Launching the "Dear Pippin" blog

After writing my “Dear Pippin” post last year (see previous) it occurred to me that I wanted to write more letters to my little white horse and so I decided to launch an entire new blog dedicated specifically to this ongoing project. It’s growing slowly and lives over on the Substack platform, although I will always keep a copy of the most recent letter on the “Dear Pippin” page of my website. I even came up with this little hand-drawn graphic to illustrate the title…

Head over to my Dear Pippin Substack page to watch the video from our first Christmas show together…

Read about a new dream…

And take a peek at photos from Pippin’s 2023, including goofball moments:

… and quiet ones.

If you’d like to subscribe to Dear Pippin and read our letters in your own inbox, you can do so right here:

Snow Days

Snow always reminds me of winters growing up in New England. Being glued to the radio waiting to find out if school had been cancelled, hoping for a day of sledding and Mom's homemade hot chocolate. Building snow forts and ice skating on the pond down the road. Every now and then, a magical night when it just kept snowing and snowing, before cars made tracks on our dead-end street, before the plows woke up. Mom and Dad would pull my brother and me on our sleds for a walk down the road, followed by our black Labrador and occasionally even our cat. Snowy nights like this always felt a little like Christmas Eve, somehow special, little elves working their magic while you sleep and then you wake up to morning wonderland.

John introduced me to cross country skiing when we first met and I've been hooked ever since, although sadly there haven't been many consistently snowy winters in Columbus lately. Just this week we were supposed to get a storm that turned out to be a bunch of rain. It's been a pretty mild winter, and I'm so grateful for the snow we did get this month. John and I explored the canal path in Hebron which I'd seen from route 70 and always wondered about— it goes through a covered bridge!— and hit our close-to-home favorite trail at Glacier Ridge Metro Park.

Tracks on the trail

The Glacier Ridge woods

Covered foot bridge in Hebron

Snow day for Pippin

Totally on my bucket list though?— riding Pippin in the snow. It gave me a glimpse of what winter life might be like when we move to Vermont in a few years, and I loved it.

(Photos of me & Pip courtesy of Maddy Hayes)

Happy Christmas to You!

I’ve been putting off writing about Pippin because I don’t really know where to start. It was all so overwhelming in the beginning that I didn’t blog about it, and then I didn’t know whether to start with the present moment or start from the beginning until we caught up. I finally decided I could do both, and so I am introducing Pippin with this photo that makes me feel so joyful. It was taken last year at the barn where we were boarding; they have a holiday get-together every year called “Christmas for the Horses” at which a real tree is decorated with carrots, apple slices, and candy canes; and the horses, decorated for the occasion by their owners or barn kids, are turned out two at a time to nibble away. In the photo above, Pippin (on the right) is with his best friend at the time, a newly-off-the-track Thoroughbred named Remy.

Once the horses have had a few minutes at the tree, they get to visit onlookers at the fence who offer more treats and pet their noses while the tree is redecorated for the next round.

Pippin loved it—he’s so gentle with kids!—and this festive event was one of the things that truly filled me with Christmas spirit.

I’m looking forward to finally putting down stories about my time with Pippin in this blog. It’s been one of the most amazingly beautiful-frustrating-rewarding adventures I’ve ever been on. Blessings abound, and I (and Pippin) wish you a joyful, happy Christmas :-)