I put this on a separate page so I wouldn't have to sound like an old scold on our main news page. I considered ignoring this little wrinkle of a problem, but it is our policy to talk about our little problems at Longacres as well as about our many good times and triumphs. This is about a disappointment to me.

It is an odd coincidence that just the other day Meghan and I were talking about putting an official "autograph board" into the remodeled Esseress bunk so you guests could sign it and come back in future years and see your names. During the conversation I told Meghan how pleased I was that all our riders in recent years have had great respect for Longacres and we rarely have any problems with minor vandalism or destructive graffiti like we used to have many years ago when there was a much larger Longacres.

Well, I spoke too soon. This morning someone went from one end of the farm to the other writing counselor Mandy's name on many rocks, concrete walkways, and any other flat surface they could find. I'm sure that in their mind, it was a cute way of saying "goodbye" to Mandy, since she would keep noticing it as she walked around the farm. I just wrote this morning about what great kids we had here this week. And I certainly still feel that way.

But who ever you are, please learn from this. It is not cute. We work very, very hard at Longacres to make things look nice for our guests and parents. Colored printing on rocks and walls is not the image we want for Longacres. And someone, whether it is me, Meghan, or one of our valuable part time workers will have to spend a good part of a day going around and cleaning the graffiti off all the rocks and walls that were written on. That's valuable time that could be spent on something like building new jumps or maintaining the trail system. You should have thought about that. And if it was more than one girl involved, one of you should have known better.

Walking around the farm this afternoon, I was put in a bad mood over and over every time I came upon another piece of graffiti. On a day I hoped to have peace and rest.

There - it's out of my system for the moment.

And for those of you reading this who are coming to Longacres later in the summer, now you know one thing you should definitely NOT do here!

- Tom "the clean up man"