Special ÒRoad TripÓ news Updates -
We can only update this special file while we are traveling. Check back here for more ÒLatest NewsÓ between November 14th and December 5th, 2008:
November 14th,
2008:
Hi
everyone. This is where youÕll find Longacres ÒLatest NewsÓ
updates from now until December 5th.
WeÕre heading to Florida for a couple of weeks where we publish the
ÒBoating and Cruising Guide to the St Johns RiverÓ. 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 weÕll
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 weÕre getting out just at the right
time!) If youÕre curious about our
boating book, check out www.st-johns-river.com
We may not be at a WiFi
hotspot every day while weÕre traveling, but weÕll 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 19th;
Nashville:
Whew! Chilly!
It has been in the 20Õs each
night on our trip so far, and weÕre giving the RV furnace a workout. But we havenÕt frozen yet. And beginning yesterday afternoon, at
least the sun has been out!
MeghanÕs 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 ÒGrand Ole OpryÓ 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 traditionÕs 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. MeghanÕs
preferences in music? Some of them
are beyond my understanding, but probably close to those of many of our
students!
The Natasha
Video Experiment:
WeÕre going to try a new idea
for sharing riding video with you this coming summer. IÕm calling it the ÒNatasha ExperimentÓ, since NatashaÕs 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 weÕre going to try.
We will have a special video
ride near the end of each of our sessions. WeÕll let each of you ride your favorite horse, even if you
have to take turns. WeÕll do a fun
course or other exercises. It wonÕt
quite be a Òbig jumpingÓ session, but weÕll make it special and fun. WeÕll take about an hour of tape with
shots of everyone at Longacres that session. Then weÕll 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:
ItÕs 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 ÒslightlyÓ considering our offer for her to
work at Longacres. WeÕll keep our
fingers crossed! Alexa sent us a nice collage photo she put together. WeÕre waiting for her to send us a file
so we can post it. We got nice
messages from Jenn and from Tovah, who we havenÕt 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
GriffinÕs
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 6th
3)
July 6 through July 20th
4)
July 23 to August 23rd
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
PaneraÕs 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 SheriffÕs 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 16th,
(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 weÕd slide south just ahead of the cold weather
the way we have many times in the past.
WeÕd 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 20Õs 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 Òat homeÓ 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. IÕll 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 YearÕs Eve party, then some more fun New YearÕs Day
morning, and leave for home at 2 or 3 New YearÕs 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.
HereÕs a Longacres ÒHelloÓ 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 familyÕs
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 weÕll know weÕre headed
south is by watching a compass – it does not look like itÕs getting
warmer anytime soon!) WeÕre
posting this update from a PaneraÕs 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 2nd:
Hello again! Sorry we havenÕt been in a position to update
the website the past week. Meghan
and I have been on the road in northern Canada vacationing. WeÕve 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 weÕve never been
to before.
We walked around the walled
city of old Quebec two days ago and weÕll 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 DÕOr Quebec.
We have a satellite TV in the
RV so weÕve had regular CNN fixes and kept up with the stuff thatÕs happening
in Washington. ItÕs
dangerous for a Òservice industryÓ host like Longacres to express political
opinions publicly, but I think when I get home and have more time, IÕll 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.
WeÕve also been able to keep
up with whatÕs going on in the world with our new Sirius satellite radio. We got it just for this trip and itÕs
pretty neat. IÕve even found out
that I have a previously unknown talent.
We were listening to an Òoldies Rock & RollÓ station the other day
and I found out that they were playing mostly songs from the late 1950Õs and
early 60Õs – 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 ÒRaunchyÓ by Bill Justice after four
notes from the guitar!!
I really donÕt 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 thatÕs why hearing those opening notes
of late 50Õs and early 60Õs songs trigger a memory connection.
OR – maybe itÕs an
example of another very common mental condition. The elderly often have very vivid memories of their youth
but canÕt remember where they put their keys or their wallet five minutes ago. That sounds familiar, too!
WeÕre 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 weÕre 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 25th:
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,
WeÕre almost home to the
farm. WeÕre 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 ÒLA in DCÓ
reunion last night at AnnieÕs 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!
WeÕll be home tomorrow morning
if the RV brakes get fixed this afternoon, and weÕll be immediately out on the
farm checking out winter damage now that the snows are melted. WeÕll 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!
WeÕll post more pictures of
the reunion at AnnieÕs when we get home tomorrow, and weÕll be back to updating
the regular Òlatest news pageÓ then.
We canÕt wait to get back to the farm.
- Tom & Meghan
April 4th:
LA in DC
– on Monday evening, the 7th!
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 AnnieÕs!
HORSE NEWS:
Jack is Back! Good friend of Longacres, JackÕs owner,
tells us that sheÕs 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 weÕre 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 23rd, and sheÕd
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
ÒUn 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 31st:
Hello from the road,
We did some business
yesterday and weÕll be traveling and working for five days on the way home. But today and tomorrow weÕre 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 Òmountain heaps of stressÓ!! 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. WeÕre not so sure that weÕll be getting Diesel, though we
have our fingers crossed. The
paint horse needs a new name and weÕll enlist your help for that. His old name was ÒBabeeÓ, 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 donÕt!)
Hi ÒAnnie-the-novelistÓ! WeÕll see you and a few other Longacres
folks in six more days! CanÕt
wait!
March 3rd:
WEÕRE ON OUR
WAY HOME! WeÕre going to try to post this update and some new
pictures on the ÒMeet the HorsesÓ page from a hotspot in one of the airports as
we travel – if that doesnÕt work, weÕll be updating first thing tomorrow
when we get home.
Watch for new additions to
the ÒAlumni PageÓ 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 AnnieÕs ÒbooksÓ!!!!!!!!!
We are posting today big
pictures of the private horses on the ÒMeet the HorsesÓ 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 FisherÕs Bay on Guana Cay in the Abacos. ThatÕs TomÕs 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. WeÕre enjoying our last day in the sun
before flying home to the farm tomorrow evening. WeÕll 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. ArnoÕs 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. DonÕt worry, though
– Longacres is not about to become another IRC. WeÕre 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 studentÕs 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 thatÕs that. Longacres will make no major changes to
show fees this year, but weÕd like to hear your thoughts as we think about 2009
and beyond.
We got an email the other day
from RobynÕs mom, Sanna, describing an exciting ride she had on Quantum. (He is VERY energetic in the winter
weather!) I laughed out loud, and with
SannaÕs permission, I reprint here:
Ok, so I just have to tell you what happened to me todayÉbecause
I am ?? (hidden by editor!) years old and just a wee bit too old to be having
these kinds of adventuresÉbut I know that you will understand.
So itÕs 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 workoutÉI am on Quantum and Robyn is on Ginger. All
is well until Q gets a little feisty and starts to buckÉso I bring him back to
a stop, back him up and try againÉon the third episode of this I pull back and
the bridle breaks and flips over and off of his head (itÕs a hackamore so no
bit or noseband to keep it in place). I am now on a very large horse with no
bridleÉ 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 arenaÉI 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 WhoaÉ.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 draggedÉso I
inch it outÉ only to loose the whole damn thingÉso now I am flying around
trying to grab the loose bridle so it doesnÕt 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 himÉand 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 insteadÉI 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 storyÉalways put the strong, young, less breakable
rider on the thoroughbred who hasnÕt 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 RobynÉwonder why?
I decided to go back to good old Sunny for the day since I am rather sore, not
hurt; just sore. I hadnÕt 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 OfeliaÕs 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