Not long before moving from the suburbs to the country, our wee little Apple started talking about horseback riding. We held her off for a while as we didn’t even know where to begin with it, let alone the fact that I am (was) deathly allergic to horses. But since then, our equestrian has been born.
Once we made the move it was pretty hard to keep her away. Not only do our neighbours own a horse barn and we can see the horses out in the paddock from our front porch, but we are less than a kilometre from some amazing stables, Stratford-Fox Run. We first heard of them from a couple of teachers at our old school who board their horses there. So, we got in touch with them and started Apple off with a summer camp, to see if she even was able to ride. From the first day she has wanted to live at the stables.
From camp we went to lessons and now only a year and a half later, she is doing some in-house equestrian shows. We feel/fear her love of riding and jumping will take us to some shows out of house, but we are hoping to hold off on that for at least another year.
In school she has to do a project on fitness and when she first told her teacher she was going to be showcasing horseback riding, there was some question as to how much fitness was involved. Apple was quite convincing and explained to her teacher how there is stretching and posture and muscles used to stay on the horse involved. She was giving the go ahead and I was asked to capture her riding for her project.
As I don’t often shoot in horse arena’s there is a learning curve for sure. In the winter they aren’t as bright, adding to that it was quite a cloudy day. So, I think, not so bad for a first try and now I know what to do for next time, as I am sure there will be a next time.
And needless to say watching her ride so closely, I can see how much work it takes for both horse (this is actually a pony that Apple is riding) and rider to accomplish. We are definitely proud parents and on the good side, the more time I spend at the barns, the less my allergies act up.
And because we can’t ignore this handsome fella, meet Chubbs. He came sauntering over to see us after lessons were done. Nothing like a frolic in the snow for this guy.
Tags:
#farmhouse,
canter,
english ridng,
equestrian,
horseback riding,
horses,
jumping,
posting,
stables,
stratford-fox run,
trot
A Postcard from the Farmhouse
As winter finally arrives and the temperatures, ironically, warm up, we were blessed with a rather large and beautiful snowfall. As much as I am not a lover of winter, I figured it out a few years ago. If you can’t beat ’em join ’em. I embraced winter as best as I knew how. I dress warm, wear my hat and scarves, snow pants, boots, whatever it takes to make being outside bearable. I also fell in love with our Farmhouse during the winter months. You would think that living in a 130+ year old home that winter would be cold and drafty. Well, some parts are, but mostly it is just beautiful. Every morning we have gorgeous sunrises over the fields and every night the sun sets over the forest across the road. Some days, with enough snow, we can’t even get out our driveway. But when a gorgeous dumping of snow arrives like this morning and coats the trees and house with snow, it is just gorgeous. And the silence of it all is magical, reminds us of why we decided to move our family out of suburbia to the country, even if it is only ten minutes away. Forget the winter blues, put on your best gear and take it outside. Fall in love with winter again. Find a magical place, like the farmhouse, to go and hang out.
Tags:
#farmhouse,
Country Living,
Let it snow,
Snow,
The Farmhouse,
Winter,
Winter Wonderland
The crazy thing about living out in the country (even when you are really not that far in the country) is the amazing sunrises! Each and every day we see something new and beautiful. Sometimes it is hard not to share every morning, since each of them are different and amazing, but I can see it getting old sharing every day.
We don’t take it for granted one little bit, this amazing place we call home. Sometimes it is hard to believe this is where we live when not even a year ago we were surrounded by too many people and couldn’t see the sunrise until lit had risen over top of all the other houses.
As we continue are transition into country living, we find that getting around the city is actually easier from out here (unless it is snowing, then nobody goes anywhere), which is somewhat ironic since you would think closer to the city meant easier. Just getting out of the neighborhood traffic added an additional 10-25 minutes of driving depending on the time of day. We now just skirt around all of that and get to our destinations faster. It has been a nice bonus to our move.
Over the holidays we continued with a few final pieces to our kitchen reno and it is almost ready for a final reveal. Our main floor will now be complete and we can focus on the last couple of rooms in our upstairs. We have two smaller bedrooms, one is the master and one is my office, although the layout will stay the same we are considering opening them up to look like one big room. This will have to wait for the warmer weather so, I think (hope) we are done for the winter months and can just enjoy.
Tags:
#farmhouse,
Ontario,
Ontario Travel,
Ottawa,
Sunrise,
Sunrises