Welcome to There You Are!

Welcome to Episode number 1!  

Jess and Cathy want to welcome you, and say, There You Are!  And here we are! Our first episode.  We will share what we know, (you don’t know what you don’t know), and we don’t know everything for sure.  We are all learning, living and loving.  We have been in relationship for 32 years. We will be talking some about that—what work it has been.  We will be talking about what we do in our lives—Cathy is a teacher of horses and people in the sport of 3-Day Eventing.  Jess is a licensed clinical social worker, and has her office in the back of the house here on the farm, where she counsels individuals, couples, and families. We try to live our lives fully in this adventure of life!   Thanks for joining our conversation!  Please subscribe and share.

Theme song and host introduction. Jess and Cathy welcome listeners to There You Are, introduce themselves, and share what the show is about and who it's for.

Theme song and closing words from Jess and Cathy, including a call to action to share the episode, leave a review, and tune in next week.

Cathy is a professional at training and teaching the sport of Three Day Eventing. Her website is: 

https://www.cwevent.com

Jess is a licenced clinical social worker.  She see's clients in her office in the back of the house here at the farm.   

Her website is:

https://www.jessicabollinger.com

Transcript

1:39

All right, here we are. And there you are. And there you are. I'm Jesse Bollinger. And I'm Cathy. Yeah. Wieschhoff. But don't worry about my last name. Yeah, it's all good. W-I-E-S-C-H-H-O-F-F. Wieschhoff. There's no other Wieschhoff's in the United States is what I tell people. Maybe there's a couple, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're happy to be here and, I feel like I wanted to do this podcast with you because we have a lot to say a lot to share. We've been together, this is our 32nd year together, and there's a lot to share about how we've come along in our relationship, and how we've got a great relationship and how we've built a good relationship, things like that, and how we've evolved in our careers. Yeah. I you are a therapist. You can talk more about that. I train horses for a living and teach people the sport of three day Eventing, but how it's evolved of being totally immersed in a actual competitor and trying to get to the upper levels and evolving as a teacher and a course designer. And so I think we have a lot to share to the community. Yeah. Whatever that community may be. We're glad you're listening. You're a part of the community. If there's something that you want us to talk about or discuss, please please send us a message. I, in the way that we grew up, I grew up in the same house my whole life, and I grew up as a, military, not a military brat. I was a really good kid actually. But yeah, you don't wanna call yourself a brat. No. It's an interesting, because people, I look at, my dad was career, Navy, and I look at the opportunity of living, even though we moved every two years of living in different places. Growing up as I looked at that as a good thing. I didn't look at it as, oh, I never had a home. And I see the benefits. That you have of be being in one house your whole life and having the community that you have of all your basketball friends and people you've been friends with for forever. And and I don't have that in a sense, but I do have it in a sense. But I look at it as a good way. I got to live in really cool places and traveled a lot growing up and I still wanna travel as that bug is in me. But but yeah, it's good. Yeah. So your dad was Navy and y'all moved every three years. Yeah. Two to three years. Yep. And I grew up the same house all my life and then when I went away to college, some of my friends growing up, their kids went to the very same schools that they went to and had this very same teachers and so there that, there's that beautiful continuity. Continuity there. Yeah. Yeah. But I think that getting back to. What we're gonna talk about, we're not really sure what we're gonna talk about, but we've learned a lot. Like I said with our career development relationship development and bringing along our people that are in our circles and helping them out in different ways, bringing along horses, watching the, that's what I seem to see. I see the horses and the kids. Grow up and and move on to other things or stay with and that's just a, that's a really cool part of my life of being able to witness that. Seeing the development of the horse, seeing development of the riders. Yeah. We live, I feel like our life is an adventure. When we have friends to come visit, they go, oh, you, you're, you have such a community. Yeah. We are on an adventure. We have a 92 acre farm just in a really great location right by, right five miles from town, Lexington, Kentucky, and it's a beautiful place with beautiful people that help us make this place. A good place. We have really great people who have a lot of talents and treasures that help us run this place. And yeah, so we run a boarding facility. To give you, you're not being very clear here, Jess. Okay. So we have a 92 acre farm and we live here on the farm. Jess, as is a relationship therapist, and we had put an addition on the house. She's better with dates and times than I am several years ago. So she sees her clients here at the farm pretty much after COVID started doing a little bit more zoom. So her office is here at the farm. I say my office is here at the farm because I do all my teaching and training of horses here on the farm. So it's, great. And so we board people's horses, we take care of them. I give lessons and teach them the sport of eventing and jumping and dressage and natural horsemanship. A lot of other avenues. But it's so when Jess talks about the community, we probably have 30 plus horses here, and we probably have 25. Or maybe a few more people that actually pay to keep the horses here and we take care of 'em. So we've got really good help that's been with us for a long time. Really smart people that we can count on that they actually do most of the taking care of the horses. I manage. The farm just manages. The overall house and business. And pay the bills. Pays the pay the bills, exactly. Yeah. As far as Carriage station, farm, that's the name of our farm. And I named it that because before I moved here back in 1986, I had gone to Australia. To to travel for about a month or five weeks because I thought, if I'm moving to this farm, I'm gonna really just be like planted there and I'm not gonna be able to travel much. And so I took a solo trip to Australia and New Zealand, and I love the way that the farms in, in Australia called stations and I loved carriages and I had bought a carriage at an auction up in. Lebanon, Ohio before I moved to the farm, but, so I named a carriage station farm and that's where the name came from. Is kinda like, 'cause Australia has stations instead of farm instead of farms. Farms. Yeah. Yeah. Did you know that? I did know that. I'm not lying. I did know that. Yes. Yeah. The carriage is still in the garage, but the wheels are hanging in the barn. Yeah. I never did put that carriage back together, but it does rep, it does represent a lot about the farm. The wheels are beautiful and hanging up in the middle of the barn, underneath the cupola. Yeah. So you described the farm. Yep. And it's fun. How the farm is has evolved and how our lives have evolved together. It's been like a braid. And it's just beautiful and a lot we can talk about is how we try to give back. I was hearing somebody say that serving is the rent that we have to pay, in our lives is serving and giving back and doing things that give back. And you've always been on different boards and given back to the associations. Oh, okay. Yeah. It took me a second to, to click in there Uhhuh, but I think that there's just this a few years ago it was always, and I'm just hearing it come up now because of everything that's going on outside of our little world. Is just that when you say serving, even if you just smile at somebody, like I walked in the bathroom yesterday at the Get and Go, and there's this whole little family in there, washing their hands, and I said, Hey, how y'all doing today? And they just beamed at me and smiled and it was just like, to me that is almost a giving, I look at that as a giving thing. That's the initial. Smile at somebody and say hello to them and and then moving on from there. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Absolutely. That's, they were so cute. That's the little minutia that, that makes. Life rich is those little tiny givings that we do. Now, if you're gonna use big words, you gotta, I gotta have a dictionary. What's minutia mean? No you use a lot of big words. I do. I'm teasing it. Yeah. Yeah. The little things. The little things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just like how we've navigated our relationship, because here we are we've been together 32 years. We got married in 2014. Uncle Ken, your brother always knows. Yeah, that year always reminds us, Hey, it's your anniversary. Anniversary. But anyway we got married when we were allowed to get married, when it was gonna make a difference. And when it became legal but back in the 90, back in the nineties being gay it was we didn't have that many models of long-term relationships. Not that we knew about, not that we knew about. That was the problem. There are probably a lot of people around us that were, but you didn't know about it 'cause it wasn't safe. We have a lot of unaccepted, we have a lot of, we have a lot of good friends now in our couples groups that, that have been together even longer than us. Yeah. Uhhuh. Yeah. Which is so fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. But that's what we can talk about too, is how we've made this work. 'cause relationships. Help us grow. Yes. I got in, I, my first degree was Ag economics. I graduated, they've got a whole new ag center. I just drove past UK, a new building. It's a whole new building at the University of Kentucky. They tore down my building and it's yes, it's beautiful. Just like broad and expanded. Anyway, love it. I digress. Carry on you digress. Graduated in 1980 with a degree in ag economics. I put in my resume that I'd ridden a bicycle across the country. I did that because I wanted to tell, tell the employer that I was diligent and I was a hard worker to pedal in away. Yeah. So anyway, my dad reads my resume and he says, you just sound like a free spirit. What are you gonna do? And I go. Dad, I think Lexington needs a fruit market. And Dad said, look into it. And so I did. I spoke to people in the business in Louisville. 'cause I grew up in Louisville where there were a lot of fruit markets. And I went to college in Lexington, 60 miles east of Louisville, and there were zero fruit markets. Did you take your laundry home every weekend? When I was in school. Yeah. No, I never went home. Oh, okay. No. Anyway I have a story about that. Yeah. Okay. We got some property and I borrowed against an apartment building that dad had given each of us an apartment building. And that kind of goes back to his childhood. When he was growing up, there were eight brothers and sisters, and my grandpa was in the pest control business. And, anyway, he said the kids took care of this apartment, this tenant house or whatever they called it. What'd they call those back then? I forget. But the kids had to collect the rent. They had to clean the hallways and stuff like that. They collected the rent every Friday when the people got paid. Oh, okay. So grandpa didn't have to pay taxes 'cause they belonged to the kids. Smart Anyway so I started this fruit market in 81, and I ran that for 15 years. And in the meantime, Jessica's fresh fruits and vegetables on Nicholasville Road. It was right next to Jeff's car wash. Many of you listening may remember, but it was fun 'cause you'd go take your car and get it washed and you'd go next door and shop at the market. And then if they didn't see you out there to grab your car, the guys would just take it and park it right next door in your parking lot. Yeah, it was, I love that. Yeah. It was Jessica's quality. Quality, oh, excuse me, quality fresh foods. And I drove a fruit market truck to Louisville three days, week. Yeah, I drove a box truck, like a 24 foot box truck. Got up at 3:00 AM this is when I'm 22 years old. Drove a box truck at three days a week to the Louisville produce terminal. Anyhow, did that for 15 years and that we opened that up in June of 81. You did? Yeah. I wasn't, no, I say we, and I always say we because I don't ever do anything by myself. It was the people that worked for me and it's just beautiful. I didn't want our audience to infer, make, when you said we that it wasn't you. I didn't really know you yet. But anyway, the farm came along in 86. And I interviewed you to come work at the farm. Yeah. And I had just gotten hired, which is unheard of to actually get paid a salary instead of you know what? A freelancer be self-employed, so I turned you down. Yeah. You were getting a salary. Yeah. And so that was just like. That was like gravy train for you. You said it was, you give away you give a lot of Christmas gifts because you got a salary. I had a salary, yep. But yeah, so my, my, my goal was to have this farm be a, an eventing farm. Because I always wanted to learn this sport. My horse that I had, Jesse James, he was an American saddlebred, but I love to jump and to drive him and do stuff like that. And my friend Nell Pierce, near Nell Pierce Bradley, now she did a venting and I love that. And I wanted to learn the sport. Anyway, so that's how the farm came along. I was 27 when I moved here. And I remember my mom being up here from Louisville and I'm like, stacking rocks at the end of the barn, down by the hay shed uhhuh. Yeah. And she goes, are you gonna be able to take care of all this? And I said yeah, there's this youthful kind of yeah, I can do that. Just kinda like I didn't worry about stuff. Just did it. Yeah. Just took it on Anyway. We degrass, but that's the background of the farm. And then Cathy came in 91 to Carriage Station farm and enhanced it with her spirit and with her professional knowledge and her teaching ability and yeah. Now we, the people boarded, Jess offered a place for people to board, but we had, she built all the little jumps. We still have a couple standards left. She built the little stand, the standards and got the poles and, had, a little course that we could practice. We had the arena, we built the arena. I had, there's an outdoor arena, right? 180 by 240 foot. Yeah. Outdoor arena. 120 by 240. Okay. Just 'cause I know what the dressage yeah. But yeah, so then slowly with, developing the farm as a three day event training facility where now we have a covered arena. We have a dressage arena, which is helpful when you're training for eventing. And she just redid her dressage arena and it just opened up last week. Yeah. And it's amazing. Yeah. Glenn just tri transformed it. Yeah. Yeah. And then we have a lot of cross country schooling jumps, and I redid all the. Purchased a brand new set of show jumps about 10, 15 years ago. Because when I teach lessons, I teach a lot of people during the day, and and raising and lowering the jumps is, was always my nemesis. And now the system that everybody's using now with keyhole cups is so much easier. So anyway, so I, I love having the people here and teaching and all the horses. Yeah. Yeah. We ha you, you're famous for teaching adult amateurs. Yeah. I've got I'm very patient. Everybody has a goal and you can't push people past what their comfort zone. I've been teaching a long time. I'm six, how old am I now? 66. Yeah. About, so I'm a year older, a year wiser. I'm 67, about to be 68. Our birthdays are in April, but I'm an Aries and she's a Taurus. Yeah. If we were both bulls it probably wouldn't work. Wouldn't have worked, exactly. But I lost track of where I was the students and, Oh yeah. Adult amateurs. Yeah. I've been teaching. Started in Pony Club. Pony Club was a great organization that teaches young kids about horsemanship and riding and take, being independent, being able to take care of your horse by yourself. And so that was a, but they also teach you to teach there. And so I was start, was teaching when I was 16 years old or 14 years old. People, kids in pony club. And then when I came to Lexington, I was 18. Yeah. And getting ready to go to college and that's another, that could be another podcast. Yeah. But but so I've been teaching for that long and I have a really good intuition of where a rider is, what I can ask them to do listening to them when they tell me that they're not comfortable and I. I start my, when I do my clinics, I said, I don't want you to jump anything that you don't feel comfortable jumping, especially cross country, because those jumps do not fall down. And but I said and if you're uncomfortable about it, I want you to tell me so we can discuss it. So then a lot of times I can work a rider through a problem, and then they're gonna feel better about themselves. So I'm very. I'm very good at doing that, and I love doing it. And it doesn't matter all people, I don't need to teach upper level people. I want everyone to have their own goals and I help them achieve those goals. And if it's doing a cross rail show, jumping course or three star level event everyone is the same at that point. Because they're to you. To me. Yeah. They're working hard at something. They need my help, my encouragement, my expertise, and I want to help them achieve whatever goal, whatever their goal is, whatever their goal is and that they feel comfortable and safe. That goes without, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Comfortable and safe. Yeah. If Cathy ever gets it gets activated. It's because she thinks something might not be safe for somebody. Yeah. If I raise my voice in a lesson, usually it's because I can see impending doom. You must stop now. Turn left. Turn left. If y'all don't know what eventing is, it's a really cool equestrian sport where you do three phases with the same horse. You do dressage, which is flat, doing like figures, and then you, I equate it to figure skating where you have a pattern. Compulsory figures, you have to ride a pattern and everybody gets judged on that pattern. Go ahead. And so you start with that score, and then you go to show jumping. And if you knock a rail down in show jumping, you get four penalties. And then you do cross country also. And that's at a full gallop over as you said? No it's galloping. It's fast. Not a full gallop though. You okay? You do. You do a gallop over solid cross country obstacle. Solid. Solid wood. Obstacles. Go look it up. Yeah. And then you your cumulative score then determines your placing and there's different levels. And you bring the horse up the different levels so that they feel comfortable and that the rider feels comfortable. When the, when that level starts to feel really easy to the rider and to the horse, then it might be time to move level if you want to move up. Some people like. You did it. You went intermediate one time and said, I'm not doing that again. I didn't sleep the night before. Yeah. But yeah, whatever they're comfortable with, we've known people who just keep winning these blue ribbons and staying in novice exactly. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a description of Cathy Sport, and you're talking about yourself and your career of meeting the rider where they are. And that's what I do in my therapy practice is meet my clients where they are and they where do you wanna go? What do you feel stuck at? And. And do you wanna be the, how do you wanna be the change that you seek? How would that feel? Because sometimes we get familiar with just how life is, and even though it might be something that we want improved, right? You don't know what to know. We might be scared and a lot of times we can be scared of success. True. Yeah. Yeah. Her eyes just lit up. No eyes A rider. This is all going so well, what's gonna go wrong? And I was like, oh my God, don't go there. Seriously, get a session with Jess now. I'm teasing. Yeah, that's the, that, just let me speak to that real quick. That's what's really cool is that I'm really good at my job and Jess is really good at her job, but sometimes. She'll tell her clients, if you wanna go take a walk around the farm, and I'll just see these people and I know that we, I don't ever know who they are, but I go, those must be clients of Jess that are just having a nice walk around the farm and petting a horse or walk, going to the creek. And then, so that's cool that, that her, the space that we have here, that people can do that. But then on my end. A lot of times especially with some of my people, the competition wise, they, it, the practice goes really well and then you get to the competition and it doesn't go so well. And a lot of times I'll say, go get a session with Jess and help her work. Have her help you work through this because because I've done my homework, but I'm not sure mentally how I can help you with that end of it. And that that's been really helpful. Yeah. So sometimes we collaborate she might have a ride that might have had a bad fall and so that they ride ply. And you can't be a good partner to your horse if you're holding back and scared. Yeah. Yeah. You can talk about your own experience later on about that if you want. Oh yeah. So we're here and it's all gonna be fun. Yeah. It's all good. We're excited to do this. Yeah. Yeah. And. The music. We didn't wanna start this till our friend Carla Gover wrote our beautiful song. She's so creative, so amazing and that's why I'm sitting here and that's why you're sitting there. Is we have beautiful, resourceful people around us Yeah. That make things happen. Exactly. Now you, it's 6 32 Monday morning, am and Willie got here probably 15 minutes ago and started doing the feed and Juve's come in and he's brought the horses up and it's, we can't do this without people. Without people, and without you listening. Please pass this around and let people know we're doing this. And anyway, enjoy Carla's song and we love you all and we want you to know that you're important to us. And just another, just comment also because we're just winging this and talking about what we can share with you. But if there's something that, I know Jess said this, right? That at the beginning. But if there's something that you wanna, you want us to talk about, we're happy to do it. There you are. There you are. I love you and I love you all listeners. Take care, peace and love. It's all good.