09/28/2026
To tell the story of Aisling Mountain Farm, I have to start with Blaze.
Before Aisling Mountain Farm was even an idea, there was Blaze.
Blaze was a copper-colored Quarter Horse gelding who shone in the sun like a new penny, and he was my heart horse.
Horse people will know what I mean by that. Every horse is special, and every one of them can teach you something (whether you set out to learn it or not!). But every once in a while, if you're very lucky, there is one who changes the course of your life.
Blaze was that horse for me.
He wasn't simply a horse I rode or the first horse I owned. He was my partner and my friend. And over time, as I shared him in various ways with others, I learned that his magic went far beyond me.
There is something remarkable that can happen when a human being and a horse learn to pay attention to one another.
Horses don't care about your résumé or your grades. They don't care how articulate you are, what diagnosis someone has given you, whether you're awkward or popular, or what anyone else thinks of you. They don't judge.
But they do notice you.
They notice how you approach them. They can hear your heartbeat from several feet away. They read your body language. They notice YOU.
And, if you pay attention, they communicate back.
It could be an eager, interested response. Or an "I'm not sure about you yet."
That's part of what makes the relationship so extraordinary. The horse makes choices, too.
Blaze taught me a great deal about that.
That relationship became part of the foundation for what we eventually built here.
Years later, Blaze would become a therapeutic riding horse. He would help people do things they weren't sure they could do. He would stand patiently while someone worked through fear. He would carry riders who were learning not only how to ride a horse, but how to trust themselves.
And, without knowing it, he was helping me figure out what I wanted Aisling to become.
If you read the recent Berkshire Eagle article, you may have noticed the rather unusual wooden horse standing beside me in one of the photographs.
That's Wooden Blaze.
I had him custom-made while the real Blaze was still with us. He's a saddle rack, technically, but he's strong enough to be fully tacked up and sat on. We used him to help riders practice things that felt frightening before asking them to try those things on a living, breathing horse.
He was painted to look like Blaze, right down to his markings.
At the time, it was simply a cool and practical idea.
Now I look at Wooden Blaze very differently.
Because the real Blaze is gone from us.
He is buried here at Aisling Mountain Farm.
Of all the uncertainty about what happens next for this farm and these horses, there is one thing I know with absolute certainty:
Blaze will never leave.
He was here at the beginning.
So that's where I'm going to begin, too.
With Blaze's story.
And, in many ways, the beginning of ours.
