Life at the Big Red Barn

The Big Red Barn
two years later, it's still our little piece of heaven on earth!

A winter sunset at turn in.

Our Year:
2017-2018 was a less rocky year for your horses. Only some minor cuts and illnesses but mostly all have been well. Last summer Ginny sustained a leg injury that resulted in the summer program plans being suspended. This spring we were getting back on track and the summer program is up and running once again. We have had so much fun. It is very exciting to teach young children the value and uniqueness of the human-horse relationship and to nourish healthy interactions and responsible riding through early training in natural horsemanship. The carry over in day to day life brings about a happier more grounded and more aware individual: something we seem to be lacking these days.
While we have had many ups and downs during 2016- 2017, at the end of the day we are still grateful for our program's home at the Big Red Barn, our RHF supporters and our caring barn family. This past year we worked extensively on Spencer's recovery under the guidance of Dr. Currid. Spencer has surpassed expectations and continues to work on rebuilding muscle. Everyone is drawn to him and he loves children.
We spent Christmas day at the barn watching the vet repair a nose tear on Luna: an injury mysteriously sustained in her stall. One month later we then began Luna's rehab for a check ligament tear.
By January, Tsuki and Muffy each had encounters with the resident barn cat leaving them too injured to stay at the barn to recover. They are now happy house cats. Their absence at the barn is noticed every day. This year we were also very sad to see Hathaway move on. Her commitment and compassion are hard qualities to find but family comes first.
Come spring Winston had a severe allergic reaction to something in his paddock. It took a few weeks for this poor pony to feel like himself again. He gave us quite a scare. Thankfully he had Dawna to tend to him almost daily.
In early July Ginny finally learned the extent of her spring injuries and was out of commission all summer, leaving RHF with no summer program offering. The road back for Ginny continues.
In August Luna was called back by her owner to be bred. We were all quite devastated and miss her every day. Amanda came on board at that time to help with lessons.
In September we welcomed sweet Sierra. She has quite the personality and looks and acts quite young despite being 24. She is steadily increasing her work time. Our fall lessons have fully resumed and everyone is excited to be back to riding and helping with chores.
After a long time of waiting, working and believing, Eliza and Gunner showed as a pair for the very first time in October at the CRD Show at Apple Knoll. They did very well for their first time. Eliza was quite the proud mamma! Eliza had also just finished up a very successful show season riding Chance all the way to Fieldstone's MHJ Finals.
Our team is stronger than ever. We have been more creative in our lesson planning. We are learning to be more mindful and appreciative of what "balance" really means for horses and humans. And we are all working on trying to just breathe!
Most of all we are so grateful to our families, our staff, our supporters and our barn family for helping us make it to year five!