Since there haven't been any new releases today, this post will be more of a personal one rather than a release announcement. My husband asked me to limit my Breyer spendings for a few months until we moved into our new house now that we finally have an official closing date of April 1st as long as there are no more hiccups. I didn't realize how much being without my models affected me though until I couldn't see them every day. I kept a few with me that I planned to sell off but the majority are packed away in storage, and I've come to realize that I can't completely leave the hobby. I'm counting down the days until we move in and I can put up my shelves again. Is it just a hobby at this point? Or an addiction? I don't know, but I can't deny the adrenaline rush I feel when I try to beat it to the punch on a new release! I did want to talk about our goals with our new property, since a couple of you have asked me about it. As a bit of history, back in the early 2000s, my then neighbor had the dreams to start a farm animal rescue. She would go to the Mt. Hope and Sugarcreek horse auctions here in Ohio, rescuing as many animals as she could, and then find them permanent homes. On top of all the other farm animals, she started with just three horses and ended up with sixteen by the end of the year. This is where I came in. With that amount of horses, she needed help, and I was all too happy to not only work with the horses, but advocate for animal rescue. She recognized my love of horses and so that was primarily what I worked with. Whenever a new horse came in, I was often the guinea pig thrown up on it for the first ride. This helped me develop a knack for training green horses. Lots of hard work later, I was made a board member and my neighbor's small rescue ended up becoming one of the largest 501(c)3 rescues in the state. When I moved away after marrying my husband in 2011, I lost touch with my neighbor, but I didn't stop doing my share of helping horses in need. Of course, with starting a family and having less time, it was more a side gig so I only rescued a handful of horses since then, mostly retired OTTBs, plus we only had enough acreage to keep a couple horses at a time. So when we saw this beautiful piece of land that was up for sale while we were down in Kentucky last year, it called to us. The tranquility reminded me of something out of a Robert Frost poem and the scenery made my husband think of the Minnesota midwest he grew up in. In other words, we felt at home. Not only that, but it was the perfect place to raise horses because it was hay grass, and thoughts of starting my own little rescue loomed in my mind. I decided to put in an offer, and it was accepted. We found a home and barn builder, and now we're just waiting until the building is completed which is set for the beginning of April. After living in the snow and cloud covered Great Lakes region for the past 10 years, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Kentucky doesn't get much snow. Up near Cleveland where we currently live, it is common for temperatures to fall below freezing for most of the winter and up to 60" of snow yearly. We still have about a foot of snow on the ground as I type this. The snow in the area where we'll be moving to in Kentucky is usually gone by the next day so I'm sure the horses will be happier too. As to my model horse collection, I might be making changes, focusing more on solid colors rather than pintos or appaloosas since their white areas have the tendency to yellow through the years. With northeast Ohio being one of the cloudiest areas in the country due to lake effect, I have a good portion of my collection that needs some window time. We're going to continue being an online only seller and are not planning on opening a physical store location at this time since the majority of our customers are from all over the country, although we do plan to add some other gifts to our store other than just model horses. Within the next year, I will be focusing on obtaining some retired regular runs to sell at all times, not just for sales I hold throughout the year. Our small business will help fund the rescued horses for now since we're a long way from a non-profit organization. As John Heywood wrote, "Rome wasn't built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour". This is my philosophy.
Ashley
2/16/2022 10:12:34 am
Wow, amazing dream!
Shannon
2/16/2022 12:49:11 pm
Congrats on pursuing a dream and making it happen. Is the rescue you mentioned Happy Trails in Ohio? If it is they are trying to sell a bunch of Breyers donated to them for there little store. I gave them some pricing help but you could do a better job helping them. Comments are closed.
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