I came to Blue Star in early January 2011, over Smith College’s January Break. It was a serendipitous moment for me – I needed a job or an internship, and was really missing hanging around animals. I missed animals so much that I turned down an extended stay with my grandmother on the beach in Florida to come back east to shovel ice and snow and poop every day for that month. Needless to say, I didn’t regret it. I learned more that month than I had in a semester. Being out there every day knocked a lot of things into place for me. Schoolwork made more sense, my body was happier, and I was happier (ignoring the occasional bout of frostbite). After the first week, I was hooked. It doesn’t take a college degree to realize there is something amazing about Blue Star.

I grew up on a small farm outside of Rochester, NY with three horses, two goats, a lot of chickens and the usual motley assortment of cats, small animals and dogs. At Smith, I study what I love, which is art and English literature, but post-college I want to be a farmer. People sometimes laugh when I say that and ask me why I would bother with a Smith degree and Smith tuition if what I really want to do is muscle around piles of dirt, but I know there is a way to combine it all – I am not worried about it. I’ll figure it out when I grow up, or more likely it will figure itself out with a little help.

Until then I want to learn as fast I can about whatever I can, and, just like the drafts I have a soft spot for, preferably learn it while eating.

As far as horses go, I’ve been riding since I was 8, which was the earliest my mother would let me, and quickly realized I wasn’t interested in the English show circuits. The disconnect I found there between people and the animals they worked with was unsettling, and didn’t make sense. Since then I try to train with as much natural horsemanship as I can, and am always looking to learn new ways of communicating and working with horses towards a more trusting, productive partnership. Slowly but surely I am learning how to drive, and in my secret heart of hearts dream of a bucolic little sheep farm on the coast of Maine some day, with a draft team and a few organic crops and a lot of blueberries and snow. In the meantime, I want to show people how amazing and beautiful these animals are. Even the funny looking ones.