Trailblazing Project

For the past week, we have been enjoying unseasonably warm November weather.   Temperatures have been in the 50's and 60's during the day.   Wonderful.   But even better, there are no bugs!   They disappeared after several frosts.

Taking full advantage of the weather, we've been giving our woodlands some long overdue attention.   We are finally restoring the overgrown riding trails and we're even blazing new trails!

The work is very manual and truly backbreaking.   Staying motivated is challenging, especially when the progress is slow.   But the long term vision of enjoying quiet hacks in the woods keeps things moving along.   And, after many hours of hard work, short test rides on the trails provide welcome rewards.

Hunter Jumper Barn?

Another winter is fast approaching...   A time when most of our riding will be done indoors.

As done in past winters, we will enjoy doing a lot of ground work with our horses, some light dressage work, jumping under saddle, and free jumping.   We'll also be getting the youngsters well started under saddle.   However, unlike our previous winters, this winter we'll enjoy a happy explosion of bright colors in our indoor arena with our brand new show jump poles!



Maybe we should designate Kearsarge Meadows as a Summer Dressage Training Center and a Winter Hunter Jumper Farm!     :-)

Pumpkins & Horses

The Courser Farm in Warner has tons of pumpkins for sale at their farm stand.   Prices are low and the pumpkins are lovely.   We've been purchasing lots of them, taking them home to split open for our turkeys and chickens to pick at.   They really enjoy the seeds and the flesh.

Today, just as a goof, we placed a pumpkin into one of the pastures.   It quickly turned into a toy for the horses.



Piper, our black 12 year old gelding, went after it first, quickly finding the stem and using it to lift the pumpkin off the ground.   Dropping it, it rolled away.   He and 3 year old Big Ben worked together to investigate, following it, and pushing it around a bit.

Soon, Piper returned to nibbling on grass.   But Ben, a youngster who loves to play, kept himself thoroughly amused for quite some time, moving the pumpkin around with his nose and his feet.

Tomorrow, more pumpkins will be purchased.   But instead of thinking just in terms of tasty food for the birds, we'll be looking for pumpkins that roll really well and have strong stems.

Sharing the Roads With Horses

October has arrived, bringing beautiful fall colors, crisp weather, and the end of the bug season.   And for us horseback riders, it also means great riding weather!   Now is when lots of riders hit the trails and roads.

This month's issue of the local "Warner's New Paper" contains an article entitled "Sharing the Roads of Warner".     The aim of the article, written by Kimberley, is to offer some advice to both equestrians and vehicle operators on how to safely share the road.

WNP owner, manager, and editor Richard Senor visited the farm to take a photo of Jeddien and Kimberley riding on the road.   Unplanned, a neighbor drove by, passing slow and wide.   It was a wonderful example of courtesy and safe road sharing on Kearsarge Mountain Road.   The photo can be found in the paper.

The original article, as submitted to WNP, can be found on the Kearsarge Meadows website here, in PDF format.   Feel free to share it with others.

Enjoy the great Autumn weather!   And stay safe!

Something to Crow About

We have a new rooster.   He's a real beauty and won a Blue Ribbon for his breeder at the Hopkinton State Fair earlier this month.   We admired him and purchased him on the spot.

Big Red is a young bird and had a bit of a time getting to know our hens.   The younger ones befriended him fairly quickly, but the older hens beat the...., well, let's just say he was at the bottom of the hen pecking order for a week or more.

This week, Big Red has been making some interesting noises.   We could tell something was up!   And sure enough, this morning, he CROWED!   Not once.   Not twice.   No, he has been trying out his new voice for the past half hour.

It's a proud little moment on the farm.   Our young rooster has learned to crow!

The Magic Box

We have a new horse game at Kearsarge Meadows, originally designed to help our most timid horse, Piper Warrior, learn to accept new things....   quickly!   As those of you who follow the Dressage Queen Blog know, Piper is not the bravest of creatures.   And this is not helping his career as a dressage horse.   A sport where the horse has only 45 seconds to "get over" spooking at the flowers, or the judge, or the puddles and get on with the dressage test!

So, the game:   We have a medium sized cardboard box most recently used to ship lovely smelling herbs from Mountain Rose Herbs.   It's open at the top and is 12 inches deep, 18 inches wide.   Inside it, we place bits of carrot, apple, and a couple of Canada mints.   We play with the box a little, making sure it makes some noise without being terrifying.

For Piper, this is very scary.   Even in the safety and comfort of a quiet barn.   The first evening, it took Piper several minutes to even consider coming to the front of his stall to look at the box we were playing with.   Even with us retreating away and reapproaching.   He worried.   It took a few more minutes before he would look into the box.   And a couple more minutes before he smelled the Canada mints.   But, in the end, he gingerly pulled the treats out of the box, enjoying an instant reward for his bravery.

Next, we decided to try the same thing with Big Ben, our 3 year old gelding out of Marja, not sure how the youngster would cope.   However, Ben walked right up to the box, shoved his head in, and dug out the treats moving the box around while doing so.   He showed absolutely no fear at all.

The first night, this was really turning into a fascinating exercise.   So, we kept moving down the aisle.

Next was little Bea Yewtee's turn.   She is our 3 year old filly out of Jeddien.   Bea is sharp and edgy by nature.   But also brave.   At first, she was totally spooked by the box.   However, her curiousity overwhelmed her fear and within a couple minutes, she was stealing treats.

Finally, we took the box to Jeddien who must have mentored Ben.   She not only ate right of out the box, she turned it over looking for anything else that may have been hidden.

The next night, the magic box was used again.   Piper was quicker to come forward, but still worried.   Meanwhile, Ben, hearing that the box game was underway, started stomping!   Bea was quite quick to have a look into the box when it arrived at her stall.   And Jeddien nickered at the idea of treats, box or no box.

All four horses are Dutch Warmbloods.   The youngsters were born on the farm and handled from birth.   Jeddien & Piper were both purchased as 2 and a half year olds imported from Holland.   All have been handled and trained with similar techniques and methods.   And yet, each is so completely unique in their personalities.

And that, in itself, is part of the wonder of horses.   They are all such amazing individuals.

Time to go play again....   Tonight, whole apples from a local farm will be rolling around on the bottom of the box.   Great noise.   Tasty treats.

Technical Difficulties

We recently moved Kearsarge Meadows's home page to a new hosting site. Things were going quite well at first.   However, with all things technical, glitches can occur and apparently, that is the case right now.   So, if you find Kearsarge-Meadows.com to be unreachable, we apologise.   The problem is being addressed....

Meanwhile, since you are sitting in front of a computer, here's a fun one.   Lift your right foot of the floor and make clockwise circles.   Now, while doing this, draw a number "6" in the air with your right hand.   Without letting your right foot change direction.

I'm guessing our website will be back up before you succeed in this little exercise.   :-)   Thank you for your patience!

At the 2009 USDF Region 8 Championships, Jeddien, our 18 year old KWPN Dutch Warmblood mare trained and ridden by Kimberley, earned the title of Reserve Champion at 3rd Level Open (Professional).

Jeddien was born in Holland, imported into the UK at the age of 2 and a half year, and started and trained by Kimberley through to Fourth Level Dressage.   Over the past 15 years, Robert Pickles, Fellow of the BHS was the biggest influence in Jeddien's development.   Clinics with Christine Stuckleberger (Swiss dressage star) and Jan Nivelle (German Grand Prix trainer & coach for Belgium) were influential along the way.   And of course, Pat Parelli's Natural Horsemanship programs and trainers made an impact.

The weekend at the Regionals is still underway.   But at this point, Jeddien has already proved herself a successful Dressage Queen.   Any successes that follow will just be frosting on the cake!

Frosting! - An Update

On Sunday, the last day of the Regionals, Kimberley & Jeddien also won the 2009 Reserve Championship title for the 3rd Level Freestyle.   Very exciting!

The 2009 Hops Harvest

Today, we harvested all of our homegrown hops.

We started our hops bines in 2007, with the purchase of 12 initial rhizomes from Freshops.com.   Georg built a 14 foot high, 36 foot long, single wire trellis with 12 full height biodegradable climbing ropes for each plant.   Following the clear instructions from Freshops, we planted one rhizome at the bottom of each climbing rope.   And then we waited.



By the end of the 2007 growing season, we had 3 foot to 6 foot tall bines, as expected.   The energy of the plants was being spent on developing a strong root system.   Spring 2008, after a cold winter, shoots soon appeared and the bines grew really well.   In September 2008, we harvested a few ounces of hop flowers and were very pleased with ourselves.   We used the hops to flavor one batch of homebrew.

But this year, we had our first true hops crop!   Nearly all the plants reached the top of the 14 foot ropes and started working their way down again.   The main bines were as thick as a finger.   And the flowers were bigger and in beautiful dense clusters.



Harvesting 14 foot tall bines, which by nature do a fabulous job of adhering to the ropes, is a challenge.   Ladders help.   And figuring out how to unwind the bines from the bottom helps, too.   It is the kind of work that requires a quiet patience.   Like most farm work.

After a few hours of work, and earning the multiple scratches from the rather itchy plants to prove it, we had gathered a whooping 10 full gallons of hop flowers!   They are now air drying and will soon be packed in the freezer for preservation until Kearsarge Meadows' BrewMeister, Georg, uses them to add wonderful hoppy flavor to his beer recipes.

Henniker Chili Fest

We will remember the weekend of August 22 -23, 2009 for two key events.

First, this was the weekend Hurricane Bill skimmed past New England, given those on along the shorelines a bit of excitement, but no real troubles.

Second was the Henniker Rotary Club's Annual Chili Fest at Pat's Peak.

The Henniker Chili Fest is a great afternoon out, with it's Classic Car Show, BBQ, arts & crafts vendors, and of course, the famous chili cookoffs. The 2000 or so people who attend the event, get to taste test over 40 chilis, then cast their votes for their favorites. And despite all of the threats of foul weather, the clouds held onto their rain until we got back home again.

We tasted between 30 and 40 different chilis. An ounce of each. Yes, that's approximately a QUART of chili. Our votes went to "Vindaloo", who used a lot of Indian spices to give their chili a very unique taste, and "Chappin" who had a very sweet chili.

We are already looking forward to the 2010 Henniker Rotary Club's Chili Fest.

Watching The Radar

Horses.   All day grass turnout.   Summer weather.   Thunderstorms.   Keeping safe.   That pretty much sums up summer time horse turnout management.   :-)

Most of our weather comes from the west, allowing us to see it approaching if we happen to be looking out the kitchen window.   However, if we're sitting at a computer, radar is our friend.

My favorite weather radar site is this one from Radar.Weather.Gov and allows me to view weather coming from all directions via the Adjacent Radars arrows.

I first learned about this site when a colleague at Sun Microsystems emailed out a warning to everyone in the Nashua office about a strong front speeding its way to New Hampshire in July 2005.   Thanks, Eric!

The storm of July 2005 was quite intense, rather terrifying, and caused a lot of damage including shearing many of our tallest trees and washing out the entrance to our driveway, as shown in this photo.   While we have not seen a storm as strong as that since, we still listen for rumbles of thunder, keep an eye on the skies and watch the radar whenever thunderstorm alerts are posted.

Like today.

New School Season = New Evening Grooms

"What happened to Summer?", seems to be the favorite question around these parts.   With June and July being a total wash out, August is providing the only true taste of summer.   And September is only 10 days away!

With the new school season starting up, we will be saying "So long & good luck!" to two of our employees, both of whom work in the afternoon / evening shift bringing in the horses and feeding dinner.   One is off to College!   Congratuations!   The other is entering the High School Senior year and will be deciding which College or University to attend after that.   Both will be missed!

We're now looking for 1 or 2 local people to replace these great kids.   It's a good physical job for someone with horse experience who wants to earn a bit of cash working no more than 2 hours per day on a friendly, beautiful horse farm.

If interested, contact us via our farm website, Kearsarge-Meadows.com.

Declaring War, Again

Too many emotions are experienced when a small scale farmer such as myself comes to find a collection of beautiful, soft, silky young chicken feathers on the driveway, feathers of young hens you know, young hens you raised from chicks.

Once again, another predator has made off with 2 young hens.   Both of the girls were born on March 23rd this year and were just starting to test their mature hen voices.   In another couple months, they may have started laying an egg here or there.   But, really, they were still babies.

Over the past few nights, twice I have seen a fox trot down our driveway around 2 am.   It sets off various alarms, including the dogs.   What a great way to wake up suddenly.   Anyway, it looks like that fox has been scoping out the farm, smelling chickens, and learning they hang out around the manure pile, where they eat fly eggs and various bugs.   One kill was done there, in the hen's own safe zone only yards from their box stall where they roost at night.   There is no sign of the other hen.

So, he came.   He found a plentiful source of food.   He killed.   And now you can bet your bottom dollar he will be back.   Most likely tomorrow or the next day.

This time, I will be waiting.   Yes.   This is war.   Again.

Got Rain?

April 2009 was stunning in New Hampshire!   May was pretty spectacular as well.   June and July, however, have been the rainiest &coolest summer months in a very long time.   So bad, in fact, that we have not had a BBQ in weeks.

With our farm on a hilltop, our pastures usually dry out very quickly after a storm.   But with so many storms stacking up like airplanes on final approach into Oshkosh, even the highest hilltops stay saturated a lot longer.   Fortunately, we somehow keep managing to squeeze in a few mowing hours here and there, allowing us to tidy up the pastures, our groomed riding trails, and of course, the front lawn.   But it is a challenge!

I don't mind riding my dressage horses in a light cooling misty rain.   But the kind of rain we have been having for the past couple months has even driven me to ride in the indoor arena more than the outdoor arena.   And on the few days that we have had hot sunshine, the humidity that arises from the saturated ground has been another good to avoid the outdoors!

While the horses, chickens, and turkeys don't seem to mind the AWOL summer season, our garden areas sure do.   The vegetables, grapes, and hops are all crying out for warmth & sunshine, and lots of it.   And I know our pooch would rather see more dry days on the calendar.   She is definitely not a water dog.

Tomorrow, August 2009 arrives.   The Meteorologists at WMUR Channel 9 promise it will begin with stunningly beautiful weather.   Here's hoping we will see lots of great August weather!   Until then, folks in town are maintaining their smiles, pointing out that "at least it's not snow!"

Got rain?   Too much rain?   We understand how it feels....

Hiring Farm Employees

One of the challenging areas of owning any business is in the recruitment and hiring of good people with the right skills and attitude to do the job and represent the business with pride.   Whether a high tech firm, a medical centre, a super market, or a horse farm, finding good staff is always critical to the success of a business.


(From the website http://www.apprenticesearch.com/ in Ontario Canada)


In general, we have been lucky in finding employees who have the knowledge, passion, and skills needed to provide the horses and our clients with the kind of care they need, deserve, and have come to expect.   Some people stay with us for years and some only for a few months.   No matter how long they are on the payroll, the good ones are a joy to have working on the farm.

As with all companies, we also run into our share of "misfits", people who do not care...   They don't last long at all.

At this time, we are expecting one of our fabulous employees to move on to another job in the next few weeks.   And so once again, we will be looking for the next right person to fill their muck boots.

It's actually hard work, recruiting.   It takes time & money to advertise, time to interview, and even more time to through the required paperwork, including IRS and U.S. Department of Justice forms.   But, when the right person comes along, it's worth it.

So, we are hiring again...   We hope to continue to find good horse people in the Warner area to join the team at Kearsarge Meadows.