From the President
I’ve missed a couple issues, so going to regress a bit and bring everyone up to date.
First, we enjoyed a fantastic weekend at Hocking State Forest during our Halloween ride in October. The weather could not have been more perfect. The leaves on the trees were turning colors and we had a great turn out. Some trailers came and went due to other commitments, but from Thursday through Sunday we had no less than 17 trailers camping. One would leave and another would pull in within minutes. All total, 30 plus members logged miles and enjoyed the weekend.
The end of October we finished our last work project of the season. One of our members, John Kougher had donate construction materials to our club for use as tie rails and benches out on the trails at Hocking State Forest. We had set aside enough of this donation to construct 2 tie rails and 1 bench on the red trail in an area known as Buckskin Canyon. A fantastic crew showed up and within an hour and a half the project was complete. The Buckskin Canyon area is a little isolated from the main trails, but well worth the ride. Water falls, rock formtations, creeks and just flat beautiful riding. Give it a try next trip to Hocking.
At our November OHC meeting, our membership elected our officers for 2023. For better or worse, I’m still President (Chris Streitenberger). Our new Vice President is Tanna Rhoads. Margaret Hite will continue to be our Treasurer and Sue Keller was elected to stay on as Secretary. This is a fantastic, active and dedicated crew. I feel honored to have the opportunity to work with them for another year.
We finished up our clubs’ official slate of activities for 2022 on December 4 at our annual Christmas party. Like last year, we held it at the Eagle’s Lodge in Lancaster. This organization has been fantastic to work with. Great banquet room, cash bar for those that were interested and the best part, the room is free sense we are a non profit organization. 
club supplied the main entrees of smoked pulled pork, fried chicken and lasagna. Diana Burton made the lasagna. Keith and Donna White made the arrangements for the chicken and I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was asked to smoke the pork butts. The members attending each brought a covered dish of some kind and or a desert. We had 49 in attendance and all went home stuffed to the gills. Bryan Black is one of our members and our local poet laureate. I had planned to ask him for a poem but he beat me to the punch and volunteered. Actually he offered up 2, both had a cowboy western slant to them and both flat out funny. I’m not going to go into great detail, but the first involved 2 cow pokes, a long horned wild steer and a jug of moon shine. Let your imagination lead you from there. To finish up the evening we had a gift exchange for those that chose to participate. We form a circle, pass out the gifts, a story is read about the Right family. As the story is told, the gift move around the circle left and right. At the end of the story, the gift you are holding is yours to keep. Sounds a little stupid, but it doesn’t take much to amuse most of us. Try it, it is fun.
To finish up this book, I just want to recap what Fairfield OHC did to occupy our free time in 2022. Starting back in March, we started clearing the equine trails from a terrible ice storm in February. All totaled our club donated over 250 hours to the state in 3 different state forest. We completely replaced the tie line cables at the Air Plane Rock rest area at Hocking State Forest. We also replaced the broke poles and tightened the tie line cables at Great Seal State Park. At the Hocking State Horse Camp, we hardened several of the more heavily used tie lines with a felt type fabric then covered it with a combination of 304 stone. Several of the picnic tables at the Hocking State Horse Camp plus out on the trails had become worn out. From the materials donation by John Kougher that I mentioned earlier, we rebuilt those that needed immediate attention. More will be on our 2023 list of things to do. A few years back, a new equine trail was added to the Great Seal State Park with understanding we would maintain it. A few of us cleared the downed trees and mowed the new 5 mile section in early fall. Then as mentioned earlier, we finished up the year with the Buckskin Canyon project. It didn’t seem like much on paper, but looking back, whew!
Looking forward to an early spring in 2023. See you on the trails.
Chris
