The Mounting Block

10/28/2023

Our lesson horses may be retired, but they are still very much loved ❤️

06/20/2023

https://gofund.me/b0e4c51b

Dear Friends, I am coming to you with a mix of grief, gratitude, and hope. Julia, my mother, is leaving … Tierney McKee needs your support for J.J.'s Legacy

06/20/2023

https://www.doserfuneralhome.com/obituary/Julia-Jayne

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06/08/2023

Our sweet JJay has entered into hospice care. We would love to fill this time by sharing stories and pictures of the farm and her students with her!!! Feel free to add any pictures, funny stories or memories here for us to show her!!! Thank you!!

03/26/2023

It is with heavy hearts that we announce the loss of our wonderful Haflinger, Heffy. “Heffalump”, as he was fondly known, came to us as a boarder and stayed as our lifelong friend. We know he touched many lives along the way and he will be greatly missed.

08/19/2020

Spending this beautiful day outside.
Don’t you wish you were here with us?

08/17/2020

Wheel barrow WAH- WAHS!
My lovely new wheelbarrow blew out the wheel and for three days I had to use the old one. Remember the Little Engine that Could? Well I was the one that couldn't. Cleaning stalls with an old, crooked, hard to push and dump piece of equipment made me cross, cranky and definitely hard to get along with. Thanks go out to my brother in law Ron and my husband Tom for getting me a new wheel. Stalls are clean and I am smiling again! JJ

08/05/2020

The vet came yesterday to do teeth and shots. All the guys were well behaved. She praised how well they looked and asked how I did it. I have to give thanks to Jarod my hay supplier and my daughter Mary for finding him. There are always pieces to the puzzle of caring for horses with one piece interlocking with several others. Someone has to put the details together to make it work. I am proud of myself for doing that this year and thank all my riders for giving me the opportunity to teach and learn. JJ

07/20/2020

Gone are the days......
I was reading a post about older people saying "back in my day......". I guess this means the world is going to **** in a handbasket and their generation had it so much more together. Since I teach riding, I got to thinking about riding instruction and how it was done when I started. I was fortunate enough to take lessons from an instructor who had been around and brooked no nonsense from mere students. We paid money to suffer verbal abuse concerning our lack of skill and total ignorance of horsemanship. Every mistake was pointed out and expected to be corrected because her horses were too valuable to suffer a clumsy or ineffective aid. I was in college at the time and had enough self-esteem to concentrate on fixing what was wrong, but other younger riders often burst into tears.

In today's world instructors don't yell, browbeat or intimidate their students. I don't. In fact I got a Christmas card from a young rider telling me she likes me because I don't make her feel bad when she makes a mistake. Our horses put up with rider mistakes by ignoring them. Which means I spend a lot of time walking or running along side getting the horse to at least pretend to go forward. Are my students having fun riding? Probably. Are they becoming horsemen? Only if they start to accept and correct every mistake and learn to recognize and error before the instructor does.

06/05/2020

❤️ So much to love about this picture ❤️

06/03/2020

First lesson on Babie today went very well. She hasn't had a saddle on for two months so my rider was a bit concerned about how she would act. No worries! She remembered and her rider was patient and rewarded her often. I couldn't ask for a better return to riding. The last thing said was "It's so good to be back on a horse." Thanks go out to Rick for mowing so many new trails. As lessons progress and riders get back on track we will be taking the horses out and about. I look forward to seeing that happen. The time off for the horses has allowed me to practice with them the basics of leading, stopping, turning and waiting for me to tell them what comes next. Their heads are in a different place- a good place...