrate getting ALL the jumps put away neatly in the barn in just one long day! We're still working this afternoon on accounting, since our taxes are due at the end of next week. But we're watching some football, playing with my new model plane (which I crashed for the first time this morning!), and other things to relax a bit. We even picked up a Sunday Times on the way home from breakfast to relax with over the next day or two. We don't even think about trying to read the Times during the summer!

Taylor is working today doing a really good clean up of the barn, cleaning all the bridles and bits, and other stuff to put Longacres "to bed" for the off season.

Brownie is getting a head start of his own preparing for winter. He's already growing in his winter coat! Meghan tells me he has a cute little patch of white hair coming in over his left eye.

We have the mattresses in the bunks all stacked on one bed to keep them out of reach of the mice, and the the mattress cover sheets are collected for the laundry. There's lots to do, but we're enjoying the more relaxed schedule of the fall.

Saturday, 7PM:

Saturday, September 6, 1PM:

Meghan has a really good system. I am always amazed that with just a few good helpers she can get all our jumps put away in one weekend. In fact, she may be nearly done by the end of today. And it's a rather dreary, overcast day at Longacres - but good for heavy work, I guess.

I guess. You see, I am banished from the barn for this project. Meghan always has considered me too old and frail for this job, and especially so since my "false alarm" health scare a couple of weeks ago. So I am not supposed to show up at the barn today except to take pictures for the Blog.

But I have tricked Meghan and I'm getting some good exercise behind her back! I'm starting a project to improve drainage along the driveway to the office and it requires a 12" deep ditch across the road for a new drain pipe. It's hard digging since I have to cut through gravel that has been packed down for 60 years from vehicle traffic. Every time I drive down to the barn or back to innocently take pictures of Meghan and her crew working, I stop and take 10 or 12 good swings with my pick axe on the ditch project. I know that she'll figure out what I'm up to soon, but in the meantime I'm having fun digging up the driveway!

We'd like to send out a Longacres welcome to Shaina, a friend of Alexa's who has just signed up for "Lazy Days" 2009. We're glad to have you as part of the Longacres family, Shaina, and we liked you note with the enrollment.

Meghan wants me to report that Bobert has a nice home for the winter with a family that has been working on his stable for two weeks getting ready for him, and has collected some toys for his stall. After Bobert leaves, we'll have only Brownie, Brody, Boo, Patti, and Diesel left here waiting to be adopted for the winter. Just in case we do not find homes for all of them we're beginning to look at the possibility of keeping our barn open all winter this year, or at least through Christmas. We'd probably put up a little extra fence around the back of the barn and partition off about 40' at the back of the barn so the horses could run in and out as they pleased for shelter but live mostly in pasture. But we prefer to find everyone a good "winter