Back 9 Farms

It has been way too quiet on here!! It's cold out there - surely no one has anything better to do than get on here and chat!! LOL!

Things are always busy at the barn. We have two new boarders. Meghan Tauzier get her 1st hrose, Nitty, a beautiful bay appendix mare. And Abby McCollom (did I spell that right?!?) got her 1st horse Dancer, also a bay quarter horse mare. We can't wait to see how much these guys are going to improve! Little Linda and Lyssie also got new horses (as did Ms Annette!!) Zeva is now Linda's pleasure horse, Charlie is Lyssie's barrel horse and Ms Annette now owns George and Sally. There's been a lot of horse trading going on!!!!

We had the awards banquet for Chesterfield this past weekend. Mackenzie got 1st in Pony Class, 3rd in Youth Walk-trot, and 5th in PeeWee Barrels. I placed 1st in Open Walk Trot and 3rd in Adult Western Pleasure. That was a fun show!

We are also making plans for the show season this year, tryig to decide what shows to attend and who is going to go. Space on trailers will truly be at a premium this season. At the moment there is not even enough room for Ms Linda to take enough horses for everyone in the family who wants to show!!! We will see what happens as the season gets closer.

We are staying in the show loop with several folks showing at the winter series at PPP. Several of our kids are placing and doing well. Two more shows to go there!

We are also making plans for summer camp. We are going to mix things up a  little this year, probably having the advanced camp the 1st week this year. Cowpoke camp for the little ones will probably be in the middle, with regular horse camp filling in the other 3 weeks. We are just planning on 5 weeks this year. If it looks like we need to add a week, then we will take a look at that...but it is kinda nice to have a few weeks for us to play ourselves in the summer!! LOL! We will be putting out a newsletter in the next couple of weeks to really update everyone on things.

Don't be too quiet out there!! Let us know what is going on or at least just say hi so we know that you have checked in with us!! Stay warm out there!!

Wow, it is school time again! That is so hard to believe! The barn has been crazy busy, as usual. All the babies have been weaned. Everyone has been going 50 different directions for shows. We are getting quite a few horses ready to sell (we are hoping to reduce the herd a good bit, especially the broodmares).

Ms Annette and Christy were at the 4H Southern Regionals this weekend, where they did us proud. Christy and Dottie daylighted the field by a second Saturday night, giving her a 4th place finish overall! Great job!!

Koda is at the Buckskin World Show this week, so we can't wait to see how he does in the pleasure classes. Then he is coming back home and going back to turning cans! What a fabulous all-around horse he is!

Mackenzie and Henry went to the Gibson County Fair, where Henry placed 1st in the Jack under 1 year category and won Reserve Champion Jack, and making Mackenzie $20 richer! they were definitely the hit of the show and Henry was much better behaved than most of the other donkeys and mules there, even those MUCH older than him!

This coming Saturday, Kenzie, Justin, Lyssie and Linda will be taking a slew of horses back to the fair for the youth halter classes and will hopefully come home will as many ribbons as horses! (and the money is pretty nice!!) This will be after the usual Henry County crew goes to the make-up show Friday night since we didn't ride Saturday the 1st.

Lots of things going on, as usual! Hope everyone has a great start to the school year!

Show Season has begun!!!! Last Friday night Annette, Kenzie, Justin, Christy and I went to Chesterfield to play. It was a really last minute decision, but we had fun hanging out with Carla and Shane and getting our 1st taste of showing again. Kenzie placed 2nd in Pony Class and 2nd in Youth Walk- Trot (big classes of like 17). I managed a 5th place in Walk-trot (like 25 entries!!)and Adult Western Pleasure. There was some really stiff competition, so I was thrilled with those!! We stayed all night just to decide to not let Justin and Christy run after seeing how slippery the ground was, so it was not a complete night, but was lots of fun!!!

Yesterday was the 1st Gibson County Saddle Club show and it was a good one!!!

Pony Halter - 1st Mackenzie Johnson, 3rd Chloe Lott

Gaited Halter - 1st Hannah Miller

PeeWee Western Halter - 1st Taylor Singleton, 3rd Linda Simons, 4th Lyssie Simons

Youth Western Halter - 1st Alexis Montgomery

Adult Western Halter - 1st Christy Cunningham, ?? Andrea Gibson (we will claim her since she does drill team with us!! and is such a blast to have around!)

PeeWee Hunt Seat - 2nd Linda, 3rd Lyssie

PW English Equitation - 2nd Lyssie, 3rd Linda

PW Walk Trot - 2nd Linda, 4th Lyssie

PW Western Pleasure - 1st Linda, 3rd Lyssie, 4th Taylor

PW Western Horsemanship - 2nd Lyssie, 3rd Linda, 4th Taylor

PW Poles - 3rd Linda

PW Flags - 2nd Linda, 4th Lyssie

Pony Barrels - 5th Mackenzie

PW Barrels - 3rd Linda

Youth Hunt Seat - 1st Alexis

Y Eng Eq - 1st Alexis

Y Gaited - 5th Hannah

Y Walk - Trot - 2nd Meghan Tauzier, 3rd Marley Oliver

Y West Pl - 2nd Rachel Carrington, 3rd Alexis

Y West Eq - 1st Alexis Montgomery, 3rd Meghan Tauzier

Y Poles - 5th Rachel

Y Speed - 1st Sarah Saddler

Y Barrels - 1st Sarah, 4th Rachel

Adult Hunt Seat - 1st Christy, 2nd Andrea , 3rd LeeAnn Johnson

A Eng Eq - 1st Andrea, 2nd Christy, 3rd LeeAnn

A Walk Trot - 2nd LeeAnn, 3rd Annette Reese, 4th Christy

A West Pl - 2nd Annette, 3rd Christy, 4th LeeAnn

A West Eq - 2nd Annette, 3rd Christy, 4th LeeAnn, 5th Rhonda Livingston

A Barrels - 1st Christy

A Poles - 5th Christy

Lead Line - 1st Oliver Carter (family friend of LeeAnn's lead in by Mackenzie - ridiculously cute!!)

That would be 58 ribbons by my count for the Back 9 Crew.  Again - these pee wee classes had like 19 and the youth had about 20. Even the adult classes had about 10. So FABULOUS job, everyone!!! These were the 1st ribbons won by a several of these folks, so that is always exciting!!! And all of our crew were polite, helpful, and represented us well! I am so proud of all of you!!! This is gonna be a great season! Henry is coming up this coming weekend for a few of us. stay tuned for more ribbons!!!

Well the banquets for the 2008 show season are in the past and now it is time to start thinking about 2009!! We are working hard at the barn to try to decide who is going where and organizing horses, trailer space and how we can fit it all in! I think if we had 10 trailers and the horses to fill them, we would still fall short! We are very proud of all of the accomplishments in 2008, both in and out of the show ring! I am really looking forward to showing more myself, as is Ms Annette! Little Linda and Lyssie will both be showing a seperate horse in the pleasure events and the speed events.  I just realized today that Christy would be moving up into the adult classes - that is scary - she can't be that old!!!  We don't know yet who else will be going with us to the different shows - we have to really work on trailer slots.  I wish we had enough room to take everyone who wants to go! So hang on, it will be another wild ride this show season!!

Also thinking ahead means planning for summer camp. We will be doing a few things differently. I will taking a group of my French students to France and will not be here the 1st week of June, so we will be doing a week of 1/2 day camp for riders ages 4 - 8. This week will really be geared toward that age range and offer a less strenuous day for our youngters! Then we will have 3 weeks of regular horse camp. And of course the week of July 4th we will be having advanced camp Mon - Thurs.  Unless there is a huge demand, we will not be offering any other weeks of camp in July. If the need arises, then we will take a look! We will attending hte annual summer camp fair Feb 7th, so let me know if you now what week you would like to attend!!

I hope everyone has a great week - stay warm!!

Well, I am finally at home on my computer and able to close out the old thread and start a new one!!  My computer at school will not support the editing software for this site, so I cannot do antyhing but read and post within a thread. But finally, here we go!!

Linda, Annette, Carrie and I had a great time at the North American International Livestock Expo watchign Dandy in his first AQHA show. He did a great job. Jackie competed in the healing competition. Even though Dandy did not place, he really had a great run, especially considering that Jackie has just been roping off of him for 3 months!! He is only going to get better!

We had the Oakfield Saddle Club Banquet last night and our kids did great!!! And even though Shane and Carla were not boarding with us until until a couple of weeks ago, I want to recognize their awards as well!! So here are how the year end awards shook out...

Western Halter: 1st Carla Alexander

Youth Halter Showmanship: 1st Rachel Gokel, 5th Mackenzie Johnson

Pony Class: 3rd Mackenzie Johnson

Open Poles: 2nd Sara Saddler

Open Hunt Seat: 2nd Rachel Gokel, 4th Lyssie Simons, 5th Linda Simons

Youth Western Pleasure: 1st Rachel Gokel, 3rd Lyssie Simons

Youth Walk Trot: 2nd Rachel Gokel, 3rd Lyssie Simons

Adult Walk Trot: 1st Carla Alexander, 4th Shane Alexander

Open Western Pleasure: 2nd Carla Alexander, 3rd Shane Alexander, 4th Rachel Gokel, 5th Lyssie Simons

Children's Barrels: 4th Sara Saddler

Open Speed: 5th Rachel Gokel

I am so proud of everyone!! Our kids have come such a long way in a short time!! I mean, Kenzie is only 4. Rachel did a fabulous job with Brandy... she is just an old lesson horse!! Lyssie had a great horse in Chico, but was trying to learn how to ride him.  And Linda competed all season in the pleasure classes on an old barrel horse! So I think that all these kids deserve such a pat on the back!! Hopefully next season we will be back with even better horses and more practice!! So congrats to all!!

We have the Henry banquet in a few weeks and then the Gibson County banquet in January, so there are plenty more prizes to come!! I hope everyone has a great week!!!