Surprise! Its me, back from the blogging graveyard as a new, and improved writing zombie! Sorry blog, I may have neglected you for the past couple months by not paying attention to you at all… but I am back and (hopefully) not disappearing into procrastion land again. Oops!

So, why am I back you say? Because I am being forced to! Whoohoo! Kidding. (but not really). So lets play a little game called where’s abbey, and why? Really big island. Sheep and Horses are the only living things that inhabit this land besides tourists and indie instagram models. Cold and wet. Waterfall motherland. Elves count as citizens. Did you get it? Im in…

Iceland! I’m actually here for school. Strange right? Im on a photography course abroad for 3 weeks, with this wonderful program called Broadreach. Eleven students and two teachers, are going around all of Iceland to take pictures of literally everything. No really, our fingers are practically glued to our sacred cameras. Every few days we have a fun new assignment, usually photos of course. For example, our last assignment we had to turn in two panoramas, two HDRs, and four long exposure photos. We then turn them in and we all then critique each others in a big group, not terrifying at all right? We also every now and then have journal assignments, a one page essay critiquing our own work, or other students work. And now this is now one of our assignments! Create a blog, (already had that down) and then create a blog post showcasing some of our photos and adventures! So here I am and lets get to it!

We all started off as complete strangers, but now were all enemies who fight to the death for the photo of the day. Just kidding, but that would be a good blog post. Were all very close now, I mean how couldn’t you become close with everyone after after being around each other 24/7. In all serious, we’re all very close friends now, and we were all so lucky to be a group together. And of course we all have this one little thing in common, our love for photography! What a coincidence.

So for one our first locations we went this national park called Þingvellir, and it’s wild. Basically the park is really famous because, One it has cool waterfalls, two its where the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates split, creating this crazy scene of a huge rock wall that goes on for probably a mile or two, giving us a cool backdrop. We treaded through the sea of tourists to an adorably grand waterfall. Of course everyone with a right hand, had their phones, cameras, or go pros out, and so did we of course. I was more interested in all the different looking tourists around us, old, young, grumpy, bored, smiling for the photo kind of people. And naturally, there was one kid in a blinding red rain coat, who had to get a picture for the gram, so he decided that walking out to the slimy wet “Do not go on” rocks, would look so cool, a few girls would HAVE to slide into his DMs. But only if his poor buddy would be a good enough photographer for him with his iphone 5. So I of course, started to take photos of this kid, which ended up to be a pretty cool shot for me, resulting in this bad boy.

And if you’re reading this basic white boy, thanks for the photo, bro.

After I captured the wannabe jay alvarez, we went, snorkelling? wait that doesn’t sound right… Snorkelling in Iceland? Did they mean Deforesting? But wait, iceland already has no trees? ok I read that right, snorkelling… we went snorkelling in Iceland. They dressed us up in two heavy, thick dry suits. So basically we looked like astronauts that were disguised as fat blubbery seals. The water was 34 degrees fahrenheit, so as it was really really cold, our scuba instructors decided to put rubber bands around our neck and wrists to REALLY keep us dry. One of the rubber band dog collars almost choked our photography instructor Chris to death, thankfully he was freed of his rubber ties and was fine. But you’re probably still thinking, “why of all the cool things to do in Iceland, why would anyone go snorkelling in near freezing waters?” well this is the cool part, the snorkelling is in a trench that was created when the tectonic plates split, so basically we were swimming in between North America, and Eurasia. Now that makes a little bit more sense doesn’t it? The water was also part of a glacier, melted down over time, making it also a very large refreshment trench. It was defiantly a once in a life time experience. If you want to read more about snorkelling here, click here https://www.dive.is/dive-sites/silfra

another shot of the amazing waterfall at þingvellir.

One our next adventures was going to Thórsmörk, which is a humungous inhabited valley named after this special little norse god called, you guessed it, Thor! My one complaint about this place was that I saw neither the god Thor, or our other god Chris Hemsworth. Real bummer, especially the second one… But most of the adventure was getting to Thórsmörk. We left our trusty van “Frankie” for a monster truck bus. We set off for another hour drive passing so many water falls laying on the sides of the mountains, They’re so common here I don’t even take pictures sometimes! (gasp). The monster truck bus was throwing us around in our seats on the rocky roads to the valley of Chris Hemsworth. The driver randomly pulled over to show us a beautiful scene of a glacier at the top of one of the mountains. With our cameras in hands, we shot at the mountains for the kill. I ended up captured this photo that almost made me think I was in space, which Im pretty sure I wasn’t, unless Iceland is just really a freaky place, which it is.

Interstellar or Iceland?

It was probably two minutes after I took this picture that I got bored, and went back to my luscious monster truck bus seat to continue my nap. The dark rocks look like barnacles on the bottom of a whale belly and thats really what did it for me. Whale bellies. So we eventually made it to our “volcano huts” (aka basic wooden huts semi close to a volcano) in thorland, and had a rather fabulous time. But our journey is still ongoing, so I must say farewell. We have one more week left on our Icelandic journey, so ill let you guys know how the rest of it goes.

See you later

Absters

If you are familiar with that name, you know me because of my horses, riding, and my farm. Harlon Farms is my home and the home to my animal collection, but its only been our home for a little while. So once upon a time, I lived back and fourth between my moms house, and my dads apartment, a little more than an hour apart from each other. Mom on the weekdays, Dad sometimes on the weekends, as my school was much closer to my moms. But of course I rode 5 days out of the week, 45 mins from my moms, much longer from my dads. The drives were a routine, and spending every blinking moment of my weekends showing or practicing. Basically my mom was becoming my taxi service, but aren’t most moms? Almost all of my friends rode, except my childhood bestie, Julie, my next door neighbor. We hung out almost every single day, countless sleepovers, and a few forceful trips to the barn. No matter how hard I tried, she just didn’t care for horses, let alone wanted to ride them. I wanted her to ride with me so badly, but she never gave. So instead, I would make her  play with my Breyer horses with me all the time, poor Julie. By the time I had the word “teen” in my name we drifted apart. No drama, no issues, just change I guess.

I had a lot of issues with lower school, had a really hard time focusing, really shy, played hookie all the time, poor grades, and just dreaded school. I would give my up my right arm if it meant I never had to go to school, yea that bad. Julie was the complete opposite. Straight A student, always did all of her chores, never missed a day, 15 mins early, yeah, that kid. We we’re pretty opposite. But the one think that didn’t make me feel like a complete loser in life was with horses. It was something that I looked forward to, something that I was actually good at, and wanted to keep getting better at. The horse was an animal that I was always drawn to. They were noble, proud, courageous and spiritual creatures. Every single one of them screamed freedom to me. I rode at a very prestigious hunter jumper barn. It was pristine, disciplined, and extravagant. They were the ones to go to if you really wanted to be serious about horse showing in the hunter jumper world. They taught me from when I was 7 years old, and until I was 16. It was my second home. Monday was the day off, Tuesday was the day they rode them and made sure they were tuned and listening, and the rest of the week it was lesson after lesson, and show after show. It was my life. But the one thing I wasn’t granted of, was freedom with my horses, they were very strict with what you did with them. They were basically bubble wrapped ponies. I loved it, but always craved that desire to just pull a horse out of their stall, hop on bareback with a makeshift bridle from a halter and lead rope, and just gallop off into a magical forrest, but that wasn’t exactly happening. So I relieved that craving by watching youtube videos of other girls doing those things with their horses, giggling in the sun shine, falling off and getting back on, riding with your friends through the river, that sorta thing. But instead of it relieving my crave, it only made me want that freedom even more. So thats when the “I want a farm daddy” idea was born. My mom being an avid house lover, took my idea and ran, and before I knew it we were set up with a Realtor looking at “farms”. My 13 year old self was pretty thrilled. We looked a few, mainly looking for the potential in it, but we hadn’t really found anything we loved. Until, the creme de la creme of properties, the “OMG I NEED it” kind of reaction, it was our wildest house dreams come true, ok maybe not that great but we were a little dramatic. It was our house soul mate. It was in dreamy neighborhood, minutes from where I rode. A 30 foot hedge protected the property, it reminded of us of Disney world, the lawn was a fluffy carpet of vibrant green. The trees towered around the drive was, giving a beautiful shaded light to the 5 acre property. The landscaping was meticulous. You felt like you were at Disney worlds Epcot with how amazing the property looked. It had a beautiful round about driveway, and the house looked perfect. We gave it a tour and fell in love, 3 bedrooms, huge master, great space, and the pool was protected by a 2 story pool screen, it was about the prettiest pool screen as a pool screen could get. The property was 5 acres, all beautifully landscaped, and we were already planning on where the barn and arena would go. Our hearts were set. They planned for us to also tour the property next door the same day, so just for fun we gave it a go, but it was a sure no go. It was an overgrown abandoned mess. The door of the house had a big sticker in white lettering, R.I.P so and so. Not exactly what you want to see when touring a potential home. Not a real big fan of ghosts either. This was already looking great! The house was a real tear down, and the property was taken over by weeds and mosquitos. We weren’t loving it. We later learned that it was the neighborhood crack house. Lovely. So we scratched that one off the list.

So with our hearts set on our little paradise house, we decided to go through with it. My 13 year old self was practically bouncing off the walls. With a little negotiating, they finally accepted our offer! We were ecstatic. We already were meeting with architects and designers about the barn we planned on building, there were blue prints and everything. But of course it was too good to be true….

The Jack ass owner decided that he didn’t want to sell his little Epcot style of a home, even after he accepted our offer. My mother was devastated. My little dream was about to come true, and then the dude had to pop it with a machete. Ouch. So us being so determined, we decided to buy the crack house!!! Yay? Of course the owners of the crack house were dying to sell, so they accepted, and actually signed the contract this time. So crack house bound we were. Epcot to crack, just like that. Okay okay I’m done with the crack jokes. We were new owners, but now we had to start from scratch. We were still excited, but just a little less bouncing off the walls… The property wasn’t even going to be livable, until two and half years from then, but what can you do? So now I continued to dream about my galloping around, but now I had an idea of where I was going to run around on my noble steed. After a while, my little paradise was finally ready. Now did it look like our next door paradise? Not really, maybe on a really good day, but I was just thrilled to finally get in the freaking place. With improvements and more building, my paradise was formed, and I finally got to itch that dang itch of wanting that freedom with horses. Our dream farm didn’t end up what we imagined it to be, but I still wouldn’t have it any other way. I still rode and kept my show horses at the barn down the street, as they were used to their bubble wrapped life. So new horses and animals came into my life, Wayne, Lilo, Sport, Gem, Rivaldo, Red fish, Zimo, Stanley, Eric the donkey, Sven the mini, the chickens, the ducks, and of course poise the pig. And we all rode off into the sunset together, as one big happy family.

THE END

And that’s the story of how Harlon Farms became Harlon Farms. Oh and the name? Harlon is my middle name! Who knows how my mom came up with, she says its a derivative of harry, which was my dads father, the jewish like to name their kids after dead people.

See you soon,

Absters