Latest News Page

This page contains our most recent news. Keep scrolling down for all of our "updates" over the past few months.

Above - At the Mall in July 2003

January 11 Update:

No real news this week. There's plenty of snow now - sorry you guys who came for the New Years reunion missed it all! We're relaxing today and doing some house cleaning on the website. Fixing some minor inaccuracies and changing some links to other pages. There's always a lull in what we hear from students right after the busy holiday season, so we're feeling kind of lonesome here at Longacres. Write if you have a chance!

- Tom & Meghan

Jan. 6^th Update:

Welcome back Tovah!

Tovah wrote tonight giving us her formal acceptance of our job offer. Tovah will be returning to Longacres this summer as head riding instructor and trainer. She will be sharing the primary responsibility for running the Longacres program with Mandy Bartlett (see below). Tovah brings 3 years of experience at Longacres, including her first year here when she was "Camper of the Year", and two years as an assistant instructor and horse trainer.

We now only need to confirm a few details for Lauren to return in a special position helping Meghan to get you all fed, and the details of a position we have already told Erika would be offered to her. Then our 2004 staff will be complete.

- Tom & Meghan

It is with great pleasure that Meghan and I announce that Mandy Bartlett has agreed to return to Longacres for the 2004 season as one of our key senior staff members. Mandy did an outstanding job last season as one of our assistant instructors, time and again showing her maturity, good humor, and good judgement. She was one of the first we contacted this past fall when we began planning the 2004 season. Mandy called tonight to tell us she had made up her mind to accept our offer. Welcome back, Mandy!

We are waiting until the end of this week for Tovah to make her final decision. Tovah also has an offer to return to a senior position, and is still considering our offer along with a couple of other opportunities open to her. Once Tovah makes her decision this week, we'll be able to finalize the rest of our staff positions for 2004. It appears that most of the 2004 staff will be returnees from last season. That's good for Longacres! A couple of other girls from our 2003 staff have been assured that we will have a job for them, but the details of their jobs have had to wait until we knew if we had Mandy and Tovah.

We also welcome Longacres 2004 student #14, Jessica Sloan, who will be at Longacres from July 7 to 21^st. This will be Jessica's first time at Longacres, but she will not exactly be coming without any knowledge of what we're all about. Jessica is a good friend of Mandy Bartlett's from home, and has been told all about Longacres.

Jan. 1, 2004:

Thanks to everyone who came for the reunion this week - read the posts below! We just got the following e-mail from Mandy just moments after everyone went to bed after watching "the ball" drop:

We wish you could have been here with us , Mandy!

Above: Alex, Merlin, Jess, Tom, Emilie, Quantum, Tovah, Erika, and Emma visiting the horses at Oxford Hill. (Meghan was taking the pictures!)

PS - Lauren's bag finally made it here before bedtime last night!

AND - - - all the horses we visited today looked GREAT! The girls took turns riding Quantum, Merlin, Ebony, and Joey. We got to Star's home too late to be able to ride her, but she "cuddled" with all the girls and got fed good treats. We stopped with Uncle Billy at Fridays for supper on the way home. Everyone's looking at pictures, trading stories, and waiting for the "Ball" to drop later tonight.

- Tom & Meghan

Dec. 30, later:

The Longacres reunion crew has all arrived safely, if not all with their luggage! Good gracious, we went all summer long last season without anyone losing their luggage, and two of our seven reunion girls are without their stuff! Alex took the bus from Ohio to Rochester where she stayed with Erika and Tovah last night before coming to Longacres. There was a bus transfer and Alex's luggage had a mind of its own and is off someplace in space!

Lauren's luggage never got on her plane in New York, but it has now turned up at the Buffalo airport - but has not made it to Longacres yet.

We did all get to Pizza Hut for dinner a little while ago and it seemed exactly like summer at camp with all the joking and gags flying back and forth from one end of the long table to the other. There were ten of us including Megan and I, Uncle Billy, Tovah, Erika, Alex, Emilie, Emma, Jess, and Lauren.

We'll have many more reunion stories to post over the next two days!

Well, it's almost New Year's Eve, and many of us make New Year's resolutions at this time of year. I'm generally not a big believer in this kind of thing - I think we should do the best we can with our lives all the time and not wait until January first to turn over a new leaf! But my evil bathroom scale gave me some bad news this morning. Nearing the end of the Holiday eating season I have crept up to my all-time high weight. How much? Take a look at those small numbers after Dec. 30^th above! So I'm going to make a resolution to lose 12 pounds by the time camp starts on June 27^th. I should lose 20, but one of the keys to success with "resolutions" is not to set an impossible goal. 12 will be hard enough for a chocolate chip cookie lover like myself!

- Tom

Welcome back to Lillian Jacobs, returning her home in California to Longacres for her third season. Lillian will be here for the first session, and is our 13^th student to sign up for 2004. We now have only two spots left for our first session in July. We have six spots for the second session and are now beginning to get more inquiries for that period. Since we have many recent "alumni" who are now holding summer jobs or traveling, we are going to offer an "alumni special" for the final two weeks of our season including the Erie County Fair. A chance for older teens no longer able to make a longer session at Longacres a part of their summer plans to return and ride the trails they loved when they were younger and perhaps show in a few classes at Erie County Fair! Call if you're interested.

December 29 Update:

We'll take some pictures and post them later in the week. Looking forward to the next few days,

- Tom & Meghan

Dec. 22 Update:

Reunion plans are going smoothly. Weather permitting, we will be visiting horses all day on New Year's Eve day. You will have chances to ride Quantum, Merlin, Star (and perhaps a stable mate of Star), so bring riding clothes for that day - warm riding clothes!

There will likely be enough of us so that we'll be driving in the old Winnie, which could be chilly in the winter, so dress warmly. Meghan also cautions all of you that the house here is cold for sleeping at night, and she does not have any extra blankets or sleeping bags, so be sure to bring warm enough sleeping bag or bag and extra heavy blanket. That's about it - have a happy Holiday week!!!!

- Tom & Meghan

Dec. 21 Update:

December 17 Update:

Dec. 15 Update:

I did quite a bit more work on the new "Meet the Horses" page tonight. I hope you like the way it is turning out. Don't worry, I will soon begin posting all the descriptions of the horses you have sent me along with the pictures. First I want to get the new pictures posted since that is the most time consuming part of the job!

Also glad to announce two new students sign-ups are apparently on their way - it will be a race to see whether returning student, Lillian Jacobs, or new student, Sarah Weber, will be 2004 student #12. Both are supposed to be in the mail, and if they register, we will only have two spots open for the first session, and the second session will be down to six spots.

Dec. 14 Update:

Dec. 13^th - Oops!

Because her enrollment came in while I was still traveling, I FORGOT to welcome Brianna back for 2004. Shame on me!!! Brianna is 2004 student #9 , which makes Alex and Brittany officially # 10 and #11. You are one of my favorites, Brianna, so please excuse me for forgetting about you for a couple of days.

Dec. 13 Update:

Hello all. The strong young women on my staff do most of the manual work carrying hay and moving jumps during the summer. Still, I am probably the most physically fit each year during the summer season from the work I do with the jumps and with my tractor around the farm. I KNOW that I am not at my best at this time of year!

I just got inside from spending three hours out around Longacres with the ATV and a chain saw cutting up numerous down trees that were blocking the trails. There was a strong wind storm a month ago and this is the first time I've had a chance to go out and clear the trails. My muscles will probably stop aching right about the time some of you get here for the reunion at the end of the month!

- Tom

December 12 Update:

Hello again! It's been a few days, but we're back at work. Welcome to Alex Millar and Brittany Ioele, 2004 students #9 and #10. Alex will be back at Longacres for the first half of the summer and Brittany for the last half.

We've also heard that Emilie plans on joining the crew here for the New Years reunion. Everyone coming should plan to arrive AFTER 5PM on the 30^th (Tuesday). We'll go out for dinner when everyone is here, and if there is snow, we'll have some snowmobile rides around the farm when we get back, then watch videos and catch up on gossip. We'll take a hike around Longacres in the snow on Wednesday morning, then go on a visit-the-horses expedition. We plan on seeing Merlin, Quantum, Majic, Wizard, Sierra, and Star. Perhaps one or two more.

We'll return to Longacres before people get "wild" out on New Year's eve and spend more time in the snow around the farm. If we are taking you to the airport on January 1^st, you should plan on flights home after 11am.

December 4 update:

Early rumors are that Tovah, Erika, Lauren, and Alex plan to join us for the New Year's reunion here at the farm. Call if you are interested in coming.

Dec. 1^st:

Another very well qualified person has thrown their hat into the pool of possible 2004 instructors. Alex Millar has spent several years riding at Longacres and taking Brownie home for the winter. She is interested in joining the staff, and would be very well qualified, making our decision for 2004 staff even more difficult. Do let us know soon if any of the rest of you are interested in staff positions, and we will begin making the hard choices right after New Years!

- Tom & Meghan

Bulliten:

Only 4 spots left for the first half of the summer! I just added up the numbers, so if you are planning on coming during July, contact us SOON! Plenty of space for the second session beginning late in July, but that is starting to fill also.

Our BIG show, Thursday, August 12^th:

Those of you who were here for our big $1000 to win jumper show and season championships for the Summer Series know how exciting it was to watch all the great riders competing on nice horses (and our own Tovah and Quantum earning 4^th place in this tough field!) at this big Longacres horse show. We are already working on plans to make it bigger and better than ever before this year. We plan on having sponsor tents and displays around the outside of the jumper field, a bagpipe band, and even bigger prize money to draw in the best jumpers in New York State! It will be an exciting time to be at Longacres!

November 29^th:

A few "short" drives to visit Longacres Students!

At Longacres we do a great deal of correspondence with our students during the off-season. Longacres people seem to burn up the wires on the internet trading notes and stories and talk about next year. But we don't so often get to actually visit with our good friends from the summer between seasons. We do see Erika a few times during the winter since she lives quite close to us. And some of our New York area riders visit us for New Years (more on that in a moment).

So it was surprising that we did visit just two of our students at their home stables this fall, and that we traveled 3000 miles to stop by at Alissa's in California, and almost 2000 miles to have dinner with Kim Schwartz in Dallas, Texas! Well, we were on a big tour of the western US this fall stopping at various stables and spending some time just plain vacationing after the long summer season.

Elissa lives just across the bay from San Francisco - and we want to tell you in case you didn't know that the San Francisco bay area is a BIG city! We planned to visit Elissa the first evening we were in the area when she might be riding, but it took us many hours to drive our RV through rush hour traffic across the city from the Muir Woods Redwood park to Elissa's quiet community east of Oakland. It was too late by the time we got to her area so we set up a time to meet the next morning, go to breakfast, and then visit Elissa's stable. We hooked up all right and went to a nice breakfast place - and got stuck with the waitress from h--l! Confused order, forgot about us, and we finally had to leave without eating to make it to Elissa's stable on time. We all consulted and said to each other, "Let's just stop by at Wendy's for take-out." Pulled in, walked to the door - - - - CLOSED! Not our morning for good luck with food. Burgher King was better, and we were finally on our way! We had a great tour of Elissa's stable in the hills. It's a great place to ride perched in the hills right in the middle of a very populated area. Sadly, some of Elissa's favorite ponies were away at a show that morning, so we missed some of her favorites. Thanks for a memorable visit, Elissa!!!!!

Above: Meghan and Elissa in the parking lot where we met for "breakfast"!

Kim's family (including mom, Sandi, who was a Longacres camper herself a "few" years ago) took us out to dinner at a fun restaurant, and we then camped in the area and rode the Dallas rapid transit downtown to a new sculpture museum before heading on east. This concluded our 5000 mile trip to watch two of our students ride, only to miss both lessons and get stable tours as consolation prizes!!!!

New Year's Reunion:

Traditionally, Longacres welcomes former students to visit us at year's end to see Longacres in the snow and drive around and visit some of our horses at their winter homes. Let us know during the next week or so if you are interested in coming so we can make plans. We'll announce by December 10^th if we are having the get together this year, so call us or write before then. If it's on, you'll arrive on the afternoon of the 30^th, we'll visit horses all day on the 31^st, and ride snowmobiles at the farm on New Year's eve. You'll leave on January 1^st, New Year's day.

November 28 Update: Many enrollments!

We're back from our travels and starting to work on major updates to the website. Check in often! I'm especially eager to have YOU send in more descriptions of all our horses for the new "Meet the Horses" page. The pictures we took this summer came out very well and a new Meet the Horses is one of the first projects on my list.

WELCOME to more 2004 students: Kim Schwartz is 2004 student #3, returning for the first half of the summer. Beth Kearney is student #4, also for the first half of the summer AND for mother-daughter week and pre-camp! Beth's sister, Shelly will be student #5, attending for the first two week session. And - roll of drums - Beth's mom, Debbie , will be student #6 attending for Mother-Daughter week. Debbie visited Longacres last summer during the Hi-Time horse show. She showed up with her full horse show emergency kit and was a great supporter of all our riders, so she is a perfect person to have at our pre-season mother-daughter session. New this year, Kaitlin Watson will be 2004 student #7. Kaitlin will be with us the first 4 week session - she is 13. Johanna Nisenholtz returns for her second Longacres season for the last half of the summer. She is student # 8 on this year's roster.

2004 Staff:

Choosing a staff for 2004 is going to be tough because so many are well qualified. We are not yet sure how many of you are definitely interested in staff positions next summer, but we should have more than enough with great experience and it will be hard for us to choose. First, we thank Marce for two great years on our staff. She will be going on to other things next summer. But all the rest of last year's staff are great possibilities for this year. Tovah, Mandy, Erika, and Lauren all did great jobs and would be welcome back if they choose to come and we have space. Volunteer instructors Nora and Danielle were great teachers and would make good counselors. And we have corresponded with former Longacres #1 rider, Meghan Duthie, who has some interest in returning next summer, as well as former regular Pattie rider, Joetta, who is now a 19 year old college student. Melanie Antonik is also very interested in returning to Longacres if she is back from her foreign studies in time. Probably the most interesting staff possibility is that Lauren is interested in being camp chef/cook. Lauren's work ethic is terrific and she has put in years as a full season student at Longacres and knows Longacres inside out. We have rarely had a teenager as camp cook, but are seriously considering giving Lauren this opportunity.

Much more to come in the next few days.

- Tom & Meghan

Oct. 20^th Update:

Meghan and I will be traveling in the RV for the next month and will be back at Longacres at Thanksgiving time. We will be checking our email and phone messages while we are away so you can still reach us. But we will not see our mail for a month, so phoen or email if you have a question or need to let us know about an enrollment.

WANT A GOOD CAR? We got a great deal on a slightly newer Ford Escort, so our little green Escort is for sale. It is in great shape since I had planned to drive it another two years until recently. We want $2000 for it and it would make a terrific student car.

Oct. 18^th Update:

Longacres is very proud to announce Emma as our 2004 student #2, after getting her registration yesterday. Welcome back, Emma. Emma is coming for the first half of the summer (we'll keep our fingers crossed for that possible extension, Emma!)

October 6 update:

We are now accepting enrollments. Jess is student #1, and we have heard that Beth and her sister are likely to come, and just heard that Brianna is considering bringing her new horse to Longacres with her. We'll keep you posted as we get formal enrollments. Remember that the first half of the summer usually fills very early, but that you often have much more time to make a decision if you want to come for the last half of our season. We were full by November for the first half last year, but had space in the second half of the summer right up until our season started. (That could change this year with the dates being a little different.)

October 3^rd Update:

Jess Nash is 2004 Longacres student #1! Just a day after the official beginning of the 2004 registration season, we got our first official enrollment for next season, and it is from Jess Nash who will be in her third year at Longacres next summer. Thanks for your confidence in us Jess, and we look forward to having you ride and show with us again in 2004. You'll be on all our lists as student #1.

Meghan and I are back at the farm from our trip out west the past few weeks, so you can reach us with your questions and emails. Do send in more descriptions of your favorite horses. I'm going to begin posting pictures and descriptions, including all the nice pictures you guys helped me take of the horses in August.

You will be pleased to know that there will be no increase in the base price of tuition at Longacres next year. There may be some minor changes in other fees, but you can sign-up knowing there is not an increase in tuition.

The schedule will be much the same as last year's, which is still posted on our schedule page. I will officially update the schedule and rates soon. We are now accepting enrollments - who will be student #2?????

- Tom & Meghan

Sept. 5^th:

Katie and I have spent two more days on barn post repairs and we now have a nice level roof line the full length of the porch. I had really wanted to do this before the season began back in June so the barn would not look run down for parents this summer, but we got too busy with other things. I'll take a picture tomorrow and post it to show the nice results. Hopefully the repairs will still look good in the spring.

September 4^th Update:

Hi everyone. Today's update consists of a little musing on the "maturity" of the Longacres Riding Camp. Katie and I worked yesterday repairing the posts supporting the barn porch back by the sawdust pile where some of them were sagging this summer. While we were working, I said to myself, "Wait a minute - this is the NEW barn already needing major repairs!"

It is one thing for us to have spent time this spring tearing down very old dilapidated cabins that were built before I was born in the very early days of Longacres. Some of those cabins were built by my uncles back in 1939 and 1940, and I always thought of them as the "old cabins". But my "new barn" showing age? Well, come to think of it the barn I built when I was an adult running Longacres myself is now 31 years old, and it is not surprising that some of the wood posts are beginning to rot out and need replacement.

But it still feels unnatural. I guess I'll have to get used to it just the way I am getting used to having to take a nap, or having to let a strong young woman like Katie hold up the heavy end when we are lifting a new barn support into place. (thanks, katie!)

There's something reassuring about being involved with a farm that has successfully been training riders and showing horses for several generations. It gives me (and perhaps your parents) a good feeling that any problems will work out in the end and that Longacres will continue to do a good job. But not without work and constant repairs.

Katie and I dug up the bases of some of the old posts, cut out the rotten spots, and began splicing in pieces of new pressure treated lumber. Then we jacked up the sagging part of the barn roof and put the repaired post on a new piece of concrete footing. We finished one post yesterday. Only 84 left to go! (actually, only a couple that are emergency cases - the rest will need attention over the next five or six years - fun to look forward to!)

Below - Katie and Tom working yesterday!

Our schedule for the next few weeks includes more work around the farm here the next few days. We hope to post the list of video tapes from this summer soon so you can order some if you like. Then Meghan and I leave for several weeks for our every-other-year trip out west. We'll be back on October 1^st and will begin accepting enrollments for next year at that time. So if you want to contact us about anything, do it in the next few days or wait until after October 1^st.

- Tom & Meghan

Sept. 1^st Update:

Just got back from a relaxed visit to State Fair - it was fun having no responsibilities, but when I watched the jumpers I missed having our horses competing. The child-adult jumper class had your names written all over it!

Stopped on the way home to visit Merlin and Quantum at their winter home. Quantum went in his first show last weekend. He was clean in the first class but pulled a rail in the jump-off. He was 6^th out of 24 horses in the second of his two classes.

Merlin is already a favorite with the lesson riders at Oak Hill. Below is a picture of Merlin looking out of his stall:

August 26^th Update:

Meghan and I are leaving tonight to spend a few days visiting my parents in Connecticut, then traveling on to NY State Fair in Syracuse where we will be responsible for NOTHING. Just there as tourists - a nice change of pace after making the big horse show effort at Erie County fair and running truck races at three other fairs this summer. Yes, it is nice to be slowing down a bit.

All the horses are now out at winter homes, after Treek and Missy both got good places to stay this past weekend. We've been trying to phone everyone who took one ofo ur horses to see how they are doing, and so far everyone is getting along well. We'll be visiting some of these winter horse homes in the next couple of weeks.

Odds & Ends:

Most of you are pretty well even on your horse show and spending money accounts. We owe a couple of you small refunds which we will get in the mail early next week after this trip. We'll be sending out a few small bills for last minute expenses - a number of you has us ship things to you UPS, and those charges added up to over $500! Better to take stuff with you when you leave, but we are glad to provide the service of going to the shippers for those of you who prefer to pay the shipping fees. There were a few odds and ends billed to us by the Fair for expenses we didn't plan on ahead at the big show, but each of you will owe less than $20 for these misc items. So you can expect a small refund or bill next week. One or two of you have not sent larger checks for horse show expenses - please take care of that soon if this means YOU!

Sometime in the next month we'll make a list of video tapes we made during the summer and tell you what is on each tape. You will then be able to order copies in either VHS, or digital format. We also will be putting about 400 megabytes of digital photo's on a CD, and you will be able to order the CD and then make high quality prints at home of all the pictures we posted on the web this summer as low resolution web pics.

Next Year:

We will post next year's schedule at the end of September, and we will accept deposits for next year's sessions beginning October 1^st.

That's about it for now - we have a relaxing week to look ahead to.

- Tom & Meghan

August 20^th:

Hugs & Tears:

We said "goodbye" at the airport this morning to Tovah, Marce, and Mandy and Erika is leaving in a few hours. Check the picture below. We will miss you all and hope to see many of you again next summer. We'll post more updates in the next few days, including information on signing up for next year (applications open on October 1^st).

Check this page tonmorrow or the next day for a bunch of year end useful info on spending money accounts, bills, refunds, lost & found, and so forth. Bye for now - time for a long NAP!!!!

• Tom & Meghan

August 19^th:

Keep the horse descriptions coming for our new updated "Meet the Horses" page! We'll start posting pictures and your descriptions soon. Our great instructors have done a fine job of cleaning up the farm and putting things away - BUT the jump field looks VERY empty! Below is a picture of the field as we took the final truck load of brush off.

August 18^th:

Tovah, Erika, Mandy, Marce, and Katie & Melanie have knocked themselves out the past two days putting away jumps and cleaning up the barn. It is hard to believe that Longacres was in session just two days ago - the big show field is stripped of all signs of jumps. We did take some pictures and will post one or two soon.

All horses but Missy and Joey now have homes. Several people are coming to look at them in the next few days.

We are getting ready to post the all new "Meet Our Horses" webpage. Thanks to Elissa for sending in two descriptions for the new page to go along with all the new pictures we took last week. I will post her descriptions of Brownie and Stoney below. Please send me more of your own favorite horse descriptions like the ones Elissa wrote.

Two have already left with Meghan for the airport and Nora left early by car. The rest of our students will be gone in a few hours and things will start to get lonely. The real shock for those of us remaining comes Monday when we take down all the jumps for the winter and our big show field becomes just another bare patch of grass! It is spooky - maybe we'll post a picture Monday night.

But there will be some life at Longacres until Wednesday when all the counselors finally leave after several days of hard work closing up, bonding with one another, and having their last rides with their favorite horses. Mandy, Tovah, Marce, and Erika will be here to the end, with help tomorrow from Katie and Melanie.

Below are the results from most of the classes at the fair. Let me know if the girls missed anyone's ribbon when they were typing.

Results ECF:

August 14^th, late:

Many of you may be "blacked out" and not able to read this anyway until tomorrow, but the star of the show was our very own #1 rider, Tovah Abrams, who rode Patti to two first places, a Reserve Championship in Hopeful Jumper and the Championship in Training Jumper today. It was the final day of the show, and many of the girls did well, but it was Tovah and Peppermint Patti who put the icing on the cake. We'll post more results tomorrow!!!

August 13^th:

A picture is worth a thousand words - - - I know, I know, no blues yet. (except for Melanie's) - we'll try to fix that tomorrow!

August 12^th:

In spite of a shaky weather forecast this morning, the rains held off all day and seem to be gone for the rest of the week. We had great weather for the first full day at the fiar and our girls took full advantage. Melanie won the first jumper class on "Skip", Mary Kate won two 2^nd's on Justin, and many of the rest of our horses placed with good ribbons. We'll post full results soon, and perhaps some pictures later tonight. Tovah came within a whisker of winning the 2^nd jumper class, but Patti pulled a rail when we gambled on a very tight turn in the jump-off.

More soon!

August 11^th:

Another rather rainy day in western NY as we traveled to the Fair today. But it stopped in time for everyone, and I mean EVERYONE to do a great job practicing over the jumps in the show rings for tomorrows events. Thanks to Kelly Waples our guest instructor for this fair week for helping everyone and to Jackie Boychuk for giving a braiding lesson.

If you tried to view the pictures we took yesterday through the link below, try again. I fixed a mistake in the link address.

Finally we expect the rains to move off to the east sometime tomorrow, and the weather for the rest of the week is supposed to be perfect from late tomorrow through the end of our season!! Finally!!!!

Aug. 10^th:

We'll try to post some kind of daily update from the fair, but we may miss a night. We'll be up really late every night taking care of the horses and the girls. Wish us luck!

Aug. 9^th - more:

A light drizzle is falling after dinner and our crew is getting ready for a "horseless horse show" and perhaps a bareback ride. Danielle ran a lesson this afternoon with a very imaginative jumping course done in the small ring with only one official jump and many improvisations. Good job, Danielle. We are still having desserts from the huge platter of goodies Danielle's mom brought to the horse show the other day. Yummie!!

Speaking of goodies, many thanks to Lindsey for the care package we all got from her this week. I know that we've also had packages of goodies from Emma, Emilie, and others. The girls really look forward to opening these packages from old friends! I bet our cook could not show up for a week and no one would starve with all the junk food squirreled away in the cabins. More tomorrow - Tom

August 9^th, later:

Joey has also had a great year, doing lots of lessons and regularly going in shows over low fences - he is staying with us another year. Missy has gained weight, and goes out in a lesson to jump every day - we will keep her until she dies, and she will be burried on "Jumper Hill"!

Why did I ask if Brianna was reading this? Because her favorite pony, Treek, came back very skinny from a bad winter home. We did put a little weight on him, but made all arrangements to sell him to a family with small kids to retire in the middle of the summer. By good luck the trucking was delayed and the sale did not go through right away. SUDDENLY, Treel began to gain weight. He is almost his old self again - check out the picture below! He has a nice winter home and we hope he will be back again next year at Longacres. Good news, Brianna!!??!??!

August 9^th:

We've had a few spotty showers, but have gotten in all our training rides today, with just two days to go before the big Erie County Fair "A" rated three day show! Everyone did well in training today. I trained the jumpers and took video's of the rest of the riders while Kelly taught them. We're looking good and feeling confident.

Below is a story with the full results of Thursday's show. Thanks to Nora for doing the story.

August 8^th:

Everyone slept till 10am after the long exciting show day yesterday. Danielle's parents took some of the girls out to lunch, and we then had a special guest instructor, Kelly Waples, give an equitation lesson a little different than most. She did the lesson on our outside hunt course, just cleaned up and put in operation for this season. The girls learned some useful exercises. Kelly will be with us as an extra trainer right through Fair Week. She is a welcome addition.

Longacres was pleased today to present a special trophy to John & Roxanne Napoli, parents of Danielle & "Freddie the Wonder Horse"! John not only supports a full season student and her horse at Longacres, but was a special "All American Sponsor" of part of the Championship awards for the summer show series. John really got in the spirit of the show yesterday, taking part in a bidding "syndicate" during our Bold Jumper Derby. Danielle and Beth Hackett advised him on some of the best bets, but their horse did not come through. Thanks for all your support of Longacres this year, John & Roxanne - you are truly the "horse parents of the year"!!!! Picture below of John (far right) and Roxanne, with Danielle next from the right, along with the rest of our girls.

August 7^th, late:

More tomorrow - it is very late now.

Below is a picture of some of our season Champions, both Longacres riders and trhose from other stables.

August 2^nd:

The folks at Orchard Park Equestrian Center have been good friends for a long time and we have enjoyed going to their shows. They have a new owner this year who is investing lots of cash in improvements. We had a great time showing in their new sand ring today! Below are some results for our riders:

Results from August 2nd:

July 31^st:

We had a good day - some "Big" jumping this morning, a trip to the mall this evening, and in between we managed to squeeze an exciting Hunter Pace event with a long cross country run for five sets of riders. Erika & Lindsey won a 1^st place; Lauren & Nora won a 2^nd; Marce & Elissa won a 3^rd place. Mary Kate & Johanna also won a 1^st place and Mandy, Jess, and Atchie together won 2^nd places. Great job on an exciting ride. (Jess was the only one to join the "Dusty Bottoms Club" during the afternoon - she proudly told us all that she "landed on her feet this time!"

More "Big Jumping" coming tomorrow, and then the OPEC Horse Show on Saturday.

- Tom & Meghan

July 30^th:

With the big season ending Erie County Fair show coming up, I am becoming a little more demanding in my formal training lessons. Those not paying attention to their horses are being reminded, first gently and then more firmly. Jess was one who took some chastisement this morning for slouching and not paying attention - it is a back handed compliment to her, since her riding is much improved from last year, and suffers only from these occasional lapses of attention. I also here applaud Atchie, who was gently warned once for not paying attention, and who a few minutes later was told to get off her horse and wait her turn for again "wandering". I did not know if Atchie would react emotionally and perhaps not want to continue the lesson. To her great credit, she got back on the horse when her turn came, put in the best ride of her lesson, and afterwards sat up straight and in full contro of her horse for the rest of the lesson. Good come back, Atchie!

It is now just after lunch (food was available today!!!), and the girls are all on their way up to the house to watch video tape taken the past two days.

July 29^th:

We had some very tough riding in the morning lessons, and we are seeing lots of improvement in various riders. One of my highest compliments goes to Mary Kate Phelan who has improved tremendously since last year, and is paying attention and working hard this year to get even better. Elissa Buchman is trying her heart out and working hard to catch up with some of the girls who have more experience. Keep up the good work, Elissa!

More soon.

- Tom & Meghan

July 26^th:

And now for the show results - another good day for our riders. Be aware that any results for "Special Hunter" came against 16 horses in these classes!

Wishing Melanie a Speedy Recovery: Our very long stretch of riding with no significant accident came to an end last night. Our very fine adult jumper rider, Melanie, got hit in the mouth when her horse shied and loosened her front teeth. She was back at the barn taking care of her horses this morning after spending part of the night getting medical and dental evaluation, but in great discomfort. We hope she is cleared to ride again soon, and feels better. WE dedicate ourselves to redoubling our safety efforts. Get better soon, Melanie.

July 24^th, late:

Now at the end of two full days of riding in second session we're getting to know our new students. Atchie, Lindsey, Alissa, and Johanna are all here for the first time, and are catching on fast. All are pitching in and a big help caring for the horses, and I think that each of our four new students (and Mary Kate, who is back this week but was here last year) has ridden at least six or seven different horses in the two days they have been at Longacres. The rain held off most of the day with a few 5 minute light showers, but the ground is drying up and it sounds like we will have good weather for our show on Saturday. Tomorrow looks to be perfect riding weather!

Tovah and Erika were up here at the house a few minutes ago going over horse health certificates to start planning and organizing things for the huge expedition to Hamburg Fair coming up in only two and a half more weeks. - - - And then the summer will be over!!!! Hard to believe that we are more than half way through the 2003 season!

July 24^th:

It was a great day for riding at Longacres yesterday with sun and good footing. Some showers early this morning, then two more great riding days coming up! All our new students are now integrated into groups with our returning students, so we are off to a good start for second session. First meetings on Erie County Fair tonight!

We're taking video of everyone tonight (Thursday) and tomorrow morning and will see ourselves tomorrow afternoon. Today was "building jumps day" for me and for Melanie and Katie. We're doing four new jumps which we hope will all be done in time for our August 7^th show! See pic below of our fine carpentry crew!

July 22^nd:

One more day of rest until the second session - everyone is in town doing laundry now after caring for the horses this morning. Melanie and Katie are hard at work building several new jumps to add to our already very nice show field course. One will be a brick wall and brick stands and the other a set of stone standards.

The laugh of the day came when I had to load an old snowmobile on my truck to get it out of our shop. Some of the girls brought lead ropes from the barn, attached them to the skis and pulled as I pushed. With them all spread out in front pulling on ropes it looked exactly like a dog sled, so I began yelling "mush on you doggies!!!" - - - - ok, maybe you had to be there. But it was fun and it worked. Thanks to the "sled doggies"!

We get half of our students for second session tomorrow - about half of you returning from last year and several new girls. Unfortunately, it is supposed to rain all day, which is not nice for showing new people around a horse farm, but we will make the best of it. It will be nice again on Thursday, our first full day of riding for second session. See you all in the rain tomorrow!

- Tom & Meghan

July 21^st:

Longacres is very quiet today with the horses getting one of their mid session rest days. It's also a rainy day, so a good time for our mid term break. The weather is supposed to clear just in time for the second session riders to arrive at Longacres. The rain will help keep the grass green and the ground soft, so it is very welcome.

Melanie and I sat down together and worked on plans for new jumps this morning, which we will be building during this week. Then Melanie is taking all next week off (eek - how will we survive without our famous "Ms. Fix-it all"?????!!!)

Here is a quick message from Mandy - we'll post more messages in the next two days:

July 20^th, 5PM:

Final Super Duper Ceremonial Camp Fire!

Thanks to Emilie St. Landau who vigorously campaigned for a final campfire. Longacres used to have camp fires twice a week in the old days when we were a more general camp, but now that we are riding after dinner most nights we rarely have time for these nice old camp traditions. But we had a great one last night! Look into the fire with us for a momewnt below:

And here is our very wet eyed group after sharing their best memories of their time at Longacres!

All our first session campers are now on their way home, the horses have been fed and cared for, and we are all sleeping for 24 hours during the first full day of mid term break. We'll look at doing something fun with those who are staying here over the three day break tomorrow night and Tuesday, but for now nothing is more attractive than rest!

Everyone was up to midnight with the campfire, testimonials to each other, and horse stories from Longacres past told by Tom. It was one of our best campfires ever, so thanks again to Emilie for talking us into having it.

Some of the most emotional and inspiring camper talks were given by Brianna Altieri and Emilie.

July 19^th:

Fault and out:

Tovah

Lauren

Danielle

Nora

Marce

Mandy

Emilie

Alex

Kim

Bri

Brittany & Lillian

Emma

Relay Derby Winners:

Marce & Kim

Tovah & Jess

Dani & Lillian

Nora & Brittany

Mandy & Bri

Lauren & Emma

Emilie & Alex

2^nd round Relay Derby Results:

Dani & Lillian

Lauren & Emma

Emilie & Alex

Mandy & Bri

Marce & Kim

Tovah & Jess (booby prize!)

July 18^th:

Sorry for the long time since we did an update!

Friday, very late:

Here are the full show results from Thursday:

Friday late evening:

We're down to the final two nights of the first session. Everyone is up at the house watching video tape from the show yesterday. It's going to be a very late night, with a campfire planned later tonight and then MAYBE a moonlight ride. Late sleep in tomorrow morning!

We had a good afternoon riding into the pond on the horses, so there are lots of last minute activities at the end of the session. We'll try to get some pictures posted later tonight.

And sorry for the fact that the site was "down" for 12 hours yesterday! But all is well. We had a huge show at Longacres. We thought very few other stables would come sicne there is a big show two hundred miles away that many attend. Boy were we wrong! The trailers kept coming and coming! But Longacres won all the jumper classes, and did very well in the lower classes with many wins. We'll post all results later today. There were some surprises.

Emilie and Danielle spent two days this week at the "A" show in Elmire showing with Hasty Hills crew. They returned with very respectable showings. Danielle and Freddie got a 4^th and 6^th out of 30 horses in their division - fantasticv for an "A" rated show!

July 12^th, 7PM:

This is what Meghan and I call "the weekend from hell" every summer. We took our horses to a horseshow last night (did well - very well!); took the whole camp to another horseshow for everyone today - lots of good ribbons and performances - details in the following paragraphs. Now for the fun part: Meghan and I take the girls out to dinner tonight in a few minutes, then pack up the Winnie and drive 200 miles to run one of our truck races near Ithaca, NY tomorrow, and drive back in time to check on everyone at their bunks late tomorrow night. (Did I mention that I plan to sleep in on Monday morning?)

OK - now for today's report:

Saturday Horse Show!

Congratulations to all our ribbon winners today, and there were many. My favorite quote of the day is from Emma, who said, "This was my favorite show ever - everyone was so friendly and helpful." It didn't hurt that many of our riders helped themselves by riding very well.

We also learned the hard way where we still have to improve before the end of the summer (hopefully before our next show). Basics, basics, basics - almost everyone needs to pay more attention to very basic control of their horse. many of our 3rd or 4th place ribbons today could easily have been 1st or 2nd if the rider had only maintained the correct pace all the way around the course, or done a better job of shortening the stride for those tricky four stride lines!

Here are most of the results:

(Friday night's jumper results:

Melanie Antonik entered four jummper classes and won three of them - a first in training jumpers on Michael's Light, and two firsts in schooling jumpers on Red Baron. The only class Melanie did not win was won by Tovah Abrams on Quantum Leap. Marce Evans riding Peppermint Patti won a third and a fourth. Also on Patti, Erika Attoma won two thirds and Nora Whelan won a second.

• the above results are courtesy of Emma and Lauren - we are missing a few people's winnings, and will post corrections tomorrow, but we're late for dinner!
• -Tom

July 11^th:

July 9^th, morning:

It's an on and off rainy day at Longacres and I have put my formal lesson off to this afternoon. I just got back from the barn where I "encouraged" a couple of staff members who were sitting reading magazines while there were plenty of things to do, then I talked with Danielle about plans for her to go to a big "A" rated horse show, and talked with Nora about video taping the drill team practice - which I am late for right now! That's the am news!

July 7^th, 10PM:

Everyone is now headed to bed after a long day of riding and hours of watching video from the two shows we attended over the weekend. Headed to BED at a reasonable hour. Many girls were pretty tired as we went into this weekend, and at first I told myself it was just all the riding catching up after 8 days of the season. Then I told myself perhaps I should look into how well the girls were doing at getting to bed at a reasonable hour, and sure enough, it turned out bedtime was being stretched beyond what I felt was good judgement.

Part of the Longacres experience is having a group of teenage girls doing a great deal to govern themselves and make plans together. In this case Meghan and I felt it was time to impose a time to be out of the dining hall and shower room, and an absolute lights out in the bunks time. Some of our older teens were not happy to have a "bedtime" imposed, but that's the way it is going to be. (Many are pleased that they won't be kept awake by the night owls!)

Hope you all are enjoying the updates and the pictures posted!

- Tom & Meghan

July 6^th: 10:00 PM

This will be quick - we still have to unpack the stuff from the show and put the trash out before lights out (more about that later!). Many good performances at the show today. Champions, blue ribbons, and more! Details to come later with pics tomorrow.

• Tom

We'll try to post the rest of the results when everyone comes up here to watch the video's at lunchtime.

July 4^th:

Longacres riders did well at the 4^th of July Chestnut Ridge show last year - - - and again today!

Emilie St. Landau decided to give her own show hunter a rest today and took a green horse (Lacey) for experience at a new place. Emilie has been training this horse for the past week. Lacey had a good day, getting around over all the strange jumps. Emilie was rightly pleased.

Now for the jumpers! Longacres riders entered five different jumper classes at today's show and Longacres riders were first place in all five classes! Beth Kearny rode Patti to the blue in the first class. Marce won two more classes on Patti. The only class Patti entered and did not win, she was second place behind Tovah Abrams riding Quantum Leap. Melanie Antonik finished up the collection of blue ribbons, winning the highest jumping class with her own horse, Red Baron!

July 3^rd:

After dinner we'll be busy getting ready to go to a show quite a long drive away in Gasport tomorrow with four of our horses. (Everyone will be showing at a closer show on Sunday). Tovah, Nora, Marce, Beth, and Emilie will be showing tomorrow.

July 2^nd Update:

PS - Thanks to John Napoli who has made a generous donation to the Summer Series Awards fund and is one of four "All American Sponsors" for the high score awards. Thanks Danielle and John!

Emilie was 2^nd on her own horse Jake.

For the long obstacle test, the intermediate group placed as follows:

Emma 1^st on Kitty

Kim on Star

Alex on old Joey!

Lillian on ?

Mel on Stoney

In the advanced group:

Mandy was 1^st on Wizard

Lauren on Sierra

Tovah on Quantum

Emilie on Jake

Erika on Majic

Marce on What's his name?!@ (senior moment here!)

July 1^st Update:

This morning's advanced training session included dress "post-hearsal's" of the jumping courses from Saturday's show. It was difficult, with numerous little errors on the first try, but improvement by all riders on the second attempt. We worked on more advanced striding between multiple jumps in the intermediate lesson, and everyone did well.

We worked on trimming some of the trails this afternoon, and they are getting to be in good condition now that we are ready to do more trail riding. Drill team is also making progress, and should be ready to do a good performance to open our July 17^th horse show here at Longacres.

Our new cook, Julie's Catering, is doing a good job with dinners - stir fry tonight. She is especially good at biscuits, which disappear in a FLASH when she puts them on the table!

Melanie and Tom are planning to build a fancy new jump next week. Everyone has been asked to make suggestions after looking at the jumps at the two shows coming up later this week.

We'll probably make our annual visit to the Orchard park fireworks on the 4^th of July if the rain holds off - might be some late evening showers, in which case we'll try to see fireworks over the weekend.

More news and pictures to come soon.

- Tom

June 29^th Update:

Oh, Joy! A relaxing day!!!!! After all the rush and worry getting ready for our big show at the end of our first week, it has been blissful today to have a "day off" from deadlines and pressures. I just got back from the barn where our 15 to 17 year olds are cantering around pretending to be horses having a horseless horse show!

We took the group in to do laundry on "town day" today while the horses had their one full day off of the week. Meghan and I went for a long drive in the country.

Everyone slept in this morning and had breakfast in bed before a very late horsecare session. We all spent a couple of hours watching video of the show this afternoon on three TV screens simultaneously. We had just enough rain this afternoon to keep the ground from getting too hard and to green up the grass on the riding fields. The rest of the week is supposed to be bright and sunny!

- Tom & Meghan

June 28^th, 9:30PM:

Here's Marce's quick write-up of the show results:

June 27^th, late:

We're all sitting on the floor watching video's taken the past two days in preparation for tomorrow's horse show. Everyone did well in practice tonight and we feel good about our prospects. But it sounds like it is going to be a big show - wish us all good luck in the morning! Hopefully we will have great things to tell you about tomorrow night

June 24^th:

We did a very tricky exercise in Tom's lesson today where everyone had to plan the number of strides their horse would get while riding a long curved line between fences. Only ONE rider was perfect over two tries - - Emilie St. Landau and Jake!!!!!!!!

A perfect score on one of the two tries was also turned in by Beth Kearney on Patti. As usual, Melanie Antonik also had a nearly perfect ride, with just one fault in each round on her own horse, Skip. She finished just behind Emilie over-all!

Tonight is the summer's first outing for "ice cream" right after evening ride and drill team practice.

June 22^nd:

June 21^st - late evening:

We all went out to Pasquale's for dinner and to "bond". First real day of the season is tomorrow, with the first arrivals around 10AM. (See you then, Nina!) We'll plan on posting some pictures tomorrow night.

- Tom

June 21^st:

It's a gray wet day at Longacres, but never fear - tomorrow is predicted to be bright and sunny for our opening! Most years we would be in a panic with rain the day before we open since it is so hard to do all the last minute work in the wet. But THIS YEAR, our wonderful staff had all the important things done a full day ahead of time and we are just puttering around with a few minor jobs. We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow. (Emilie and Jake, her horse, just got in from a long drive from the Virginia/Maryland area.)

June 20^th:

We had our first real lesson of the season tonight for some of our instructors and a guest rider (Beth). Guess who the "star" horse was? It was "Lady", Erika's own horse who arrived a day or two ago. Erika is home for an exam, and Nora rode Lady in this first jumping lesson of the year. Lady jumped everything we put in front of her and looked pretty good doing it. Lady has not jumped much since last summer, and was not always perfect then, so we were very impressed. (You should be proud if you are reading this, Erika!)

We spent the day replacing the main pasture gate, weed trimming, mowing, adjusting jump courses, fitting tack, shopping for new horse equipment - all those things that contribute to a quality show barn. Everyone worked very hard. We are really looking forward to showing our three new students around the Longacres horse farm on Sunday. Sometimes during the spring it feels like we are never going to get everything ready on time, but in the end, Longacres always looks pretty good on opening day. It will again this year, thanks to Meghan, Erika, Marce, Tovah, Mandy, Nora, Melanie, Katie, Brandon, James, Uncle Billy, - - - - - and ME!

See you all in one more day!

- Tom & Meghan

June 19^th:

Yeah, it was Tovah! Lauren wins the free ice cream since she first guessed Tovah (though she thought it might have been Sierra). It was Tovah off of Quantum. She jumped a line and made him do a flying change, which made him do an extra big Quantum Leap - Tovah landed on her butt!

Cabin demolition: We've had several of our very old unused cabins collapse under heavy winter snow during the past four years. I had a funny kind of emotional attachment to those bunks which were a part of my childhood 50 years ago. So I have been procrastinating for several years on doing the final demolition and cleaning up the mess. Meghan has been pointing out how messy it looks for some time, so today we started to tear them all apart and consolidate the old lumber in a pile for later burning and separate the junk and trash. I'll admit it does look better already, but I am sad to say goodbye finally to some of my childhood memories.

The farm is looking very good - we'll still be fine tuning the jumps and trimming grass under fences right up until the time you all get here on Sunday. But the barn area looks very professional - thanks to all the staff who have worked so hard, especially Melanie and Katie who have been working full time for several weeks cleaning and painting!

- Tom

Who was 1^st in "Dusty Bottoms"? Win a free ice cream!!

First person to email me and tell me correctly the name of the first person to join the 2003 Dusty Bottoms Club wins a free ice cream on me first time we go to the ice cream store in town! Bonus if you can guess the horse that did the deed.

June 17^th:

Below are a couple of new pictures from today. My favorite is the Merlin portrait! We are starting to look pretty fancy - Marce, Melanie, and Katie took a few of the jumps up the hill to the show field this afternoon. Tovah and Nora will be here in about a half hour (10PM) - there will be a big crew to put up all the jumps for tomorrow. We called horse show judges for the end of next week, ordered horse show ribbons and trophies, talked to some people about new horses, and got another van load of horses dropped off here. The farrier comes tomorrow and will have lots of work to do. So will we all!

• Tom

Melanie and Marce on Quantum and Justin today

Quantum is now in great condition after two months of rest and some training at Longacres. He got put in the paddock while all the other horses were fed this evening, so Melanie could ride him after feeding. He was pretty frustrated knowing all his buddies were getting their feed! He galloped from one end of the lower paddock to the other doing sliding stops at each end, and rearing and twirling in one spot to reverse. He is a very powerful, athletic horse!

Merlin, one of my personal favorites, had a long tough winter beginning with his knee injury last fall, and going through three winter homes while he healed. He is back to his old self now and seems to LOVE being back at Longacres!!!!!!!! When we first turned him out to pasture, he immediately began chasing Star around and around and around the pasture at a full gallop. It seemed like he wanted to murder her, with his teeth bared and his ears pinned back, with them both bucking and kicking out at each other. But it turned out that was his peculiar way of bonding - the two of them are total pasture buddies by this evening. He was gorgeous when he was showing off for Star! His tail was standing straight out behind him like a flag, and he seems to float on his feet this year.

June 16^th:

Marce arrived from California tonight after an all day series of flights. I thought she'd be tired and want to rest right away, but when I said, "You can ride if you want.", she answered, "Sure!" She's down at the barn now with Majic, Wizard, and Sierra who all arrived about an hour ago. Some pictures will be posted later tonight.

June 12^th:

We just counted up - I think we have 29 horses scheduled to be at Longacres right now! That's for nine students and several staff. We are going to be hanging horses from the rafters!

Best news is that Wizard (from 2001) is returning for the summer - I know Tovah will be happy! Sierra is coming for the first part of the summer, and perhaps then going home to be ridden by her young owner. Majik is coming back again for the summer. Hannibal and Sadie from Anne Handy will be here again, and Anne's driving trainer, Wendy is sending us a 14.3 hand Hackney that drives and is green broke to ride for us to train. The lady who rescued Dipper is sending us a 17 hand thoroughbred for exercise and training. His name is "Virgil!"

Melanie Antonik, who has been riding and working at Longacres this month is joining our Longacres team for at least the first two week session and bringing all three of her jumpers along with her to train and show with us. We hope "Red Baron", "Michael's Light" and "Skip" like the Longacres training experience.

We have to make final arrangements, but we think Millie is coming again.

(Do you think that is enough interesting horses to get us started next week???!?!?)

One of the "New" horses is "Brownie"!!!! Because he was sick, Brownie never got to be ridden at Longacres last summer, but he is fine now and all of you who came last year and did not get to know him. So in a way this great legend horse at Longacres is a "new horse" to many of you!

Melanie, Danielle, Erika, and Emilie will all be riding their own horses with us at Longacres this summer, giving a nice experienced foundation to our program. We'll also have not one, but two different driving carriages practicing on our show grounds, with Anne Handy and her trainer, Wendy, both keeping their driving horses and carriages here for the summer. Lots of interesting things going on here, ALL STARTING NEXT WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I ask you, our students, to be mature about something like this that is emotionally difficult for all of us. We simply can't keep every old horse in our herd forever. It's not kind to the horse and it takes up barn space that can be used to add new and interesting horses. I have no final decision made about any particular horse. But Dipper, Treek, Missy, Stoney, and Joey are all less than 100% sound, and have given us many good years.

- Tom & Meghan

June 9^th:

Two things are happening tomorrow that are in their own way symbolic of the start of our summer season: First, the health inspector is coming to inspect our kitchen, and that's one of the last things in our annual preparation for the summer. Second, Meghan and I are flying down to Connecticut for one night to visit my parents. It's the last chance I'll have to get away from the farm until fall, and this annual mid June visit to see my family always comes just before we open for the season!

Melanie has been doing a great job painting all the jumps - everything is fresh (except the yellow, which she still has to finish!)

June 6^th:

Brianna is naming her new horse "Devon", and keeping his old show name of "True Pride". Read her message and one from Marce in the alumni page. Lots more work got done today - total clean up and some painting in the dining hall, with Meghan and Melanie working there all day, and Katie Fitzgerald (Leach) starting work with us today. Melanie did make time at the end of her busy day to get in her hour with Quantum (she looks like someone who is falling in love a bit!)

Speaking of "love", Quantum and Ebony are - - well - - -

More to come soon! - Tom

June 3^rd:

Hey Brianna, - - Beth Hacket read the website and sent this in: " How about as a name for Bri's horse:

"Obsession" or "Walk On Water"

I'm sure he is/does both! =)

Beth"

Psssst: Don't tell on me - - - I am not supposed to do "weed wacking" during the spring hayfever season; something about irritating my bad vocal chords. But I couldn't resist today sneaking in some grass trimming when I saw Melanie starting to paint the show ring fence. Meghan was out of town on business, so maybe I won't get in trouble! The show ring is starting to look good - it will be in perfect shape when you all get here. Later tonight I will post a picture of Treek and Joey grazing in the ring while Melanie paints. Melanie is putting these two in the little rings with fresh grass all by themselves while she works around the farm so they won't have to compete with the tougher horses as they try to chow down and gain some weight!

June 2^nd:

Lots of work got done today - Melanie has all the white on the jump rails painted, and will be starting the colors on the poles soon. James got the water running in the dining hall, and I - - - - well, you know, I CUT MORE GRASS!!! And shopped for paint, plumbing supplies, and more. There a two new good emails posted on the alumni page - let's help Brianna pick a good name for her new horse!!!!!

- Tom

June 1^st, late:

What a Difference a Day Makes!!!

This time last night, Longacres was a dreary place in the rain, with the grass too long from all the rainy weather, cobwebs in the tack room, dirty dried out bridles from sitting all winter, and few signs of recent activity. - - - That was before Meghan picked up "Bam-bam Attoma" last night, and our workforce of volunteers and new workers dove into action around the barn this morning!

Uncle Billy and his niece Julie spent the day with us helping to train Star, Ebony, and Quantum to listen well to rider commands. Actually, all three horses were great all day! Erika had help from new staff member, Melanie Antonik, who got all the jumps out with Uncle Billy's help, and set them up ready to be cleaned and freshly painted for our first show. Lots of tack got cleaned, stalls mucked, bridles fit, buckets scrubbed, you name it! A fine job done by all.

Then it was time to longe the horses, and do some riding. Guess what? Uncle Billy rode Quantum! Check out the picture page to see everyone in action with the horses. Look especially at the last couple of pictures, showing Melanie giving Quantum his first cantor of the year. In the first picture you will see Quantum giving his first official "Quantum Leap" of the year, and in the second picture you'll see the big grin on Melanie's face right after!

The very last picture on the page shows our new "custom" enclosed trailer for taking your stuff to shows and keeping it out of any rain. Don't laugh! I worked hard building it with Meghan and Erika helping me put on the finishing touches this afternoon.

Melanie Antonik is an independent rider who has a couple of jumpers of her own. She's shown here at Longacres several times over the past few years. She's just graduated from college, and saw our ad for help wanted around the barn. She'll be helping us in a number of ways in the coming weeks.

Longacres sure made some progress in the past 12 hours!!!

- Tom (tired Tom!)

May 31^st:

Noon - It's a gray dreary day at Longacres and we put off the barn work day until tomorrow. It was going to be a rest day since we can't work outside, but when I got home from breakfast, I got the itch to go out in the drizzle and just finish up a few more things on the enclosed trailer project that has occupied me for the past few days. Remember the flatbed utility trailer we used to take to some horse shows to tie the horses to and haul hay and stuff? Well, I decided to build a little enclosed cabin on the trailer so you could keep all your saddles and equipment safely inside at shows. It is made of wood with a nice truck bed cap on top, so it is not the most beautiful thing, but it will be very useful. Before this, you could sometimes keep your tack in Frank's horse trailer at shows, but he often did not leave it and your stuff was spread all around. If some of you who are handy (like "Bam-bam Attoma" will give me a hand, we can even build some removable saddle racks and bridle hooks so you can keep yourselves more organized at the shows. It will be a handy addition.

- Tom

9AM - I woke up this morning, looked at the calendar, and said, "Eeey gaaaads!" (or something like that), "Longacres opens in three weeks!" We still have a lot of work to do around here to get ready. But we have several new helpers going to work this coming week, and lots will get done in a short time. Somehow, we always get ready and the farm always looks good on opening day.

Emma, Nina, & Beth Week

The first three days of the season will be Emma, Nina, and Beth week. Those are our three first time students for first session, and I am sure everyone will want to join Meghan and I in making them feel at home at Longacres while they learn which horse is which, what the different horses are like, and how our schedule works. Nina and Beth are each here for just two weeks, so it will be important for us all to help them get off to a quick start so they can take full advantage of their Longacres stay. (Beth is friends at home with Emilie St. Landau, so I'm sure she has a head start on knowing about the Longacres horses.) Emma will be here a month, and has longer to get to know the ropes. We'll be asking all our old hands to help by switching horses frequently with the new guys so they can get to know different mounts in the first two or three days. By the end of your third day, most girls at Longacres for the first time are feeling right at home and have picked out a couple of favorite horses.

The rest of our crew are all veterans at Longacres, and will be busy renewing your acquaintance with horses and people you know from previous years. We'll have some new horse blood coming in, and we may be saying "goodbye" this year to a couple of our more elderly horse friends, who have reached a time in their lives to be retired. The first week of the season can be very hectic for us if we have a lot of new students. It should go very smoothly this year with so many of you back here for second, third, fourth, or more years!

- Tom & Meghan

May 29^th:

Do check the Alumni page and read about Brianna's NEW HORSE! She wants suggestions for a name, so read her description and send her some ideas.

May 26, late evening:

It was a beautiful day here at Longacres, but we didn't get much done. We worked all weekend and drove many miles home yesterday, so it was a rest day. Had some fun watching the horses when we fed them twice, and stopped to see them just before dark. That last stop, Ebony comes charging up to the fence to see if there is any new FOOD! She is the youngest, and the most eager for FOOD, anytime!!!! Star trotted up right behind her. Quantum is a mature gentleman, and since he is the biggest by far, he KNOWS there is no hurry. He is sure to get his share of any new food! So he just takes his time and walks up behind the others knowing that he can push them out of the way if necessary.

Pre- Camp riding and barn weekend next week!

Erika is coming up to Longacres next weekend to start riding the horses and to begin organizing the barn. Uncle Billy will be here part of the time and his niece, Julie, is coming over to help Erika. If anyone else has a way to get here, you are welcome also, but most of you live much too far away. But Longacres will be in action next weekend, May 31 and June 1^st. We will also have the "hay guys" here helping fix gates, fences, and maybe putting out the first of the jumps. It will be fun to see things really start to get organized for the summer. Call if you are interested. We may also go look at some new horses to buy for Longacres this year.

New Alumni Messages:

We have posted a few new emails on the Alumni page - go check them out.

Keep checking this page during this week. We'll be checking on some more of the horses this week and will post regular updates!

May 26 Update:

OK, NOW the 2003 riding season is really underway! We went to our first horse show this morning. Not with horses, but to hand out information on our own Summer Show series, including the shows at Longacres, High Time, Hasty Hills Farms, and Orchard Park Equestrian Center. Watch out guys, the Summer Series is going to be big this year!

Horses Coming to Camp!

We talked with quite a few people at the show who want us to school their horses at Longacres this summer, so there will be new and interesting projects for you. Hannibal is coming back, so is Sadie, at least for a while. Hannibal's owner's driving horse trainer also has a horse she wants us to work with. And there are some other new possibilities. Looks like there will again be lots of horses in our barn this summer!

May 22^nd Update:

Welcome to Lauren, a friend of Mary Kate's, who is probably taking the second to last spot open this summer. If her enrollment is confirmed tomorrow, Longacres will have only one spot left available for two weeks right at the end of the summer from Aug. 3^rd to Aug. 16^th, including Erie County Fair.

If anyone wants to visit the farm (first timers & parents), you are welcome anytime now, so long as you call ahead. We have lots of maintenance work to do before we open, but I have been mowing grass and cleaning up. We'd be glad to show you around.

I am having fun taking care of horses this month. As most of you know, I leave the horse care to all of you during the summer, and we lease our horses out during the winter, so I do not normally spend much of my own time taking care of horses at this stage in my life. But with Quantum, Star, and Ebony here two months early this year, Meghan and I have been taking turns feeding and caring for these horses. It is very relaxed, since they are out in the pasture all the time, and we don't have any lesson schedule - - - YET! I enjoy watching them trot up for their feedings, and I often take an extra five minutes just to watch them when I'm around the barn. They are all in great shape. I imagine they will be sorry to be going back to work soon! I am going to have some old friends like Beth Hackett and Christina S. and Billy and Julie start riding them a couple of times a week to get them in shape for the summer, so it will soon seem more like a riding school again. But for now, they are just "my pets"!

If any of you know a college girl who is already out of school and would like a job riding theh orses and helping open the barn, have them call me. All our regular wonderful 2003 staff have to arrive here very late this year right before we open. I do need some help sooner to get the horses ready, so ask around. Whoever comes will get lots of riding. Erika has already volunteered to come up and help on a weekend or two and we will be trying to work that out. But we run truck races on weekends in the spring, so the timing is tricky.

The show schedule is now set, and I will post it tomorrow. The first show is here at Longacres on June 28^th at the end of our first week. That's it for now - it's late and sleepy land is beckoning!

- Tom

May 14^th Update:

Hey everyone! We've been really busy with our truck race management business the past week, but we are also working on getting Longacres ready to open. The horses in the pasture are fun to watch! Not surprisingly, Ebony, as the youngest horse, is by far the most enthusiastic about FOOD! When we walk towards the pasture with a grain bucket, she is right at the gate frantically pawing the ground. The three of them are sure enjoying all the lush green spring grass!

I have posted several new emails from some of you to the Alumni page - go there if you want some news.

We're reading the want ads in the papers looking for a couple of more new horses to buy for you, and we will have many of our good friends horses on loan, like we did last year. The barn opens for real in only about five weeks!

May 8^th: Here's a good article everyone should read

A few more words about horse training: We have three of our best horses in our pasture this month, and they are here because they all caused problems where they were spending their winter months. Their story sheds some light on the challenges of running an advanced summer riding school like Longacres. (Normally, all Longacres horses are leased out to winter "homes" and come back to us in June for your summer riding.)

Horses that are older; that are "gentlemen" and "old ladies" are easy to find winter homes for. These horses have become mature and stable in temperament and anyone can handle them. They also make excellent school horses for any farm, and we have some at Longacres which we value deeply.

But a school like Longacres constantly needs new horse blood. We need a group of younger horses that are strong fit jumpers and that are interesting and challenging for our more experienced riders. Quantum Leap is a powerful, spirited jumper. He is very strong, and when you ride him, it feels like you have coiled steel under you. He does not have a mean bone in his body, but he is so strong that you need experienced people to handle him on the ground, or to control him from the saddle. Twice since last fall women fell in love with his style and personality and promised to keep him until our season opened in June. Both times they found they were intimidated by his strength, and asked us to find another home for him. I ended up paying a month's board for him last month and bringing him back to Longacres last week.

Ebony is only four years old (five at the end of this month). She's a sound, fit, promising little horse. But in the cold winter months she had too much energy to be safely used in the lesson programs where she was put last fall. She's back at Longacres with the other delinquents!

Same with Star, a six year old mare with great promise as a hunter and equitation horse. Star moves beautifully and is a talented jumper. But she got away with a lot when she was young, and even at Longacres last summer, she went through some stubborn periods where we had to put a strong rider on to give her some discipline and then give her back to our general riding population.

Horses, like many other of nature's creatures (two legged or four!), thrive on firm but fair rules applied with consistency. Much of Longacres system of teaching riding and training horses is grounded in this fundamental principal of horse psychology. I believe that successful riding and horse training should always be based on "successful baby steps" leading eventually all the way to great Olympic "leaps".

Horses like Quantum, Ebony, and Star that have been in situations where they "got away with stuff", need to be taken back to fundamentals and relearn the basic fact of a horse's life: - - - their role in life is to obey reasonable human commands properly given by their trainer or rider. The very same thing should be true of every single horse ever handled by a rider, either on the ground or in the saddle.

Every single time you touch a horse, you should do so kindly, but with authority. When you walk in a stall and hook a lead rope to your horse's halter, a good rider/trainer takes just one or two seconds of time after that rope is attached to square up or turn the horse slightly in preparation for leading him out of the stall. Then halt the horse and make it stand for just a second WHERE YOU WANT HIM TO STAND. Not maybe off balance and paying attention to the horse in the next stall, but exactly where you want him to be and paying attention to you. Then position your horse to walk through the middle of the stall door and make a neat turn in the barn aisle. NOT carelessly walking out of the stall with a long, loose lead rope paying no attention to how your horse follows (bumping against the stall door or scraping the door latch). Then after a few steps down the barn aisle or towards the barn if coming from the pasture, take a couple of more seconds to halt your horse for a moment, just to prove to yourself AND the horse that you are in control. If you are not satisfied with the halt; if the horse drags you a step or two before petulantly coming to a stop; walk and halt again, until the horse accepts the fact that YOU are in control.

The above paragraph sounds so simple, and yet so many riders don't take the five to ten seconds described above to "train" their horse at the very beginning of their preparation for riding. Quantum, Star, and Ebony are going through these very simple handling procedures during these pre-camp weeks. They have all had months of rest and a break from riding. They have had time to let any bad habits fade in their minds. They are learning again the very basic "facts of a horse's life" described above. They should be well prepared for all of you to carry on with their work when you get here in six weeks or so.

Same thing for Riding: Many of you know that my philosophy of teaching riding is rooted in the same basic principals described above for taking the horse out of his stall or the pasture. "Proper Baby Steps" leading to "great things". Just as a horse that is taken out of the pasture or stall with care and precision is likely to behave well being led around the barn, every ride should begin with making your horse stand where you want it and wait for your next command after you mount. I always shake my head when I see a rider mount their horse, and let it begin to walk off someplace before they are even fully in the saddle. These same riders are then sometimes surprised when they have trouble controlling their horse in more advanced drills.

Every ride should begin with your horse behaving patiently while you mount and adjust your equipment. Step two should be the same kind of walk - halt - stand - walk drill that I explained you should do after taking a horse out of the stall. "Walk before you run" - - - "test the controls" - - - - "never drive unless you know you have brakes"! These are my basic building blocks for good riding. The horse that respects his rider at the very beginning of the ride will be the horse that respects and cooperates with his rider doing the advanced jumping course.

Those of you reading this article may see that it relates closely to my standard discussion on the value of paying attention to details when you ride. It is fine to be a casual recreational rider, but the serious student needs to be always paying attention to the details - - - or the horse will pay less attention to doing what you want - - - and will end up coming back to Longacres early for remedial work like Quantum, Star, and Ebony!

- Tom

May 7^th Update:

Hello again; I've been having fun taking care of Quantum, Star, and Ebony, a few of our horses who have returned to Longacres early for this season. I'll write more later about the training they're getting. They can be a handful, since Quantum is our biggest strongest horse, and Ebony is one of our youngest and most rambunctious.

Any of you who are new to Longacres this year are welcome to visit during the next month. The best time is during the week since we run sports events on weekends in the spring. We are also here a few Saturdays, but check before you come.

- Tom

May 3^rd Update:

Well, when we turned Quantum and Star out for the first time a few days ago we had all the cameras ready for a great running bucking show - that's what often happens when you turn horses out for the first time in the spring. But it was a warm day and it was kind of disappointing - they just trotted around and began graising. YESTERDAY, though - - was a cold morning after a little rain. We had just turned Ebony out with the other two, we through a few flakes of hay into the pasture, and all three trotted up towards us. Suddenly, they just exploded! All three went ballistic, galloping madly around the pasture, bucking, twisting, and sliding to stops heart stoppingly close to the fence, only to buck and take off across the pasture again at a full leaping, bucvking gallop! Quantum would slide to a stop, and rear and twist on his hind quarters before changing direction. Ebony was the most dramatic, bucking high and twisting at the same time. It went on for a good ten minutes - we were pretty nervous they would hurt themselves, but they were obviously really having fun. I WISH I had a camera with me so I could have shared it with all of you.

We've heard several times from Elissa B, a new student coming all the way from California. She says, "She feels like she's already a regular student here from reading all our updates." Thanks, Alissa. I also heard from Brianna (VERY tall this year!!!) - when I wrote back and asked how much she had grown, she replied, "Tall enough!" Also a great letter from Nora, who does some of the best writing of all Longacres correspondents. Meghan and I will be away for a couple of days running one of our races. Hope to hear from more of you when I return.

- Tom & Meghan

April 30^th Update:

Thanks to #1 Chickie, Erika, for e-mailing me and letting us know what's going on with her and Lady and Shabang. Erika is taking a lesson at a good barn every Saturday and then exercising horses for a couple more hours - she should be in great shape for the summer; I'm looking forward to seeing what Erika can do with Shabang this summer at the shows. Erika may come for a visit to help get the barn ready in a week or two. (Kelly Waples, a rider from this area who has just turned professional, may teach a few guest lessons at Longacres this summer. Kelly really liked Shabang when the horse first came off the track and before Longacres bought him last summer. I'm sure she'll be interested to watch his progress and perhaps give some advice.) We are off to an early start to the 2003 season at Longacres.

Meghan and I have been playing barn manager almost full time today. Below find a picture of Meghan unloading all the bedding and feed, and me fixing a break in the pasture fence:

April 29^th:

Usually we open the barn late in May and start bringing in a few horses each week to get ready for the summer. We're opening the barn earlier than ever this year, with Quantum, Ebony, and Star coming home tomorrow through Friday, so there will be horses here if any of you visit.

HORSE SHOWS!! We've made the rounds of the other major show barns in the area, visiting High Time, Long Snap, and Hasty Hills last night and today. The "Summer Series" of shows should be bigger and better than ever this season, with classes for every level of rider. Longacres will host three or four shows, with our team visiting the other three stables in the series for shows on alternate weeks. The schedule will be finalized and posted in a few days.

NEW E-MAIL: Remember that we have a new email address - our old address is now getting about fifty junk messages for every one real message - it takes too long to go through them all. E-mail us at "tkranz1234spam@att.net" , removing the letters "spam" from the address - sorry I have to do this, but the junk mailers have gotten too good at doing automatic programs that visit millions of websites and mine addresses for junk advertising.

NEWS FROM YOU? - Now that we are back from our travels, please write and tell us what you are doing with horses this spring, so we can share your news with everyone. We did hear from Tovah while we were gone that she is riding hours and hours every week. Emilie also wrote about an exciting incident with a horse she was working - she got banged up, but is looking forward to the summer. Call or e-mail - we want to know what you're doing!

More coming soon - I have to go to the barn still tonight to finish getting the pasture fence in shape for Quantum tomorrow.

- Tom

March 15^th:

Temporary traveling e-mail: From March 16 to April 25^th, you should also send important messages to "tkranz@pocketmail.com". Please keep them short. We check this every few days while traveling.

Our office will be closed from March 16 to April 25^th, but we do have two spaces from July 24^th to August 16^th (or two weeks during that time), and you can inquire at the above traveling e-mail account and I will phone you.

Our first order of business when we return to Longacres in April will be opening the barn early and conditioning horses. Meghan will also be busy shopping for a couple of new horses to buy.

- Tom Kranz

March 4^th:

Hello everyone, and thanks to all of you who sent me happy birthday wishes. I did not know that Mary Kate has the same b-day as I do, and that Jess's birthday is on January 24^th. The three of us will be the "24 Club" this summer!

I had a great snowy vacation in Canada last week. It was 24 below zero when we got up one morning, but there was a bright blue sky with no wind, so it was very nice to be outside. We will be here at Longacres taking care of business until March 14^th, and then we will have our annual spring office closing until April 26^th while we work on the boating book business down south. So if you have to contact us, do it now or you will have to wait until April 26^th. You will be able to send us short emails while we travel, but we do not get them regularly while we live on the boat.

Tuition:

Thanks to all of you who have sent in the 40% of your tuition that was due this week. We are extending the deadline to March 12^th and sending out reminders and health forms in the mail this afternoon. You will have to send in your payment by next week to keep your enrollment in effect, since we have to know what spaces are still open when we talk to new families while we are traveling.

February 24^th:

Hi guys. Wish me "happy birthday" today! My big birthday present is a 4 day snowmobile trip to Canada, with only three of those nights in "cheapo" motels and one in a fancy place. I am leaving in a few minutes. I will be working here at the farm all next week getting organized before my last trip south next month when our office is closed all month. I will be sending out health forms and other stuff next week (ok, ok, Meghan will be sending it out!).

Thanks very much for your nice message, Elissa! I liked the thoughts!

- Tom

February 20^th:

I am getting caught up on e-mails and phone messages that came in while we were in Florida. Feel free to call me anytime if I have missed a message from you. We will be here for three more weeks, then leaving for our last winter trip on March 15^th, and we will be gone for a while at that time.

We'll be posting a general information sheet for new students in the next week, and will send out health forms next week also.

- Tom

February 18^th:

We're back at Longacres from our Florida trip and available to answer any of your questions. We'll be posting more information tomorrow. Some of you have had questions about our March payment due date. By March 1^st you should have paid 40% of your total tuition INCLUDING the $250 deposit.

- Tom

February 5^th:

We've had a couple of new enrollments in the past week and we are now down to one space open for the final four weeks, and two for the last two weeks, including Erie Co Fair. Don't delay if you are thinking of signing up!

Good News on Quantum!

We've had more than the usual number of horse injuries and illness this season, including Quantum's recent swollen knee for the past month. Good news! He has had his bandages off for several days with no swelling. I visited him today to hand walk him, and he was feeling G-O-O-D! He usually trusts me and respects me when I handle him. I am not a big man, but I can be authoritative and horses tend to sense confidence in people, so Quantum was walking next to me in the arena flat footed with his head down and relaxed, often leaning closer to me to sniff and be close to me.

Suddenly a big pile of snow slid off the arena roof, and Quantum snorted and every muscle in his big body went rigid! In an instant, instead of paying attention to his "master" leading him, every nerve in his body was alert to the mysterious noise he had just heard outside the arena. Those of you who know Quantum know that when he perks up at some unexpected sound, he seems like he is ten feet tall! He is a POWERFUL horse, and although I was not "afraid" of him, I suddenly did not feel in "control" of him. I knew that if this horse wanted to jump ten feet in my direction to escape another falling pile of snow, I would be flat on my back on the ground!

Slowly, Quantum relaxed as I worked him in serpentine patterns to regain his respect and some control. We ended on a good note. He is feeling good, and I think he is making a full recovery from his injury last month. This incredible power that Quantum shows when he is excited is what makes this such an exciting horse to train and work with in the summer.

I will be out of town for the next two weeks and back here on the 18^th of February. I will be checking my email and phone messages, so you can still get in touch.

- Tom

January 27^th:

Nora's enrollment makes the June 22 to July 20^th period completely full. Only waiting list room during that time. There are still several spots during the last half of the summer, and during pre-camp weeks, but they are now going fast.

Also, Niki Patire says she will soon be signing up for one of the short sessions at the end of the summer, adding another Longacres person returning from 2002. And a note to "Elissa" from California - - - I now see that you are "Elissa", and not "Alissa" like I have been typing for the past week. It takes me a while to get these details just right!

- Tom & Meghan

January 24^th:

- Tom Kranz

More news on Quantum. I went over myself to check on him this morning, and I'm glad to report that he seemed in very good condition. He was very calm (except for when I asked him to walk across a patch of white snow dust in the indoor arena while I was walking him!). As you will see from the picture below, the swelling is not very noticeable when he has a wrap on. And he is not lame at all on it. But I am told by the owner of the barn where he is staying that the leg did swell up again badly a few days ago when they took a wrap off. Part of his therapy is to be hand walked for 15 minutes every day, and since the girl who is caring for him can not get there every day, I am going to start taking part in his exercise. We had a nice little visit today, Quantum and I! These soft tissue injuries sometimes take a long time to completely settle down. For the time being we are following vet recommendations and putting DMSO on under a wrap every other day. We'll keep you all informed of his progress.

January 23^rd:

Late night bulliten:

We just got the following e-mail from Anne at Peppermint Patti's winter home. Some good horse new finally!

A fun visit: Our newest student, Alissa from California, has made all her arrangements to attend Longacres via long distance from California. Her dad and I talked for quite a while and then they talked to Marce about Longacres. They liked the sound of Longacres but just to make sure Longacres really exists and is not just an imaginary place on the internet, they arranged for a close family friend who lives in Buffalo to pay us a visit here in East Aurora today. Patti C. works in Buffalo so it was easy for her to drive out to see us at the farm tonight.

Patti was a fun person to talk with, and asked many questions about Longacres. We told her we would post here on the website for Alissa the fact that she "wimped out" when we offered to suit her up and give her a real tour of all the farm on a snowmobile. Gee, it is only about four degrees out, why wouldn't someone want to tour the camp?!!?!??? We showed Patti some video's and talked for quite a while. It was a good visit.

PS - Alissa, ask Patti sometime about her last ride on a horse!

 PPS -

There was some discussion here at Longacres today about whether I should be more careful about strenuous physical activity as I approach my 58^th birthday. Some are worried that I will hurt myself or have a stroke if I exert myself too much. I'll write more about "aging gracefully" sometime soon, but in the meantime, I'll stand on the evidence in the following photo. (Don't laugh too hard!)

Quantum has a boo-boo:

Why are all our favorite horses getting sick or injured this year? Many years we go through the whole off season with no vet problems or sick horses. But this has been a year of bad luck at Longacres, with one thing after another, and often it has involved our best horses. Our wonderful Brownie came down with a very contagious infection last summer and spent the whole summer in quarantine. Thankfully no other Longacres horses got sick, but it cost us a lot of money and time to vaccinate all our other horses and give Brownie the special care he needed. He is fine now, so except for us losing a whole season with this fine horse, it has ended up OK.

Then Merlin got the bad cut on his knee last fall right after camp. Months of special care and expensive vet bills. He is now doing fine also, but at great expense. And last week Quantum showed up in his stall one morning with a very swollen knee. There was no visible injury and he had not been ridden or even turned out for several days. The best guess the vets can make is that he banged the knee on a wall in the stall trying to lie down or get up awkwardly. He has been X-rayed, and there is no sign of any bone or internal damage. And he is not even at all lame on it. The vet calls it a "hygroma" if I have it spelled right. It is fluid under the skin, and sometimes takes a long time to go down. Sometimes the swelling never goes away completely, but it does not usually affect the horse's soundness. So we are keeping our fingers crossed that this will eventually go away or that if there is any residual swelling, it will not affect him in his jumping. He is on "bute" and bandaged and being hand walked to work the swelling out. Since his X-ray today was clean, Quantum's prospects are very good for this summer, but it is more bad luck in our year of bad luck with horse health. It is good that we have a lot of horses!

- Tom

January 22nd:

A Few Vacancies:

Frozen pipes! Fun, WOW! Well, the "beauty" of this frigid winter goes just so far. A door to our underground pump room was blown out by the high winds last week and all the pipes for all our tenant cottages froze up. We got them repaired and blocked the doorway with canvas curtains as a temporary fix. It is no fun doing carpentry outside in zero weather. I am at least glad that our horses are all out at winter homes so we don't have to chip the water out of their buckets at the barn the way we used to when many of the horses wintered here! (The snowmobiling DOES continue to be great.)

January 17^th:

10:45PM -

Wow! It's now down to -4 degrees and expected to get near - 20 in the middle of the night. But it is very beautiful outside here at Longacres. The moon is nearly full and there is not a breath of wind. If you take a quick deep breath, you feel the cold down in your lungs for a second. Before turning in we just might take a snowmobile ride down to the big creek below the barn and enjoy the frigid moonlit night - - - on the other hand, it is pretty nice here in front of the fire!

Longacres is very pleased to welcome Elissa B. from California to our second session. Elissa will be one of our younger 2003 students, but not one of our least experienced. She has several years of riding experience and looks forward to the shows in the second half of the summer. Glad to have you joining us, Elissa!

January 11, 2003:

Longacres begins 2003 with a full enrollment and waiting list only for the first four weeks of the regular sessions. We do have two spaces open for our pre-camp weeks, and several for alumni / mother-daughter week from June 16 to 22^nd. We also have three spaces now left for the sessions after July 24^th, but several girls are looking into those now, so I believe we will be full all summer quite soon.

Most of the 16 horses Longacres owns are having good winters and should be in good condition for next summer. A few (Stoney, Missy, and Dipper) are quite old, and are near the end of their distinguished careers. We will be buying two new horses as routine additions to our herd.

We also have a good group of interesting horses coming in on training and conditioning or loan-lease programs. Wizard (from 2001) is expected back this year, along with horses like Majic, Sierra, and Hannibal who are owned by friends of Longacres and sent here for you to ride and train during the summer. Looks like a very good year for our horse prospects.

For those of us who live year round at Longacres, January is a mixed bag. The winter has arrived with a vengeance this week, with lake effect snows and temperatures in the teens or single digits every night for the next week or so. It is very beautiful so long has we have no commitments to get out and about. But it is challenging dealing with keeping the 900 foot driveway to our office open, and to deal with frozen pipes, leaky roofs, cars and tractors that won't start, and on and on. Bottom line - I am enjoying this time of year and the snow!

Keep in touch. I am holding at least one of the final spots for the last part of the summer open for an 11 or 12 year old student to give us a good balance in student ages. If you know someone of that age who is a rider, tell them about Longacres.

- Tom

December 30^th:

PS - In addition to the girls who are here for the reunion, we have had emails from Kim Strand, Marce Evans, Meghan Duthie, and a phone call from Jess Chen.

Everyone has arrived safely for the annual New Years reunion in the snow at Longacres as of 5:30 PM. See the picture below of everyone piling out of the car from the airport! (NOT everyone went to the airport - Tovah and Erika came with Erika's mom - and got stuck in the snow in the driveway!)

Mary, Lauren, and Jess drove home from the airport with Meghan and I - MOST of the luggage in the below picture was Jess's. Jess is one of our favorite students and we would be glad to have her here year round - we just didn't realize that she was bringing enough stuff for the two day reunion to stay with us all year!!!!!!!!!!

Left to right, Meghan, Jess, Erika, Lauren, Tovah, and Mary.

Below - Tuesday morning, Lauren, Tovah, and Jess were happily jumping the logs on the show field in the snow. Mary and Erika ran over to join them and SPLAT!!!! - face first into the big water jump that had been hidden under the snow!!!!

December 24^th:

Happy Holidays to All!!

Looks like we will have snow at the reunion next week! Big storm coming in tomorrow, and we have enough already. We look forward to seeing Mary, Lauren, Jess, Tovah, Erika, and Uncle Billy on Monday night. Hope you all have a great holiday week!

- Tom & Meghan and all the horses at Longacres!

December 14^th:

Back to the present, we welcome Longacres 2003 student #13, Mary Kate Phelan who returns for a second year, this time coming for the full second half of the summer. I phoned today to say hello and welcome Mary Kate back, but she, her mom, and sister were all out at the barn with their horse. That's a good reason for a Longacres rider to miss a phone call! Glad to have you back, Mary Kate!

- Tom

Dec. 5^th:

Erika and Tovah are definitely coming to the East Aurora reunion on the 30^th and 31^st. We hope it will be a snow reunion with snowmobile driving and sliding down hills in the farm and on the new trails. Lots of snow here right now, but a slight warm-up forcast for the end of next week so we'll have to wait and see.

Jess and Lauren are also looking into coming, and perhaps Mary. Lauren has seldom missed a Longacres reunion, so it is likely that our number #1 Student Leader for 2003 will be here!

December 4^th Update:

2003 Longacres Hunter Pace Event:

We were visitors at a very nice Hunter Pace event at High Times farm near here this fall. Seemed like lots of fun, and we are planning to host one here at Longacres this summer, probably about July 15^th. A Hunter Pace is basically a long trail ride where you try to maintain a steady pace cross country. There is usually a trotting, non jumping division and a cantering and jumping division. The new trails we have opened this fall will be very useful for a hunter pace event.

November 18^th Update:

I have some extra time at this season, and since Quantum is important to us I offered to give Holly a month's worth of lessons to help her get started again right. It has been fun! Holly is a perfectionist (hard on herself - does this ring a bell with anyone? Lol) and she's getting the feel of Quantum very quickly. Mind you, he is feeling very G-O-O-D at this time of year and is a handful! But she hasn't come close to losing her seat, and Quantum is relaxing more every time I give them a lesson.

November 6^th:

Brianna and Nina fit the age group for which we were holding a first session spot, so we now have a good group of 11 to 13 year olds plus our older teens in that session. That leaves us with only one possible wait list spot for the first half of our season. Depending on action of several girls who have called to say they hope to come for second session, we have either 4 or 5 spots left open from July 23^rd to August 16^th. Don't wait too long if you are still thinking of one of these spots!

November 3^rd:

Once we finished closing down the barn for the season at the end of August (and, by the way, a big thanks to Marce, Tovah, and Erika who stayed after camp to do a GREAT clean up job!) - once I had some free time, I began to work on the trails. For most of the fall I spent several hours every day out in the woods with a chain saw trimming and cutting new trails. Then during the past few weeks we invested hundreds of dollars in bulldozer and rented 4-wheel drive tractor work to grade and finish a number of areas.

The result is a vastly improved Longacres trail system. Erika visited to help us work Merlin in September, and saw some of the new trail routes. We've made many more improvements since. An example of one small upgrade is what we now call 'Dark Stranger turnpike". Remember the big tree roots you had to step over on the hill going up to Dark Stranger cabin? We tractored in about 15 buckets of gravel, and regraded the first part of the hill so you could now drive a car up! On the next day, we filled in the deeply eroded trail near Pegasus cabin. There are many other similar small improvements. The result is many new optional routes on our trails that are fun for us just to walk through in the late fall, and certainly will provide you all with many relaxing hours of trail riding between your jumping sessions next summer!

Jess Nash, Student of the Week!

We announced yesterday that Jessica Nash was the first student to correctly identify the mystery picture of Uncle Billy jumping. That makes her our featured "student of the week". Jess came to Longacres as a first time student for a two week session this past season. She thrived at Longacres and ended up extending her stay through the rest of the summer. She was so helpful, bubbly, and cheerful that we invited her to stay on as our guest for Hamburg Fair week, where she also showed Merlin, and was able to add some key ribbons to the Longacres collection of winnings!

Hey, Tovah - Millie is doing well!

This is a note of special interest to Tovah, who spent many hours training a young horse that was sent to Longacres by a private owner last summer for her first training. Tovah did a great job of teaching Millie to walk, trot, canter, and do basic X-rails jumping. This was a very nice, smart two year old! (Longacres is doing more training of young horses every year. Word is getting around western New York about the great progress made by green horses sent here for training, like Majic, Wizard, Sierra, Millie, Hannibal, and Matrix.) ANYWAY, Meghan, Billy, and I were out for dinner last night and ran into Jackie Boyczuk and her mom. Jackie rides at Long Snap farms near here and was a frequent winner at many of our shows this summer, one of the tougher riders we had to compete against. Jackie's aunt is Pat Boyczuk, Millie's owner. Jackie says that Millie is doing great, and is going to be ridden in a hunter pace event today at High Time stables. She said she thinks her aunt plans to send Millie back to Longacres for more training next summer. Good job, Tovah!

Nice Words from Marce:

Returning Longacres students know that I am fussy about setting up jump courses so that the distances are exactly right, and so that all the jumps in a line are set evenly and parallel with one another. Sometimes I know I irritate some of you a little when we spend so much time setting up for a Longacres sponsored horse show, or even for a special jumping lesson. It makes me feel good to get letters like the one Marce emailed me today:

November 1^st!

Yes, It is Uncle Billy! - AND it is Jessica Nash Week!

Jessica Nash, a first year student at Longacres in 2002, was the first student to correctly identify the below picture as our own "Uncle Billy". Meghan took the picture last Sunday at Billy's first jumping class in a horse show. A paragraph or so down I will post an e-mail from Uncle Billy describing his adventures in the first person!

Just to show you all how enthusiastic about Longacres our 2003 staff members are, Tovah, Marce, and Mandy all correctly identified Billy earlier today. But we are declaring Jess the official winner since she is the first student to send in the answer. Uncle Billy himself says that there will be a mystery reward to the winner next summer (Jess is planning to return for the month of August.)

Billy's E-Mail:

• Tom & Meghan )

October 31^st:

Who is this mystery rider?

First person to email or phone us with the answer is our "VIP of the Week"! (Wow, Oh, boy!)

October 28^th:

Hi! It's been a while since we've updated the website. We have had several "heads up" letters from people planning to return next summer, though they have not yet officially signed up. Lauren is planning to come as a Student Leader for the full season, Mary-Kate is hoping to come for the full second session, and Jess Nash for the full second session. Here is an email I got from Jess last night:

Horse News:

The horsies are restless this fall! Merlin's leg is nearly all better. He has been recooperating at Frank's where he gets good care and careful bandaging. A lady just came to see him and plans to take him next week and keep him at the farm where we bought Ebony, about fifty miles from Longacres. She seems very nice - she fell in love with Merlin after ten minutes with him! Ebony and Star have been used for a few lessons a week by the farm that took care of Patti and Stoney last winter. They are a little too much for the kids there now that it is getting colder out, so we have new people coming to look at them and they may change homes. There is a very nice young woman who took Quantum for the winter, but now that it is colder out, he is a little more full of spunk, and makes her nervous - so we have to find another home for Quantum! It is a busy horse week, but hopefully all horses will end up with people who get along well with them and will happily keep them until YOU GUYS are ready to ride again in the spring.

Meghan has spoken to all winter horse homes almost in the past few days by phone and will soon post a story telling you how they are all doing.

Till then,

Tom

Oct. 19^th - PM:

First Session at Longacres is now wait-list only.

We're pleased to confirm Alex Millar as 2003 student #9, which fills the first session except for the spot we are holding out for a younger rider (age 11 or 12). We will be glad to take requests to be on wait-list for the first session, or to accept enrollments for the second session spots after July 23^rd. Alex returns to Longacres for her 3^rd season. She is a hard worker and a great friend to everyone!

October 19 Update:

Welcome Beth Kearney, 2003 student #8. Beth is a friend of Emilie's, and we look forward to meeting her. Longacres now has ONLY ONE SPOT left for the first session, plus one additional spot that I am reserving only for a student age 11 or 12. We have several younger students including new girls and returning 2002 riders coming for the first session. Meghan and I are looking forward to a good group of younger girls for first session, which is why we are holding out one of the final spots for someone who is 11 or 12 (or an outgoing ten year old!).

As usual, first session has filled much faster than the second half of the summer after July 23^rd. We still have six spaces for the late July and August sessions.

CALL IMMEDIATELY if you want the last spot in first session!

October 14^th Update:

Longacres is very pleased to announce that our 2003 staff is confirmed. All four of our counselors have accepted offers to return and teach at Longacres next summer. Marce Evans and Tovah Abrams will share the management of the riding program. Erika Attoma and Mandy Bartlett will be counselors and instructors. This will be the third year at Longacres for Erika, Tovah, and Mandy and the second for Marce (the third for Marce if you include her attendance as a student at our 2001 Clinic week). As Marce told me in her letter of acceptance today, "This will be a good team".

Oct. 12^th Update:

Mandy immediately accepted our job offer for her to return after two summers as a student here and join the staff as a counselor and instructor. Mandy first came to Longacres several years ago as a younger teenage student. She was unusually mature for her age, and we actually offered her a CIT - junior counselor job back then, but she had other summer plans. Mandy returned to Longacres for four weeks last summer as a student again, and was the same helpful and popular person (though occasionally more high spirited!!??!!). She will be a fun counselor and great worker next summer!

Oct. 11^th Update:

Staff offers for 2003 have gone out to Tovah, Erika, Marce, and Mandy from 2002. I hope that they all accept - we will have a great and experienced staff many months ahead of time then. If one or more of them cannot come, we will quickly move to fill the open position.

Oct. 10^th Update:

Hello Niki Lawless, 2003 student #6, returning for the full second half of the season - the third 2002 student to register for longer than they came last summer! (Emilie St. Landau says her signup is in the mail, so she may be #7) Please remember that Longacres absolutely caps our enrollment at 9 students plus staff, so don't get frozen out. Be sure to phone me NOW if you want me to hold a spot, especially during the popular first session which now has only 4 spots left, maybe 3. Niki's enrollment will be a nice surprise for Meghan when she gets back from France this weekend - Meghan and Niki were good friends at the end of the summer.

- Tom

Oct. 9^th Update:

Meghan is happily exploring Paris art museums this week. I am sure she will have some stories to tell you when she gets home from her solo trip to France!

October 8^th Update:

Don't wait too long to sign up, especially for the first session in 2003. We're now half full for that first session. Remember that 9 students is our limit, plus instructors and help. It doesn't take long to reach that limit. If everyone who has indicated they plan to return sends in an application, a few of you are already out of luck. Second session fills later, so if that's the one you want, you are not under so much pressure.

"Meet the horses" update project: My next big website project is a long overdue update of the meet the horses page, especially with all the changes this past summer, including old timers being retired and all the new horses we bought or leased. Please send in your own descriptions of your favorite Longacres horses, and I will add them to the Meet the Horses page. I hope to have this done next week. (I know, I know, I have promised to work on that before and ended up putting it off!)

Oct. 7^th Update:

Welcome back Danielle and "Freddie", 2003 students #5 and # 5 1/2! Danielle has been a student at Longacres for half the season for two years and is returning for the full 8 week season for 2003 with her very beautiful and promising horse, "Freddie". Danielle is interested in showing at the "A" rated Elmira horse show at the end of our first session, so we will likely take at least a few of you. You are all welcome, but this is an expensive show, with motel, long distance vanning, and stabling expenses. We will likely take 2 or 3 of you for the full three or four day show, and the rest of you to cheer them on for one overnight stay at the end of the show before some of you go home at the end of the first session.

October 3^rd Update:

Welcome back Lillian Jacobs; you are 2003 student #4! Lillian is from California and returns after attending Longacres for two weeks this past summer. Lillian is the second 2002 two week student to sign up for four weeks in 2003; it makes me happy that you guys enjoyed this past summer enough to want to return for longer next year.

Below is news from Alex who has Brownie at home for the winter. As most of you know, Brownie (the best pony in the world!), was sick all summer and off of work, but is now well. This is Alex's note about how he is getting back in shape!

Sept. 25^th:

There's great news about Stoney from his winter home. Read it below, and if any of you other winter horse home folks are reading this, try to send us similar updates on the horses you have from us so we can keep their summer friends informed.

• Tom

Sept. 23^rd:

Welcome back Kim! Kim S. is student #3 to sign up for next summer. Kim is returning for the first four weeks this year after coming for two weeks in 2002. Kim is a second generation student; her mom rode at Longacres a few years ago also. Kim is also the first "returning" student to sign up, after we got new enrollments from Emma and Brittany last week. Glad to have you back, Kim!

Sept. 20^th Update:

Merlin to get "Bam-Bammed" Tomorrow!

Hi everyone! Many of you have been following the story of our much loved Arab-Thoroughbred, "Merlin". Merlin hurt his knee jumping over a corral fence right after camp ended. He has had good care, especially in his new home with Katie R. in Hamburg, NY. Finally his knee is healed well enough to start regular riding, even though he wants to bite and lick it, and it will have to be bandaged for a while longer.

I have been visiting Merlin and Katie for a couple of weeks giving her pointers on his care and giving her "pony rides" with Merlin on a lead line. We have been worried that Merlin would get "wild" since he has been cooped up in a stall for almost a month. He is behaving well, and I think Katie could ride him fine now, but just to be sure we have invited our fearless student-leader, Erika "Bam-Bam" Attoma to visit Longacres tomorrow and spend several hours riding and schooling Merlin as he starts back to work as a riding horse rather than a full time veterinary patient!!!! We'll report again tomorrow on how the training went!

We just returned from working with Katie and Merlin on Saturday morning. He was very good, and Katie does a fine job riding him. He seems to trust her already since she has been caring for him and his cut knee for several weeks. He was very quiet and well behaved while Katie rode him this morning.

He showed some spunk with Erika, since I had her try everything first before Katie did. He threw a couple of "I feel GOOD!!!!" bucks when Erika cantered him, and a few little head-shake bucks after his first real jump at a canter in more than a month. But he was a fine little horse considering today is the first time he has really been ridden since he got hurt. Erika says, "That one buck where he kicked out at a canter was FUN!!" (I don't know if Katie is quite ready to have that kind of "fun", but she seems eager to try everything with Merlin now that she can FINALLY ride him and not just have to be his nurse every day!

NEW TRAILS DONE!!!!!

I have told you before that I've been out most days with a chain saw and tools in the woods making new trails for next summer. Today was like Christmas for me, when a big bulldozer visited Longacres to put in a full day finishing all these new trails that Meghan and I have been cutting out the past month. Erika will be the first to get to see them all when she visits tomorrow. I am sure she will report to those of you she is in touch with. The neatest thing about these new trails is that they are smooth and wide, but with interesting turns and curves. Many of them are suitable for safe cantering rides, which we are very careful about on most of our trails. You're going to like these additions to the Longacres facilities!!!!!

Welcome Brittany I. 2003 Student #2!

We announced last week that new student, Emma, was the first to register for the 2003 season, and the second official 2003 student is 12 year old Brittany from Freehold, NJ. Most years the first to sign up are girls who are returning from the previous season, but not this year. I guess this is why we have been getting 10,000 to 15,000 hits a week on the website all summer: horse lovers have been checking out the riding and showing news from East Aurora and are now starting to sign up early for next year!

I'm sure we're going to be getting sign-ups from this year's students soon - we've heard from Niki from California, Mary, and others about their plans to be here in 2003, and I expect some of them to make it official soon.

- Tom

Sept. 16^th:

Hi from Meghan - know anything about Paris????

Bye, Meghan (ps - Merlin is doing lots better!)

Sept. 14^th:

LATE Sept. 14^th: If you want to download any of the horse pics from this summer you should do it soon. The website has become very bloated and we are paying for a lot of extra disc storage on our server. After this weekend we are going to delete many of the pictures from this summer, keeping just a few of the best.

It's official - Emma B. is student #1 for 2003, first to officially enroll. We have another new girl who might be number 2 to sign up, but Mary from last summer also may be sending in her form, so perhaps she will be #2 on the 2003 roster charts! None of this really matters, but it still amazes me that so many people make their plans so early for next year. It was only a few years ago that we had no enrollments until after Christmas. Now we are nearly full by then.

We just got back from riding Merlin. Katie Rich and her mom, Sue, are caring for him now. His leg injury is getting better, but he will have to be bandaged for a week or two longer. He is getting stir crazy from standing in a stall all day, since we can't turn him out while his injury is healing. Katie rode him today on a lead line, as did Meghan. (Meghan was the test pilot - in case Merlin bucked his head off from being cooped up. This is the third time Meghan has gone riding in the past few weeks after a LONG lay-off from horses. She is liking it! She says she might really start riding regularly this winter and maybe go for the "number #1 Rider position next summer"!!!!!!!) Finally I rode Merlin free for a while at a walk. He was very good. You can tell he is itching to go, but he behaved like the good Merlin we all love!

September 10:

Welcome to Student #1 for 2003! I hope I don't embarrass Emma B. by quoting from her dad's letter of inquiry:

September 9^th:

Hi all,

Today's update is a quick "thank you" to everyone who has settled up their horse showing account balances. I think all but two of you are paid in full. On our side, I believe we have sent refunds to everyone who had money left over in their accounts (YES, there were a few!!). Since I have heard nothing, I also assume that everyone has now received any packages or trunks that we were supposed to send home to you after you went home.

I am still spending a lot of time in the woods with a chain saw working on new trails for next year. Although the new trails aren't that long, it will seem to many of you that we have a lot more trails next year, since some of our trails were off limits because of "Brownie's" quarantine barn at the other side of our property.

Speaking of Brownie, we last heard that he was almost healed and going back to work as the "greatest pony in the world". I am sorry that all our new 2002 students never got to know Brownie, since he was sick and quarantined all last summer. He is WONDERFUL! He is getting older now, but should have several more great years left as a show pony, and we look forward to introducing him to lots of you next summer!

I have caught up a little on my sleep, and we will try to phone and visit some of the winter horse homes this week, and give you some updates on how the horses are doing at their winter homes. We know from Erika that Sha-bang is doing well, and getting along with "Lady", his winter stable mate at Erika's. And we have seen lots of Merlin, who managed to get himself hurt the third day he was at his winter home. His leg is healing well, and he is soon going to a new winter home at a student of Lee Fischer's not far from here. We will be ridden and loved by a 13 year old girl, Katie, who really liked him when she met him last week.

I am soon going to begin posting many of the e-mails you guys write me on the "Alumni News" page of this website. I will use my discretion and not post anything that seems personal or talks about the details of you wanting a job, or anything in detail like that. If you specifically don't want me to post an e-mail you send me, then say so in the e-mail.

I will write more soon.

- Tom

September 4^th:

We'll be posting the 2003 schedule in a couple of weeks, and will begin accepting enrollment applications after that. From past experience, it will be important for you to enroll early if you want to come for the first part of the summer. The August sessions fill later, so there is no rush for them during the early fall. I also face the very nice, but difficult problem of having more good people interested in being on next year's staff than I have room for. We'll try to work out the best solution to that during the next two months.

- Tom & Meghan