As the pastures turn green, new foals begin appearing beside their mothers, taking their first unsteady steps beneath the open sky. For Amanda Porter and her husband, Dwayne, it is one of many reminders of why they chose a life on The Painted Acres Ranch. Their job is demanding, but there is something extraordinary about watching new life enter the world, raising children alongside animals, and waking each morning surrounded by a masterpiece we call “nature.”
The Painted Acres Ranch began with a series of turns Amanda never could have planned. When her daughter was just 18 months old, she was diagnosed with a rare cancer and autoimmune disease.
Around the same time, Amanda’s father, Donald Foster, had an opportunity to move to Houston, Texas, where the Texas Children’s Hospital was beginning a program focused on treating the type of cancer her daughter had. The family moved, and after she completed her treatments, they began looking for something outside the city.
They found land — and, unexpectedly, horses.
Amanda had owned a horse as a teenager, but the property came with far more than she was used to. On the land stood a gray American quarter horse stallion, several race-bred Paint horses, along with a crash course in breeding, bloodlines, and color genetics. She eventually purchased her first American Paint horse stallion from the A Tru Rolex bloodline, which is still an important part of the ranch’s breeding program today.
The unexpected became a passion and eventually a family business.
“If you love something, I think you’re constantly learning and growing,” Amanda said.
That philosophy has carried her through the years as the ranch developed into an all-around performance Paint horse breeding program whose horses have found homes throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, and overseas.
Looking back, Amanda sees a thread connecting each unexpected turn. Her daughter is now cancer-free, and the frightening chapter that once changed everything ultimately helped lead her family to the life they have today.
“Everything for a reason,” she said. “It’s all led us to where we are.”
In 2018, Amanda’s father wanted to return closer to his Tennessee roots, and the family began looking for a new place to put down roots of their own. They drove all over Tennessee before finding their property in Fayetteville.
“When we saw the property, that drew us here first,” Amanda said. “But driving through the town and seeing the town, that drew our hearts near.”
Today, her parents, Donald and Cynthia, live right next door. They help with mowing and tending to the land while Amanda focuses on the horses, allowing the ranch to remain a true family operation.
For Amanda, having her parents nearby is especially meaningful because it gives her children the close relationship with their grandparents that she wished she had experienced more of herself.
Life on the ranch is beautiful, but it is hardly easy. Dwayne works as a tugboat captain and is home only 8 to 10 days each month, leaving Amanda to balance the horses with their children, schoolwork, extracurricular activities, and church. Still, she said, ranch life has a way of slowing them down and reminding them to appreciate what can easily be overlooked.
“It’s my passion,” she said. “So it never feels like it’s a chore. It’s always exciting.”
That passion has also connected the Porters to people far past the pasture. Amanda taught herself photography, marketing, and social media to help The Painted Acres Ranch reach broader audiences, eventually building friendships with horse lovers in places such as Germany and Spain.
She is quick to say she is still learning, but that may be part of what has made the ranch successful — she has never stopped growing with it.
The same spirit exists in the Fayetteville community. Through Washington Street Church of Christ, their Mimosa neighbors, the Mimosa Community Center, and their children’s schools, the Porters have found lifelong connections they did not have when they arrived.
Cub Scout Pack 329 and Boy Scout Troop 489 have become especially important to the family, allowing Amanda and Dwayne to watch young people gain confidence, learn responsibility, and build friendships.
When the Scouts needed someone to take over their Christmas parade float, the Porters put the ranch to work. With trailers and plenty of hay bales, they created a “Hometown Christmas” float and watched their Scouts ride around the square as the community gathered to celebrate. For Amanda, those moments capture what Fayetteville has come to mean to her family — people showing up for one another.
Perhaps that is the legacy Amanda hopes to leave. Her legacy isn’t simply the horses raised at the ranch or the business she built over the years, but the example her children have watched along the way. She hopes they remember that their parents showed up for family, friends, and community, and that they learned to give their time when someone needed help.
Fayetteville was not where Amanda’s story began, but it is where her family chose to grow. Between the horses in the pasture, her parents next door, children learning beneath the Tennessee sky, and a community that has welcomed them as its own, The Painted Acres Ranch has become something larger than a ranch. It has become home. GN
