I just signed up for Medicare yesterday. Seems that this is a good time to update the site with the latest goings on.
We’re putting Cascade Gold up for sale, and downsizing to a smaller place north of here. This is bittersweet, as we’ve been here since 1990, raised our kids here, raised lots of gorgeous horse kids, and have had a (mostly) wonderful time.
Over those years, I’ve made lots of friends, got to know lots of people and their horses and I treasure each memory. Right now, I look out my window on November 4th, 2026 and see the sun lighting up the changing leaves on the trees, glimmering on the frost on the front lawn, see the horses munching their breakfast hay and all I can think of is: I don’t want to go outside to work. It’s cold, my joints ache, there is so much to be done outside and more to be done inside. I see that glorious fall foliage and the fog rising from the ground and all I want to do is ride my horses. OK, enough of that!
I thought I’d see if I can find photos that show the progression of Cascade Gold from that day in 1990 when we moved in, and how we’ve changed since then. Meandering down Memory Lane usually takes lots of turns. I found a bunch, but I think most from our early days are stored in boxes.
When we first moved in, the house, barn and fencing was brand new – the previous owners had bought the original 5 acres as raw land and lived in a trailer while clearing and building everything. Their first building was a small barn that is still there. The house was a gift from one of the owner’s parents, I believe the parent was a custom home builder. Even now, we joke that we can tell where the professional ended and the owner took over. The arena was brand new and had one side of stalls. The fencing was new, mostly from wood cut on the property.
Unfortunate family matters made selling necessary for them and we lucked into it by happenstance.
We didn’t have a home inspection – I mean, it’s brand new, right? What could be wrong? Well, mostly it was what hadn’t been finished – took us about 10 years to figure out the inside hadn’t actually been painted, just primed. There were little things that hadn’t yet been done, but we were young, impatient and didn’t notice.
Once we moved in, I promptly got pregnant and our first daughter was born in December of 1990. I was still working outside the home for a while, until I had enough boarders to work in the barn fulltime.
Larry continued to work long hours at various software firms while I ran the farm, had the kids, rode and started my breeding operation, Cascade Gold Akhal-Tekes. I look back and marvel at the energy and impatience of youth. While doing all that, I started the Akhal-Teke Quarterly in 1995, I also had the first Akhal-Teke conference in N. America in 1996 – I think we put it on about 2 months after the original idea and got over 30 people from all over the US. That was the start of my Teke Trek – I was involved with the ATAA (Akhal-Teke Association of America) from 1997 on, did many of the events and promotions, traveled, competed, bred lovely horses and met so many wonderful people.
The kids grew up doing barn chores and becoming hard working, good people. I still laugh thinking about my son, age 9 or so, picking up local hay with us from the field, crying as he complained the hay was too heavy. I told him to roll it over, which he did. Years later, the last time he helped out in the field, he picked the bales up with one hand. To be fair, he was a lot taller, older and stronger.
I can look around the property and see many years of Christmas trees – every year, we’d get a living Christmas tree and then plant it somewhere on the property. We finally got the point where there really isn’t much room for a tree to spread out, so we went to artificial trees.
There was always something lovely going on – this phenomona got us all out of the house to exclaim!
It really changed when we started caring more for our parents. We were that sandwich generation, where the kids were almost grown, but our parents needed more help. It was a priviledge, but it took time, more as they aged.
I had said that once the parents were gone and the kids were grown it’s time for us. Well, that time has come. Cascade Gold has gone from 5 acres to 10 acres, so many projects and upgrades have been done, so many tears, both happy and sad, have been shed, and now it’s time to move on.
