Reflections on Progress

The mothers last night, particularly Cathy, came up to me glowing and said "Erika! This is a real barn now! It's a real business!"

Meredith and Zoe were two of my first students here at Painted Bar Stables. They have been around almost 2½ years now and they remember when it was just me teaching a couple lessons after work with my horses.

At the point when I bought the stables in early 2008, the barn was a mess because the previous owner was unable to keep up with the repairs and also apparantly unable to keep the liqour bottles out of the barn. At the point the girls started riding here there were only 5 stalls I had cleaned out the rubbish, repaired the doors so that they could close and lock, and made them safe for horses to live in. It took me so long just to get those stalls ready.

At that point the fences were in complete disrepair except for a couple just near the house. I was amazed that horses even stayed in the back field. I was still collecting tack beyond my personal saddles and it was insufficient. I'd probably also say that my teaching was rudimentary at best at that point, simply because I didn't have time to keep up with my research and own knowledge.

Moreover, I had no help. It was just me and I was also working a full-time job in Ithaca.

The past couple of months (not to mention the couple years before that) there has been such amazing progress! Yesterday, Cathy walked into the new tack room for the first time and  her jaw hit the floor. Every saddle was clean, organized, repaired and maintained on it's own rack. Every horse had not only an adult western saddle assigned to it, but also was assigned to kid saddles and English tack as well.  She saw all of the volunteers working like clockwork and she was impressed. She saw that I could actually focus on the kids in the lessons and know that no horses were waiting for me because Lisa was running such a tight ship for the evening shift. And she saw how clean and put together are farm is, how organized we are, how we have everything worked out. 

I could not have done this without everyone. Our farm has reached an amazing level of success and acheivement because of each person that contributes. And what is amazing is that we can still go even further!

So thank you to our volunteers and motivators, past and present:

Tia Bernagozzi

Sabrina Bruso

Sylvia Cadwell

Deb Chapman

The Champion Family

Lyn Gerry

Andrea Jacobs, who has for some reason put up with me and my endless neediness since I first met her 3 years ago

Victoria Katz

Dakota Landon

Kerrigan Long

Sonny Pagliaro

Ryanne Phillips

Jenn Schmid

Christian Thompson

Dani Van Orden

Linda Van Orden 

Missy Van Orden

Lee Welles, who motivates me more than she realizes

even Amber Schorpp, who taught me many many lessons

And of course our latest additions:

Lilian Balasanian

Alaina Christine

Ashley Tieppo

Rachel Cronin

Dorothy Sherrill

Jen Schrage

Lily Oxley

I especially want to thank:  

My parents, Dean and Barb Eckstrom, for simply putting up with me and giving me such amazing opportunities and pep-talks.

Lisa Birch for her enthusiasm, hyper-organization practices and her amazing ability to motivate our volunteers.

Oh... and Colin for making sure I wake up every day, don't have a mental break down, and ensuring that I might actually eat lunch on a clean plate and have a couple pairs clean socks, even if I took them out of his drawer.