Tag Archives: 2025

goats, horse, kids

Windham County 4-H fair 2025

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On Thursday evening Amanda and Quinn went to set up at the 2025 Windham 4-H Fair. Quinn is now aged out of 4-H but still stays involved and helping out.

Friday afternoon Amanda and Quinn drove the goats over to the fair and checked them in. Amanda brought 6 goats. Amanda was also the super intendant for the goat show this year.

Maternal sisters Porsche and Apple Fritter

Amanda stayed at the fairgrounds in a tent next to the goat barn and her leader Bailey’s camper.

Saturday morning brought the goat show. Amanda had asked Melissa Ferguson, a 4-H leader in Hartford County and fellow goat breeder at White Birch Acres to be the judge for the goat show. The goat program in Windham County is very small and most of the goats at the fair were ours. Amanda was the single senior goat showman, and as such won her class. Carolina was best senior doe in show and Kipu, our recorded grade yearling, was best junior doe in show. The goat show concluded with a crash course in goat showmanship lead by Melissa, sharing most of our goats with other 4-Hers learning about goats and how to show them.

Saturday afternoon brought horse showmanship in hand. There are not enough horse kids in Windham county to warrant a full blown horse show (nor are there funds for the insurance required),but there was a small in hand horse show and Amanda brought Mojo to participate. He did great, except in the last class when he spooked or got too excited and tore away from Amanda. We think he may have gotten stung by something, there were ground wasps around. Amanda earned a reserve showman in horses.

Saturday afternoon after the horse show Amanda tried foxhunting with the amateur radio group that had set up the activity at the fair. She also participated in the obstacle course and the Battle of the Barns.

Sunday morning brought Premier showmanship. Amanda earned a spot due to being the Goat senior showman. Premier is a competition where all of the species showmen show ALL of the species. So there were 7 kids showing dairy cows, beef cows, rabbits, goats, sheep, working steer and horses. The best overall showman wins premier showmanship.

Amanda did her best, but had some challenging animals in a few of the events. Overall, she had fun and it was a good experience.

Sunday afternoon brought the Award Ceremony. Amanda found out that she had won Premier! She was so excited, but had not expected it with having a few more challenging animals to deal with. Overall, it was a fun, good time, tiring, and exhausting weekend.

fitness, health, hiking, hiking, marriage

Hiking in Vermont

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Rob and I drove to Vermont yesterday to drop off Amanda at camp. She’s a junior camp counselor this summer for two separate weeks and each week requires two 8 hour round trips to VT. So we decided to take a detour and go for a hike while we were up there in beautiful Vermont.

Rob scouted out some trails around our route and we settled on the Chases Mountain trail in Middlesex, VT. We hiked around 6 miles and 1500 feet of elevation in 3 hours and 30 minutes. I’m a slow hiker…Rob gets lots of rest time waiting for me. It was warm and humid. We were soaked in sweat. Another hiker reported seeing a mama bear and 4 cubs, but we didn’t see any bears. Maybe we should carry bear spray. We got home and I had a 90 sleep score last night. All good.

We have been talking a lot lately about what we enjoy, the future, and what we should continue doing. We constantly debate the size of our goat herd, fitness goals, wanting to ride the horses more and compete, and having some more white space in our schedule. Hobbies should be fun and not feel like work. Stay tuned as we find the right answers.

endurance, horse, kids

Firecracker Endurance Ride 2025

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Last weekend we went to the Maine Firecracker Endurance Ride. We drove up to Waterford, ME on Friday and rode 30 miles on Saturday. I put on my big girl panties and rode SA Fiona, Amanda rode JJ and Alex rode Mojo in the 30 LD. Rob crewed for us and Quinn was at home working an internship and farm sitting for us. We have been struggling to find time to condition the horses, but we wanted to get out there and go to a ride, so we took the horses and rode one day at a sensible pace.

Last year we sold our travel trailer and extra truck as both had major mechanical issues(truck) and water damage(travel trailer), so we had to rough it with some tent camping. We survived. I miss having AC after the ride though.

The vet in was uneventful and we had backpacking meals for dinner. The horses were a little unsettled with all the fireworks going on, but things settled down in ride camp around the 10 pm mark. Surprisingly, Mojo was the most upset and was pacing his pen a bit. The mares were pretty chill. Luckily we had decided to put Mojo in the hard panels we brought.

On Saturday morning the first loop was about 13 miles. We managed to get to the hold in just over two hours. We were overjoyed to find 12 shoes still on the horses. The mares have been playing musical charades with their shoes, and maybe the smaller shorter shoes we are trying are the answer. Quick, let’s knock on some wood…Mojo, still in aluminum wedges up front and loaded up on Adequan looked good even after his week in Maryland. He’s 19 this year.

The mid ride vet check was good. Everyone passed! Great fun!

Next, we did just over 16 miles back to camp. We slowed down a tad to account for the footing and the horses getting a little tired. Got back to camp and vetted through. Still 12 shoes! 3 completions. I’ll take that for the win. All spring we have been dealing with shoes coming off almost every ride on the mares. Maybe we finally have the right answer.

We all had fun and to finish is to win, so there you go. I even stayed on the whole ride!

A lot of the pictures in this post were purchased by us and taken by the ride photographer Wanda Clowater. Thank you Wanda!