Spring 2010

Bike Race and Fund Day

Our annual Bike Race and Fun Day is becoming more popular and more fun each year.

The bike race consists of a 17 mile loop around Otisco Lake. We award prizes for a variety of achievements including first, middle, and last place, most colorful, etc. We also have some short and easy rides mapped for less competitive folks. Registration begins at 8 am and bikers depart at 9 am.

Last year, we held our first duck race (rubber ducks) in the small stream by our barn. That proved to be great fun and will be continued as part of our annual event. The ducks start their competition after the bikers return.

We have plans to unveil a new treasure hunt this day and will be shearing our sheep, too. If you haven’t visited Amberations yet, this is a fun day to come. Save the date: Sunday, June 6th.

Sundays in July

Amberations has scheduled a series of events for Sundays in July.

On July 11th Eva Briggs will be demonstrating search and rescue techniques with her certified team of search and rescue dogs.

On July 18th we will host Denise Brennan who will entertain us with her “Cock Tales for Kids of All Ages.”

A T-shirt workshop will be held on July 25th. Call with T-shirt colors and sizes before July 1st (ten dollar fee per shirt).

All events will take place at 5pm, rain or shine. Campfire will follow, weather permitting.

Looking Back and Moving On

About five years ago Amberations was established. Since then, we have rehabbed our barn, adopted and nurtured our small farm family of animals, purchased and installed an out house in our upper fields, removed lots of debris, landscaped and started on trails.

We've had visitors of all types and all abilities including children, teenagers and senior citizens. Our immediate goals are staying afloat financially, developing improved trails and gardens and improving awareness of our presence in the community.

We need volunteers in all capacities. If you are willing to help, please contact us. No experience is necessary. Animal care, letter writing, raking and networking are just a few of the areas we could use help with. Something as simple as feeding the animals once a week could really help us out.

Good Search

In our endless search for painless ways to support our cause we have been united with goodsearch.com. Goodsearch is basically a search engine like Yahoo or Google but goodsearch.com donates to a charity, a penny for every search made.

It’s very easy to set it as your default search engine with Amberations as your charity of choice and let the pennies roll our way.

Goodsearch.com also has a feature to have a percentage of your purchases from your favorite online shopping stores go to Amberations. Just link to the websites from the bottom of Goodsearch.com.

Give Back America

Also, please remember Give Back America. Give Back America is like an online shopping mall that gives a percentage of all purchases to your favorite charity.

Our experience is that if you add it to your bookmarks/favorites it’s a lot easier to remember to use it. Give Back America works with most of your favorite online stores.

Get to Know Joe

Amberations was given a donkey in the early part of 2009. This past summer, we auctioned the naming rights to our donkey and he became Big Joe.

Now that we’ve gotten to know Joe better, we'd like to suggest you to do the same. Joe came to us with the stipulation that he receive a hug every day. He clearly appreciates his hugs and has made it clear he doesn’t want a one armed quickie. He likes two arms wrapped around his neck and your full body weight in the embrace.

If you are visiting the barn and chatting with friends, Joe wants to be a part of things. He will bang his foot on his stall unless you caress his neck or head while you talk. Take your hand off and Joe starts banging. You may notice carabiners holding Joe’s door latched shut. That’s because he’s so smart he’s figured out how to open it...repetitive banging once again.

We regularly let Joe out to roll, run and graze with the sheep. Usually we do this at quiet times, early morning on the weekends or weeknights after dinner. Call if you'd like to arrange some up close and personal time with Joe. Now, we are not saying to just come meet Joe; come get to know him.

Fall Festival

Amberations’ summers seem to escalate in business and climax at our Fall Festival. It seems to take so long to catch up that we often neglect a proper thank you to those that make our festival so special. To all of you that keep us going by visiting, wowing us with your music, dishing out food, donating prizes and ice cream and apples and peppers, making signs, painting faces, chasing ducks and just generally helping to make this day so special, a heartfelt thanks.

Thanks, Class

On April 12th, a group of 17 seventh graders and 3 chaperones from Marcellus Middle School developed a trail by Amberation’s gorge.

The students were part of a learning day of community service orchestrated by the seventh grade English teachers at Marcellus. A little after nine a bus delivered the students who were full of energy.

What has for years been one of Amberations' goals began to take shape. Sticks, leaves and rocks were cleared to define a path through the dense woods. A lot was accomplished in just two short hours.

We hope you will come walk what is now a beautiful path. The students worked hard and were delighted to have time to visit our barn and animals.

Thank you students and all the support staff who made this possible, we really appreciate your hard work.

Thanks class, we really appreciate your hard work and hope you'll come back and visit often.

Amberations Post Cards Unveiled

One of Amberation’s biggest fans and most enthusiastic supporters has created eight unique post cards for our organization.

Ten year old Tristan Wiley completed the cards as part of an Enrichment Project at his school. These great cards include original art created exclusively for Amberations, flattering shots of Big Joe, and whimsical and funny surprises.

Check them out and send them to your friends. The cards can be viewed and purchased online at our website or at the Florist at 1 North in Marcellus. Thank you, Tristan, they are great!