If you are driving up Route 1 in Old Lyme, CT and take a left just before Rogers Lake onto Town Woods Road, you will come upon a remarkable place: High Hopes Therapeutic Riding. High Hopes is a facility devoted to serving people with physical, emotional and developmental disabilities. They have been accredited by the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association since 1979. Every year in November they hold a Hoedown and Holiday Market which features dozens of vendors of local foods and crafts, family games and activities, live music and horse-drawn carriage rides. A couple of months back, our friend Chip Dahlke of Ashlawn Farm Coffee mentioned this event to me. I know from experience that when Chip suggests that we might want to take part in an event, such as for the Lyme Midsummer Festival, that's probably a good idea. So we signed up. This morning we packed up lots of granola, Granola Lace (tm) and gift baskets, and headed out to Old Lyme. Today was a beautiful mild fall day, with hazy sunshine and temperatures in the 60s. I spent the day in my Nate's Naturals T-shirt, a rare treat for late November!

The Holiday Market was extremely well-organized and was held inside their main riding arena which is a space the size of a respectable hocky arena. I was delighted that my wife Joanna and our daughter LiLi joined me today. Our greyhounds Liam and Maddie stayed home. The only human member of our family missing was my daughter Laurel who, being in her senior year at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, was unable to attend in person. We met lots of new people and introduced them to our fabulous granola and chocolate granola treats.

There was a lot a great food to be had. We treated ourselves to some excellent burgers and a hot dog for LiLi from Four Mile River Farm, an excellent chocolate Whoopie Pie and some frosted pumpkin cookies from Coffee's Country Market in Old Lyme, and of course a couple of cups of delicious Ashlawn coffee.

LiLi, who is not yet 3 years old, was a champ. She helped us with granola sales and kept us entertained. LiLi and I walked around the beautiful grounds, went down to the duck pond and threw some pebbles in the pond. We visited the horses and ponies who were staying in the stalls in the main arena area, and particularly enjoyed meeting the ponies Kera, Al and Smoky. We also walked down to the other end of the arena, with LiLi on my shoulders, to catch some of the tunes from Silver Hammer, an energetic and talented rock band consisting entirely of high school students. Towards 4 p.m. as things wound down, LiLi wanted to see the horses again and we found the stalls in our building empty. We walked outside in the fading afternoon light, down to the nearby paddocks. There we found Kera, Smoky and Al together in one of the paddocks, nickering and whinnying to each other, and chasing around as fast as their stubby little legs would carry them.

See more photos right here in the gallery I posted to our Facebook page,