Lately, the farm I board my riding horses at has been undergoing lots of very positive changes.
The farm is on 55 acres and we have multiple barns on site as well as 3 arenas. Last fall the indoor was regraded and this summer both outdoor rings were also done.
Towards the end of summer, our in-house trainer left for an exciting new venture and my friend did a massive overhaul in the empty small barn. The walls were cleaned, stone was added to the floor, in some areas the floor came up 8″. Mats were laid for a finishing touch. The stall doors were replaced. The vinyl fenced scrubbed.
We also got new jumps. I made Suzanne a custom farm jump and brought a course of poles and schooling standards. We organized a painting party and brought donuts, pizza, etc. Nearly everyone came out to help in some way.
Unbeknownst to Suzie, we the boarders had another trick up our sleeve.
I wanted to gift Suzanne another special jump. I’d give her the world if I could but materials can cost a lot of money. So I put it out to a couple close friends and they agreed to pitch in. I decided to include everyone at the farm so it felt more inclusive. Everyone had great ideas and with the money collected, I purchased materials and was able to do quite a lot.
I reached out to Suzanne’s sibling who lives in Maine and is a professional artist. They graciously agreed to paint some filler for us so we met in a Starbucks parking lot to make a handoff. While they were working on the walls I was working on the wings and poles.
About two months later (I think), we met up again with the completed items. Somehow we didn’t just get CLOSE in color scheme, our colors were SPOT ON!
I applied a new concept for this jump also, I used an image of a girl with her horse in a meadow, with mountains in the background. I cut this out of plywood, and mounted it on the wings with a 2×2 for spacing. I added an outdoor battery operated tealight behind the image to create a light show on the jump. It came out exactly as I had hoped it would!
The jump was a huge success to see put together. The walls depict the sun and meadow on one side, and the moon and stars on the other. It’s stunning, and it felt like we communicated telepathically because it’s what I envisioned when we first talked.
The cost of materials for the jump was easily covered so we were able to add more to the package.
I added 4 cavaletti, the bigger style I build with biscuits added on top. The biscuits allow you to place a pole at the top for a max jump height of 24/25.” The cavaletti also stack easily.
We added more filler to the package. A white gate. White ground lines with green fill. White ground lines with red/yellow fill. We added tracks that can be hung on the indoor’s walls. Tracks on the walls will allow us to use fewer standards inside.
In addition to all of this, I wanted to give Suzanne a card of appreciation. But how to get everyone to sign it with our busy schedules? I applied a “hidden in plain sight” strategy. We hid the card inside a book (Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand…it holds a special meaning to me) which was on the bookshelf in the lounge. At everyone’s availability, they came in to sign the card, one by one. It was so full we filled the backside of it too!
Reveal day came.
I arrived to the barn before Suzanne and some friends helped unload everything. We set it up just inside the indoor arena’s large sliding door. I arranged to have only a small group present in order to keep it more private. When she arrived I asked if I could “get her opinion” on a situation inside the indoor. As I opened the door we made the reveal.
It took a village to make the reveal happen. Our small farm community has become a pretty impressive group of humans that I’m proud to call friends. We help each other with no expectations. All my life I’ve searched for something like this. Some people never find it. But I hope that more people do. It might not always be easy but right now I have to admit my heart is pretty darn full and a major part of that is this wonderful little village that I call my Farm Family.
Our farm family also rallied to welcome a very special guest to the farm for our first clinic. Stay tuned next week for that!
The Green Horseman 
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