Grateful Acres

11/14/2025

Grateful Acres hard working farrier

Support Our Local Farrier, Erik Duffenbach, After Life-Alteri… Sara Buchholz needs your support for Support Our Local Farrier, Erik, After Life-Altering Injury

08/23/2022

Post (2/2)

Here what I couldn’t fit in my first post from our weekend at the Eau Claire Bit and Spur Club.

Here are the placing for Saturday (Western and games).
We had 3/6 students drop out of their classes on Saturday for various reasons…

Western Pleasure
2nd Rory
3rd Kaylin

Western Horsemanship
3rd Rory
4th Kaylin
5th Loralei

Western Discipline Rail
(Either forgot to record them, or didn’t place😬, I don’t remember…oops).

Speed Dash
4th Sonia

Super 8
2nd Sonia
6th Loralei

Kentucky Derby Pole Weaving
4th Loralei
5th Kaylin

Melody was available on Saturday, so I decided to game her. Melody is my least experienced horse at the barn, who just recently started getting ridden by more of my students. I had been on her once prior to the show in the last 3 months 😬. I was not expecting much from her and did not push her. I’m not very familiar with her, but she blew my expectations out of the water. It was the first time I’ve shown in almost🥁….. 6 years. I had a blast even if it was only 4 games that we participated in.

Thank you Ella Gray , Shauna White (idk why I can’t tag you), all my students parnents, and anyone else I’m forgetting that made all these shows possible.

Yes I did forget to post pictures and placings from our July show🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️.

08/23/2022

(Post 1/2)

We went to our last scheduled show of the summer at the Eau Claire Bit and Spur Club this past weekend. It was a really good show to finish off the year. I honestly thought we were going to get rained out for the weekend, but thankfully we only got rained on once. I decided to make up our gaming portion of our July show that got canceled because of severe weather by doing the Friday night fun show on the 19th, stalling the horses at Bit & Spur for the night and then competing in the show we’ve planned for all summer on Saturday.

You’ll notice that Between Friday and Saturday all the girls swapped horses. I’ve made it a point this year to make sure the girls are swapping horses between shows to make them stronger riders and make it fair for students who favor different lesson horses.

Because of how much rain we had gotten Thursday the gaming arena was too wet to be used, but instead of canceling Bit & Spur improvised by gaming in the pleasure arena both Friday and Saturday. That did mean that they were both non-qualifying fun shows🤷‍♀️. Because they used the pleasure arena they had to get creative with their gaming patterns to keep everyone off the grass, but it worked and we all had fun.

Placing for Friday night
Ball & Pail
3rd Kaylin
4th Nevaeh
6th Mariah

Keyhole
3rd Rory
5th Loralei
6th Mariah

Kentucky Pole Weaving
5th Nevaeh
6th Kaylin

Speed Dash
2nd Autumn
5th Nevaeh
6th Rory

Figure 8
5th Kaylin
6th Rory

Pennant
3rd Kaylin
4th Loralei
5th Mariah

I also included Kaylin’s English classes with Sam from Saturday morning.
Open English Equitation 3rd
Open English Pleasure 2nd
English Discipline Rail (All ages) 6th

Stay tuned for post # 2, for the rest of Saturday.
-Sonia

06/21/2022

These girls went to their first horse show on Saturday!!!!

Grace (Lefty) and Ayva (Breezy) were in walk trot Western Horsemanship and walk/trot Western Pleasure, Alaina (Sam) were in English Equitation and English Pleasure and Alana (Zena) were in Western Horsemanship, Western Pleasure and Western Discipline Rail. They all participated in the games (pole weaving, barrels, jumping figure 8, keyhole, the pendant race and egg & spoon). They placed in almost everything they were in.

I put a heavy emphasis on making sure that their first show was all about the experience and learning how a show works and putting all their practice memorizing gaming patterns to use. We were up against girls that have had a lot more experience. They did a spectacular job and I could not be more proud.

I also had the best parent support group that I think I’ve ever had. Randy Olson & Josh were everyones show dads and Ella Gray and Kaylin acted as the best grooms and tacker uppers ever. These four stuck through an entire day of show prep on Friday and helped everywhere they could on Saturday. Nikki Strojny and Liz acted as our show moms making sure everyone was staying hydrated, fed, covered with sunscreen😜 and dressed in proper attire.

I’d like to give a shout out to Alaina (Sam), because her last day with our barn was the day of the show. Her parents were busy packing up their house the day of the show, and even though they could not be there Alaina gave her all and let her barn family support her in every way possible. There were a lot of tears at the end of day, but I’m excited to hear about her new horse adventures. She already has a lesson scheduled at her new barn. I’ll no longer have to call the Alaina’s, AlainaSam and AlanaZena during lessons😥. We will miss you dearly Alaina.

03/07/2022

A day at the barn post.

I’ve been wanting to post something like this for a while, just walking you guys through a lesson day. There’s a caption with every picture.

Students not mentioned were students I didn’t have permission to name yet when I made the post.

12/06/2021

Here goes a bitter sweet horse update.

Smoke moved to my house today. Many of my students started on Smoke, and were disappointed to hear that I was moving him, but this way I can keep a closer eye on him and he can enjoy his retirement in a big grassy pastures without getting picked on by younger horses.

Smoke not only has retired from lessons, but also as my personal riding horse. I had planned on retiring him in September, just because I felt like he deserved it, but his retirement came a little sooner than expected. In May, he started having noticeable problems with his back. Smoke has always had a weak back with not much topline (back muscles), probably due something that happened when he was trained as a c**t. He developed a small bump on his back that has not gone away even with professional help. It doesn't seem to hurt him when it's pushed on, but he can't tolerate people bouncing on his back anymore. That means no more lessons for him and for his overall being no more riding in general, unless he recovers from whatever he's got going on. He's still very energetic, flexible and happy.

I offered to take some pictures of students that had taken lessons with him regularly and am sharing a few from each of them. I'm also sharing some from back when I used to compete with him.

Smoke was my gaming horse for my last 2 years on the Memorial Equestrian team and 4H. We dabbled in English, jumping and trail, but mostly games. Smoke was given to me by Josie Paulson and Steve Smith. He's by far, the best horse I have ever had. He deserves only the best, so I hope I can give that to him in his retirement.

If any of my friends/students want Smoke updates, feel free to ask or come and visit. You'll probably hear about him whether you want to or not😉. Also if anyone has Smoke pictures, I'd love to see them🧡.

Thank you for all your hard work Smoke🦄. We all love you.

10/21/2021

Over the last three weeks I've taken shots📷 out in the pasture whenever I got a chance. I hope you enjoy 😜.

Featuring: Itch, Stitch and Blackie🐐, Zena, Chief, Lefty, Smoke, Penny, Sam, Melody🐴 and of course, Lady🐶.

Ps- I never leave halters on in the pasture. They were only on because I had just put them on, before bringing them in for lessons.

Darn Facebook has a 80-photo limit per post.

-Sonia

08/23/2021

Congratulations to these 5 girls. I took way over a thousand pictures, and Facebook made me narrow it down to a select few🤷‍♀️😥.

Yesterday we packed up two trailers and did our second and last show of the year. The show was smaller than the last one, which made the day go significantly faster. These girls did an amazing job🎉🎉🎉!

Off the top of my head, I know LaRhea and Sam placed 4th in Western Pleasure and Western Horsemanship and 6th in Western Discipline Rail and it was LaRhea's first time competing. Autumn and Zena placed 5th in Western Pleasure and Western Horsemanship. Rory and Echo placed in Western Pleasure, and it was Rorys first competition! Nevaeh and Sky competed in w/t classes together for the first time ever. It was Sky and Sam's second competition ever, and little Melodys (with Kaylin) first competition. They all did well in games placing in almost everything. (I know there were more placings, I just don't remember them all, sorry).

I could not have been more proud of these girls. They have worked all year for this show, and it has definitely paid off. We also had an overwhelming amount of support from our barn family and friends. Also thank you Holly Schindler and Doug for the use of Breezy for Rory and your truck and trailer. Thank you all for such a great day yesterday. 💜🐎

08/08/2021

My post is a little late, but congrats to these three young ladies. They've been practicing and preparing for this show all year long. This was Mariah and Autumns second show at Bit & Spur and Kaylins first time showing last Saturday. Sam, our lesson horse also got to participate in his first ever show and he was awesome!

These girls competed against some very seasoned riders, and expensive horses and still managed to snag some placings in Western horsemanship and a few games.

I also thought I'd mention that Mariah and Kaylin only got to ride the horse they were showing(Appy, Echo), a few times before the show, because their regular lesson horse got injured. Echo isn't the easiest horse to ride, but they handled him well, and I couldn't be more proud.

Thank you, for the insane amount of support we had on our show day. I think we had a enough people out to fill up the bleachers😉.

05/09/2021

Three of our older girls got to ride at Holly’s Place the other night, for some practice in a bigger arena. They've been practicing their gaming patterns in our indoor for a long time. They did pretty good. It's always hard to plan trailering trips off the farm even for a lesson, but it's definitely worth it when I get to see these girls grow.

03/04/2021