“There is more love in this world than you can possibly imagine.”
– Charlie Macksey
The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse
Lokahi Acres was born out of a desire to share the incredible gifts horses posess, and the healing they can bring to all who open their hearts.
What if?
We were a typical suburban family in Chapel Hill and everything looked pretty from the outside. Good jobs, good schools, and a nice house. But after the 9-5 jobs, school drops, weekend sports, hurried good-byes and overtired good-night kisses, there was an emptiness that nagged.
One night at dinner in 2021, Finn (age 7) declared, “I want chickens so we can collect our own eggs,” and that was the tiny seed that grew into Lokahi Acres in 2025. At first we all just chuckled and thought, “Yeah, right, that’s a cute thought.”
But we couldn’t get the idea out of our heads…What if we moved to the country and raised chickens and made breakfast from eggs laid by those chickens? How would that feel? We didn’t know it at the time, but what we were really looking for was a way to reconnect with nature, the earth, and each other.
Lani Clinton
Lani has loved and admired horses for as long as she can remember. As a child, she sketched horses, read about them, and dreamt about them, but didn’t have the opportunity to get close to them in real life. The road has been long and winding, but having a farm, horses, and starting a business centered around the incredible gifts that horses have to share is a life long dream of Lani’s. Here are a few things she’s done along the way:
2002 – Williams College, BA, English & Biology
2007 – University of California-Irvine, PhD, Biology
2011 – University of Hawaii-Manoa, MD
2016 – University of Hawaii Pathology Residency Program, Anatomic & Clinical Pathology
2017 – Cleveland Clinic Gastrointestinal, Liver, & Pancreatobiliary Surgical Pathology Fellowship
2017-2020 – Assistant Professor of Pathology, Duke University Medical Center
2020-2023 – Foundation Medicine, Senior Pathologist & Associate Medical Director
2023-2025 – PathAI, Director, Pathology
2025 – Certified Facilitator, Equine-Assisted Learning, EAL Academy
2025 – Co-founder, Lokahi Acres, LLC
Nathan Gardner
Nathan had never been close enough to touch a horse before he met Lani. He thought they were a bit intimidating at first. But over time he got more comfortable, and and now he even admits that he feels better when he’s around them. Nathan is a great source of comfort for any ‘non horse people’! Here are a few of his highlights:
2010 – BS in Political Science from
UNC-Chapel Hill
2000-2020 – Job Coach and Educator with Eastern Alamance High School
2023-2025 – Educator, Eastern Alamance High School
2025 – Co-founder, Lokahi Acres, LLC
