IndependenceFarm.com
Title
Independence Farm - Home
Description
Independence Farm is owned by Bill and Barbara Page. We are located in northeastern Maryland, near the borders with Delaware and Pennsylvania. We discovered Friesians in the late 1980's and bought our first Friesian, "Frits", with the help of Case Van der Groef in 1988. Case was bringing over two Friesians from Holland and had room for one more. His buyer called us in the middle of the night and described several horses. We picked Frits and anxiously awaited his arrival. Frits turned out to be a wonderful all-around horse, and our experiences with him convinced us that Friesians were the right horses for us.
In 1989 we bought a young mare, "Lydeke", from Evelyn and Case Van der Groef. Bill rode Frits and Barbara rode Lydeke in all types of events: strolling along trails, dancing in parades, jousting for rings, costume classes at shows, and dressage schooling shows. When Lydeke's first foal, "Wizard", was old enough, Barbara started riding him in dressage shows, eventually competing thru 2nd level. Lydeke concentrated on being a brood mare. She produced her 10th beautiful foal in the spring of 2005.
We have been active in the Friesian Horse Association of North America (FHANA) since we attended our first FHANA AGM in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. There was an interesting tour of the Coson Carriage Collection after the meeting. Herman Van Reenen was the secretary of FHANA at that time. Bill set up an office database for Herman so the growing organization could more easily keep track of its membership. Bill also transformed Herman's folksy newsletter into a membership magazine: The Friesian. Eventually Bill set up the FHANA website so that Friesian enthusiasts around the world could find information about these wonderful horses.
