Summer News Update - August 2008

Summer '08 has been a blast so far, with great weather, camp, and plenty of fun events!


Campers learn to bridle horses








Little dogs and little goats are just part of the fun

The Ulster Equistars 4-h Club worked hard on their club booth for the Ulster County Fair. They got 3 blue ribbons! And will be sending thier project to State Fair in Syracuse on August 25th to be judged at the state level. Several of our members will also be competing in hippology on Sunday August 24th. Good luck to all. We will keep you posted.

Horse Bowl and Hippology - February 2008

We had a wonderful and educational trip to Morgan Equine Clinic in Locke, NY hosted by Dr. Jessica Morgan on February 16, 2008 to help us prepare for the regional horse bowl and hippology competition on February 23. Dr. Morgan had 4 indepth presentations for us on dentition, parasitology, the gastrointestinal tract and lower limb anatomy. It must have paid off because everyone did really well at the regional competiton and qualified for state in both horse bowl and hippology. Congratulations to our senior, junior and novice contestants on jobs well done. Also a big thank you to our coaches and parents Hannah, Carla, Lynn, Carol, Debbie and Roberta.

Winter News Update

The date for the Green Heron Farm Schooling Show is set for July 20, 2008. The class list will be available by March 1st. We are hoping to offer a clinic Saturday July 19 with our judge.

The Summer Camp schedule and forms for 2008 are available now.

Ulster Equistars and Pony People 4H Club News

We had a busy fall. We started the year with a trip to Stone Ridge Orchards for apple picking.

We used the apples for a baking project and donated the cakes to Family of Woodstock for Thanksgiving. For Christmas we "adopted" two families and filled boxes with food and presents for everyone. We had a present wrapping holiday party!

Ellen Kalish from Ravensbeard Wildlife Sanctuary released two rehabilitated red tail hawks and all the 4H'ers got to meet the hawks up close and personal before their release.

We are preparing for regional and state Horse Bowl and Hippology competitions and the upcoming horseshow season. Look on the calendar for important dates.

Spring News

Sring is here and everyone is gearing up for the upcoming show season.
We have several new arrivals including Peaches the donkey and 6 very entertaining guinea fowl
Sadly we said goodbye to an old friend Darius who was born here on the farm. Breeze has gone to a new home in New Jersey complete with a girl to love him. The 4H kids worked very hard all winter on their horse science and general knowledge. The Regional competition was held in Orange County (still waiting for pictures) and both the junior and senior team did well in both horse bowl and hippology so next we're off to state competition at Cornell University April 21.
Now we have to get serious about organizing for our schooling show July 15.

Pumpkin Carving and Apple Picking

On October 15 the Ulster Equistars and Pony People 4H members carved pumpkins that were grown at Green Heron Farm.

WRC Show October 8,2006

We had beautiful weather for the last show of the season. We had another fun day and everyone did well. Again we had several 4Hers on hand to help with the show. Ariel served as ring steward, Joel and Bailey helped with the gates and Kevin was on hand to hand out ribbons. Mc Kinley and Byndenwood had a beautiful over fences class and everyone did really well on the trail course. Here are a few pictures from the day:

Noemi and Bernie with blue ribbon, proving that hard work can be fun.

Mathilde and Matrix in the Walk/Trot Equitation class.

Roberta organizing students and tack for the show day.

We had a wonderful day on Sunday October 8 doing pony rides for the Forsyth Park Nature Center. We took Bernie, Victory and our mascot the mini shetland Da Coda. The ponies were well behaved and we did lots of rides. Some of the kids had their faces painted and it was fun to talk to them about the ponies, the nature center (everyone loves the peacocks) and finding out what people were planning to be for Halloween. Thanks to Jordan, McKinley, Tara and Kevin from the Ulster Equistars for helping out and thanks to Mark and the Kingston Parks and Rec program for having us again this year!