Special “Road Trip” news Updates -

We can only update this special file while we are traveling. Check back here for more “Latest News” between November 14^th and December 5^th, 2008:

November 14^th, 2008:

Hi everyone. This is where you’ll find Longacres “Latest News” updates from now until December 5th. We’re heading to Florida for a couple of weeks where we publish the “Boating and Cruising Guide to the St Johns River”. We have almost sold out the previous printing and we have to do some photography and research for the new edition of the book which we’ll need to print next year. Florida is also a decent place to spend some time in November! (Snow is forecast for every day of much of the coming week here in Buffalo, so we’re getting out just at the right time!) If you’re curious about our boating book, check out www.st-johns-river.com

We may not be at a WiFi hotspot every day while we’re traveling, but we’ll try to post an update every two or three days.

- Tom & Meghan

- PS – Welcome to Natasha, who has reserved a spot for the summer of 2009.

November 19^th; Nashville:

Whew! Chilly!

It has been in the 20’s each night on our trip so far, and we’re giving the RV furnace a workout. But we haven’t frozen yet. And beginning yesterday afternoon, at least the sun has been out!

Meghan’s taste in music and mine are different most of the time, but our diverging preferences come together when we visit Nashville. We do both enjoy Blue Grass and most country music. We went to the “Grand Ole Opry” last night. For the first time, we had a chance to see the show in the original old Ryman Auditorium, where they put on the show occasionally for tradition’s sake.

Our usual music tastes? I listen mostly to Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart in the cab of my tractor during the many hours I spend mowing all our riding areas in the summer. Meghan’s preferences in music? Some of them are beyond my understanding, but probably close to those of many of our students!

The Natasha Video Experiment:

We’re going to try a new idea for sharing riding video with you this coming summer. I’m calling it the “Natasha Experiment”, since Natasha’s mom recently asked me if it is possible to get copies of video taken of riders at Longacres. But many of you have asked about this in the past. Just that Natasha and her mom made us think about it now and when we are traveling we like to think about Longacres programs and try to think outside the box a little.

It has always been difficult for us to make time to produce video of your riding while you are at Longacres since your rides are always spread out over many tapes and editing to get video of your own rides would be too time consuming. But we do have an idea we’re going to try.

We will have a special video ride near the end of each of our sessions. We’ll let each of you ride your favorite horse, even if you have to take turns. We’ll do a fun course or other exercises. It won’t quite be a “big jumping” session, but we’ll make it special and fun. We’ll take about an hour of tape with shots of everyone at Longacres that session. Then we’ll do a not edit burn of that one hour tape to a DVD and make it available inexpensively to anyone who wants to buy it. The cost will be far less than we would have to charge you if we spent several hours editing a special tape just for you. And it will be a fun hour making the tape.

News:

It’s been good to hear from many of you while we are traveling. Mandy wrote a nice note and even though she already has tentative plans for her career next summer, she is “slightly” considering our offer for her to work at Longacres. We’ll keep our fingers crossed! Alexa sent us a nice collage photo she put together. We’re waiting for her to send us a file so we can post it. We got nice messages from Jenn and from Tovah, who we haven’t heard from in a while!

Staci is coming to Longacres for the first time this summer after enrolling almost a year in advance!!! She writes:

hey meghan, and tom

today i was i my first show. we did walk trot canter class. it was awsome. i road a big horse named rascal he's amazing. i love him. i have only cantered him two times since i started riding at the new stable and we got a 1st a 2nd and a 3rd. it was so much fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i love him. we got the third because he kinda raced around the ring in the last class. he was getting ancy becase he had been out for a while. still, he was really good .

staci m.

ps. diesel is awsome he i so cool i can not wait to ride him. sorry my diesel cometts are a little late. Staci

Griffin’s mom, Amy, sent us this (HA ha!)

:

Hi Tom and Meghan,

Hope you are enjoying the first full day of your trip! Meghan, thanks so much for dropping off the trophy for Griffin. As usual, you go above and beyond. Tom, on the other hand, is a bad influence on our dear sweet Griffin. We had 42 pumpkins in our garage, left over from the night of magic fundraiser. Griffin invited a few friends over today and had her own pumpkin smashing party in the back yard! (She did ask permission, so I'm only pulling your leg Tom.) She took a bunch of her own videos and pictures, so I'll send you some.

Have a safe trip.

- Amy

Full Size Photo files from last summer, anyone?

We are putting together collections of pictures from the thousands we took last summer. There will be several hundred from each of the following parts of the summer:

1) Adult week through Mother – Daughter week

2) June 22 through July 6^th

3) July 6 through July 20^th

4) July 23 to August 23^rd

We have finished the first collection and you can see small thumbnails of what is included (over 300 pictures) at this link. At least you can after we successfully upload the files to the net – We had a problem just now doing it from a Panera’s while we are traveling!

We included nearly all of the best pictures. We tried to get a few at least of everyone, but we have not yet checked carefully – let us know if you are not there! And let us know if you want us NOT to include pictures of you. We will offer these sets of picture files on DVD. They are very high resolution files suitable for making large prints. They will be $25 for your first DVD including shipping, and $20 each for any additional sets if you want more than one.

Mounted Sheriff’s Patrol Clinic:

JoAnne, who has Bobert for the winter and likes Diesel, has offered to give a clinic about mounted patrol work at Longacres next summer. We appreciate the offer, JoAnne, and look forward to it!!!

November 16^th, (south of Pittsburgh)

No Fair! We worked hard around the farm all fall. The place looks great! And we cleverly scheduled our November trip south to coincide with the arrival of winter weather in western New York. We figured we’d slide south just ahead of the cold weather the way we have many times in the past. We’d be chuckling about our friends in East Aurora enduring freezing weather while we walked around in light sweaters on our RV trip. We earned this vacation trip. We deserve it. It should be warm!

BUT – this is turning out to be a true arctic blast affecting most of the eastern United States. It is snowing here in southern Pennsylvania as we enter the second day of our trip south. And there is no relief in sight as we drive further south. The temperatures are going to be in the 20’s at night in ALABAMA even for much of the coming week!!!!!!

So, enjoy your warm houses, even if it is cold outside where you are. We will be running the RV furnace and stopping to top up our LP gas tanks every other day. Br-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!

Back at the farm, we did finish up many very useful maintenance projects this fall. As many of our regular readers know, we take a long RV trip out west after the riding camp season every other year. On alternate years, we stay at home and work around the farm. This was an “at home” year, and we did lots of things. One of the final projects was Joel working on a new stone wall on the down stream side of the dam at the old swimming pond. He did a wonderful job – and most of you will never see it! Ask me for directions to find it when you are visiting Longacres next season. It looks great and it will keep the dam from getting undermined during bigger storms for years to come. I’ll post a picture if it is visible between snowfalls when we get home again in December.

Speaking of snowfalls and December, we are planning the Longacres in the snow reunion for New Years. You are invited to arrive at Longacres before lunch on December 31, enjoy checking out Longacres in the snow (hopefully snow), ride on our snowmobiles, maybe visit some of the nearby horses, have a quiet New Year’s Eve party, then some more fun New Year’s Day morning, and leave for home at 2 or 3 New Year’s afternoon.

Let us know if you are interested in coming. We will probably set up some kind of fun riding opportunity at a nearby stable.

Here’s a Longacres “Hello” to Drisana from outside Washington, DC. She is interested in joining us for a two week session next summer and traded emails with Meghan yesterday. After a long period the past month when people were not even asking about a big expenditure like riding camp, we are starting to get inquiries and enrollment requests again. The economy is still looking very uncertain for next summer, and it makes sense to make summer vacation plans carefully after considering all your family’s expenses. For those of you who are able to attend an expensive riding vacation next summer like we offer at Longacres, be sure to let your nice parents know that you are grateful! Even the wealthiest families must take care with bigger expenditures in this economy.

We will keep you posted on our trip through the arctic winds and snows as we head south. (The only way we’ll know we’re headed south is by watching a compass – it does not look like it’s getting warmer anytime soon!) We’re posting this update from a Panera’s bread with free Wifi.

Hey, Alexa – we really liked your composite picture. I will try to download it and post it. Can you send me a copy as a .jpg attachment, instead of embedding it in your email?

October 2^nd:

Hello again! Sorry we haven’t been in a position to update the website the past week. Meghan and I have been on the road in northern Canada vacationing. We’ve actually experienced TWO fall foliage seasons as we drove the RV north through cottage country in the Muskoka – Algonquin area of north central Ontario and then again as we came back south through Quebec. Most of our trip has been through the Canadian woods, the Laurentien mountains, and the Gaspe peninsula, but we also had a chance to visit two cities we’ve never been to before.

We walked around the walled city of old Quebec two days ago and we’ll be spending a day in Ottawa beginning tonight. Then it will be a two day drive home through the Adirondacks in New York. If you like looking at maps, our farthest north destination was Val D’Or Quebec.

We have a satellite TV in the RV so we’ve had regular CNN fixes and kept up with the stuff that’s happening in Washington. It’s dangerous for a “service industry” host like Longacres to express political opinions publicly, but I think when I get home and have more time, I’ll tell you a little story about a young businessman a long time ago running a horse farm, and his brush with reckless spending and a collision with tightening credit. It was an experience that changed my life for the better and bears directly on the current crisis in the economy.

We’ve also been able to keep up with what’s going on in the world with our new Sirius satellite radio. We got it just for this trip and it’s pretty neat. I’ve even found out that I have a previously unknown talent. We were listening to an “oldies Rock & Roll” station the other day and I found out that they were playing mostly songs from the late 1950’s and early 60’s – my teenage era. I utterly amazed Meghan when I could name the song and the artist after the first five or six notes of the instrumental opening notes of the song. I was hitting three out of four consistently, and sometimes ran off streaks of 7 or 8 in a row. She flipped out when I correctly named the somewhat obscure instrumental song “Raunchy” by Bill Justice after four notes from the guitar!!

I really don’t know how I can do it after all these years. One explanation is that I was a real teenager back then and I had a serious collection of 45 RPM records from that era. Also, back then before my memory cells started dying off, I was tested as having a very unusual, almost autistic savante, ability to memorize long strings of numbers. Maybe those two things meshed and that’s why hearing those opening notes of late 50’s and early 60’s songs trigger a memory connection.

OR – maybe it’s an example of another very common mental condition. The elderly often have very vivid memories of their youth but can’t remember where they put their keys or their wallet five minutes ago. That sounds familiar, too!

We’re trying to vacation and be carefree as we enjoy this beautiful country north of the border. But we are keeping up with our answering machine and phone messages every other day, and we’re glad to hear that the horses are doing fine at Longacres and Boo may even have two options for winter homes when we get back to the farm in a few more days. Joel and Taylor are having fun caring for the horses. And even with the bad news about the economy we have two new inquiries from possible 2009 students. Some people are still planning to spend money on horse camps next year, which is reassuring to us!

September 25^th:

This is the page we will update while we are traveling this coming week. Check back in a day or two.

April 8th:

Hi everyone,

We’re almost home to the farm. We’re stalled for an extra day in Northern Maryland where we are having a troublesome brake fixed on the RV before driving on to East Aurora tonight.

We had a great “LA in DC” reunion last night at Annie’s house right in DC. Hannah and her family, Regan & family, Claire Sr, Meghan and Tom joined Annie and her folks for the pot luck supper. GREAT food! (Especially the strawberries – thanks for the extra container, guys – they are almost gone!) We shared horse talk and lots of other topics for a fun evening. Below is a picture taken of Annie just this weekend, after she showed Bremmy to reserve Champion in her school show circuit. Good job, Annie!

There is GOOD NEWS on Diesel – our possible new Belgian draft horse! We thought we might not be able to get him, but the owner called during the party last night and left a message that the horse is still available. We hope to offer news of a final purchase soon – keep your fingers crossed!

We’ll be home tomorrow morning if the RV brakes get fixed this afternoon, and we’ll be immediately out on the farm checking out winter damage now that the snows are melted. We’ll be going right to work with chain saws, paint brushes, and maintenance men to get the farm ready for our opening day which is only about six weeks away for the adult week!

We’ll post more pictures of the reunion at Annie’s when we get home tomorrow, and we’ll be back to updating the regular “latest news page” then. We can’t wait to get back to the farm.

- Tom & Meghan

April 4^th:

LA in DC – on Monday evening, the 7^th!

Following is the invite from Annie Hankins & family:

LA in DC- All are welcome for a pot luck around 5:30/6 at 3615 Chesapeake St NW, DC 20008 (between Conn & Nebr Ave) 202 537-3615.

I'll have a big pot of my veg/beef barley soup with cheesey toasts. Of course the camera will be charged & ready. We have plenty of street parking (even for RV's) or a few blocks walk from either Van Ness or Tenleytown on Metro redline. Too bad our yard is too small for Bremmy to attend. We're so pleased for the excuse to have a preview of the camp season.

Holly, Paul & Annie Hankins

HELLO to the poor, deprived, update-less Andrea!

- And to lonely, Friday-night-dinner-partners-less Uncle Billy!

And to everyone else who will not be able to join us on Monday at Annie’s!

HORSE NEWS:

Jack is Back! Good friend of Longacres, Jack’s owner, tells us that she’s planning to send her fine horse to Longacres again for exercise and show experience. He makes a great addition to the stable for the summer and we’re glad to have him again.

Carly looking to car pool to camp:

Carly is coming to Longacres for the full second session from July 23 to August 23^rd, and she’d love to car pool either way with anyone else coming or going to the Maryland area. Contact Carly or call us if you are interested.

From “Un Happy Andrea:

Update omg I'm getting a bad case of updatelessnessismosisthatsquite

atrocious!!!!!!!! Its not good!!!!!

PLEASE

SAVE

ME

FROM

THIS

HORRIBLE

CONDITION

!

!

!

>=^0

Look at the face hehehehehehe

Lololololololololololololol

So hows life hah I'm bored can you tell!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Haha so I miss you guys and I miss hearing from you guys!! And I can't

satisfy my craving because I can't!!! Because there is nothing to

read!! On o idk a certain WEBSITE.... Hmmmmmmmm maybe a certain

website called LONGACRES.COM. hmmmmmmmm maybe...

UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please, for meeeeee????????

Hi Tom & Meggie,

They were all happy to see "Wild Bill" back in the saddle last night! My horsie was excited. When we got out to the sand ring, there was a 4 horse lesson, so Rocket started trotting with the other horses. On our trail ride, when we got up by the woods trail where the side hill jump was, he started jigging up the hill. He wanted to jump!

It was a great night to ride and it feels good to be back in the saddle again! 
Hope all is well on your trip home with the winnie! I'll miss our Friday night din-din gathering. See ya soon. Riding both days this weekend, got to get back in shape.

Buffalo Billy

March 31^st:

Hello from the road,

We did some business yesterday and we’ll be traveling and working for five days on the way home. But today and tomorrow we’re doing pretty much NOTHING! Meghan says she is soaking up every hour of complete relaxation she can since, as she puts it, from the time we get home onward for five months there will be “mountain heaps of stress”!! We love what we do, but stress is part of the deal.

It looks very likely that we are buying the new paint horse that looks like Joker. We’re not so sure that we’ll be getting Diesel, though we have our fingers crossed. The paint horse needs a new name and we’ll enlist your help for that. His old name was “Babee”, since the girl who owns him had him from the time he was a baby! Meghan also looked at a nice thoroughbred mare the other day and we may take her in on lease like we did with Jack last summer. One way or another there will be a nice group of new horses for you to get to know this year along with our long time horsey friends.

REMINDER ON TUITION:

Your tuition checks are due by tomorrow. If they are going to be a day or two late, please email us to let us know. We do have people on the waiting list for several of the sessions who are really hoping one or two of you change your minds about this summer! (We hope you don’t!)

Hi “Annie-the-novelist”! We’ll see you and a few other Longacres folks in six more days! Can’t wait!

March 3^rd:

WE’RE ON OUR WAY HOME! We’re going to try to post this update and some new pictures on the “Meet the Horses” page from a hotspot in one of the airports as we travel – if that doesn’t work, we’ll be updating first thing tomorrow when we get home.

Watch for new additions to the “Alumni Page” soon. We plan to copy many of the emails you all have been sending us and post them there so all your friends from Longacres can see your messages. Especially Annie’s “books”!!!!!!!!!

We are posting today big pictures of the private horses on the “Meet the Horses” page and we will continue to work on that page when we get home tonight. See you all soon!

Below: Picture was taken by Tom a few days ago while we were in the Bahamas. He was relaxing on the beach at Fisher’s Bay on Guana Cay in the Abacos. That’s Tom’s feet in the picture! Even at moments like this, Tom & Meghan find themselves often thinking of Longacres and pondering new ideas. Unfortunately, a fertile mind never seems to rest. But the alternative is not attractive, either.

March 2:

Hello again. We’re enjoying our last day in the sun before flying home to the farm tomorrow evening. We’ll be shoveling snow and riding snow machines around the farm by Tuesday morning.

The other day we had an interesting lunch with Arno Mares, the owner of one of the other leading riding camps. Arno’s good company and we enjoyed the time we spent with him at his club, especially since he was treating us to lunch. (You have to get up early in the morning to come out ahead on a financial deal with Arno!) We shared thoughts on many aspects of running a riding camp. Every time we talk with Arno, he urges us to charge more for everything. Don’t worry, though – Longacres is not about to become another IRC. We’re content to let IRC remain the most expensive riding camp in the country. Longacres will always have much more of the family show barn atmosphere we have now and other big differences between our riding program and the one Arno offers to a bigger group at IRC. Still, it was an interesting meeting and we learned useful stuff.

One thing Meghan and I have talked about since our meeting with Arno is the relative advantage of our policy of itemizing horse show expenses versus the IRC way of having one flat fee for going to a horse show. The Longacres fee structure allows each student’s horse show budget to reflect their own needs. Your show fees go up and down depending on how many different horses you ride, how many classes you show, and what kind of classes. And it changes depending on how far we travel each week. But we have not infrequently heard from parents frustrated trying to understand all the different items in the show expense charge and confused as they try to plan how much showing will cost.

Arno rightly points out that the IRC show fee does away with all that confusion. He has one flat fee for away shows and one for home shows. And that’s that. Longacres will make no major changes to show fees this year, but we’d like to hear your thoughts as we think about 2009 and beyond.

We got an email the other day from Robyn’s mom, Sanna, describing an exciting ride she had on Quantum. (He is VERY energetic in the winter weather!) I laughed out loud, and with Sanna’s permission, I reprint here:

Ok, so I just have to tell you what happened to me today…because I am ?? (hidden by editor!) years old and just a wee bit too old to be having these kinds of adventures…but I know that you will understand.

So it’s cold and the ring is kind of yucky but we have only ridden short trail rides this week because of the weather so we take the horses into the arena for a little workout…I am on Quantum and Robyn is on Ginger. All is well until Q gets a little feisty and starts to buck…so I bring him back to a stop, back him up and try again…on the third episode of this I pull back and the bridle breaks and flips over and off of his head (it’s a hackamore so no bit or noseband to keep it in place). I am now on a very large horse with no bridle… in fact the bridle is dragging from the throat latch now around the base of his neck and precariously close to his legs as he takes off at a full gallop around the very large arena…I decide that bailing out at such a high speed is probably not a good idea (especially since the ground is frozen) so I grab mane and hang on for dear life saying in my very calmest voice: Whoa Quantum Whoa….as he continues to fly around the arena at break neck speed (and now I really know what they mean by that). My foot starts to wedge into the stirrup which I decide is a really bad idea in case I fall and get dragged…so I inch it out… only to loose the whole damn thing…so now I am flying around trying to grab the loose bridle so it doesn’t keep banging the horse or get caught in his feet and trying to get my foot back into the stirrup so that it too stops banging him…and Quantum is just galloping around and around, almost falling three times. Robyn figures we went around almost 30 times before he finally decided he had had enough and stopped. But before I could get off he decided to trot over to the gate and stop there instead…I slid off, gently put what was left of the bridle back on his head and lead him very quietly back to the barn where I proceeded to have an asthma attack and migraine!

Moral of the story…always put the strong, young, less breakable rider on the thoroughbred who hasn’t had enough exercise while getting extra feed to keep him fattened up for the winter!!!

I think I am ready to go lie on a beach for a week.

Sanna

PS: This was actually yesterday and today he was really very calm for Robyn…wonder why? I decided to go back to good old Sunny for the day since I am rather sore, not hurt; just sore. I hadn’t cantered Q before but I think I am now qualified.

Also, Robyn has requested that I post this reminder to those of you who are thinking of ordering Longacres shirts or jackets. This is an optional thing, planned by Robyn, Jenn, and several other girls. Do contact Robyn right away if you want to get in on the group order.

hi i was just wondering if you can put the following on the website

sometime soon:

I would just like to remind everyone that orders for the sweatshirt,

polo, and jacket were due today, but because not enough people have

placed an order i am extending the deadline to next Friday. So

far i only have 3 orders for the sweatshirt (Danita, Marta, and Annie),

2 for the polo (Claire V and myself), and 3 for the Jacket (Claire V,

Jenn, and myself). i still need sizes form Marta and

Jenn. We need a total of 6 orders for both the sweatshirt and the polo.

If not enough people sign up then i am sorry but we are going to have

to cancel the sweatshirt and polo orders. The jackets do

not have a minimum so we will still be able to get those. So please ask

your parents if you are interested, and then send me an email or post

a message on my facebook wall. My email is on the pen pal

page.

thank you,

Robyn

Also, Meghan wants to post this nice story we got from Ofelia’s friend, Em, who will be at Longacres for the first time in 2008. We are getting to know Em very well!

I have a funny/ scary story to tell you! OK, so today, Ofelia and I were jumping a triple (like, we were in the same lesson). So, it was my turn, and I was riding the pony I always ride, Scout. We were coming to the triple at the canter, and so I pushed him because he was about to refuse, and he stopped, then lurched over the jump. I was thrown onto his neck and hanging on for dear life. Then, since the second jump was only a stride away, we jumped that (I