As promised here is our first attempt at a new time and day for The Green Horseman’s personal article launch.
If you’re new here, welcome! I designed this blog to document my time as an amateur horse owner in hopes it reaches other horse people, mom’s of horse crazy daughters, and new horse people that might be behind me in the process of learning or horse-ownership. The name itself gives it away with green referring to “learning.” I have been around horses for over 25 years, but only a horse owner of 6 years now. When I have owned horses for 50 years I will still consider myself a “Green Horseman.” We should never be done learning and growing!
That said, to my new and past reader, welcome back. I am not piloting this new launch day and time…Saturdays at 8am EST.
Life got extremely hectic for me in spring and summer. As you know I have two horses to keep in shape. In spring I changed work schedules and within the last year I began my Wahbee’s Woodworking page, bought a truck, and learned to trailer. I will try my best to catch you up; to do so I’ll be splitting different things up across several weeks.
In January I began a Facebook page to highlight the works of my new woodworking hobby. In the last two years I began to pick it up as a way to pay for lessons. Word of mouth had me making other jumps for a couple of people but it was never a consistent demand. Once I made the Facebook page things changed. It by no means pay enough to even consider quitting my job but it has certainly helped to pay down the hefty loan on our truck and pay for camping trip or two.
With Zac’s help I settled on a fun name for the site…”Wahbee’s Woodworking.” Zac and I lovingly call eachother “wahbee” and the alliteration is simply fun to say. It’s a lighthearted name and not as stiff and boring as just using my own surname. In May/June I had the help of a lovely local business-lady who designed a logo for me. Using Nahe’s jumbo head she took his silhouette and now he is a part of the Wahbee’s Woodworking design.
What was really a truly incredible experience was being a sponsor of the Upstate Hunter Jumper Horse Series. For the series I had the freedom to create any jump I desired and display it for use during the show. The jump was a free rental for the show series and was offered for sale to the public. In May I created a Brick Jump with white picket fence. June was a monster set…it involved a full line of wagon wheel wings including an oxer. The vertical sold, but I still have the oxer waiting for it’s buyer at home. In July I made a large column that served as an oxer in one piece. The column was decked in ivy and flowers and the set also sold with a picket gate and a turf lined roll-top.
I enjoyed attending these shows and meeting some really great people. I sold two of the brick jumps and the column was snatched up quickly as well. I had the chance to also make some courses for a few people…
The first was sold unfinished and the customer did a lovely job finishing on their own:
Another customer asked for the jumps to be finished. Together we had fun designing her course. We share a love for thoroughbreds and since she’s working towards a goal of Retired Racehorse Project we designed a jump for that. I made a farm jump which tested my ability to do letters. It was certainly a challenge as I don’t have artistic talent…but with some creative thinking I found a way.
In addition to sponsoring horse shows and building courses I also working with other customers on smaller projects. I began to work with a couple farms on creating some portable cross country style jumps. I even made myself a new pair of A-frames AND painted them!
My woodworking hobby has certainly held my attention for the better part of the year. I even allowed it to be my primary focus and horseback riding took the backseat for now. The hobby has become my outlet, similar to mucking stalls, where I can think to myself and feel all of my feelings. I sometimes yell shout, and swear and the tools don’t seem to mind.
The Green Horseman 