Fun For All

It is amazing how busy we have been.  The guest room is really coming together to be ready for the child we will hopefully one day adopt.    The bathroom in the hall is done.  Our bathroom is done and we have moved upstairs.  We have spent hours working on homework, horse chores, and even found plenty of time for play.  So, to put some of it in photos:

We are loving Molly and Lady and making sure that they get more attention, not less with all of our hustle and bustle. 

We adopted Checkers, who has become Joel's favorite cookie monster, and a reliable riding companion for me:

We took in our first, born in the wild, Mustang foster horse, Addie: 

......who promptly became best friend's with Checkers (they are practically twins!):

Unfortunately, Jewel lost her baby, but she is much healthier and happy now, so we feel that it was for the best.  We still get to enjoy a little filly, since Evangeline and her baby, Aurora are fostering with us.  Little Aurora's antics keep us smiling, and her panelled paddock keep her safe and out of trouble:

Sebastian hasn't been overlooked either.  We gave him a bath over the weekend, so he is not quite ready for his close up right now.  Baths are not his favorite thing.

Saturday morning Douglas came over ride a horse for the first time.  His nerves let up after awhile, and he loosened his grip to wave at his Uncle Joel.  After dinner that night we went to his house and played Rock Band together as a family.  Lots of laughs all around.  

Gains and Losses

It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks which has slowed the blog posts.  For those that follow my Facebook you will see that I have been vocal about some pending legislation in the state.  H.B.3619 would have legalized horse slaughter in TN. The thought mortifies me.  When I found that the rescue that I was involved in would not take a position statement on the legislation, and in fact some members were in favor of slaughter, I resigned from all involvement in the rescue.  This weekend will be my last in assisting.  I will sidebar that there were additional issues for my departure---individuals in the organization were extremely rude to others in the animal welfare movement in our area, and I firmly believe that in these types of matters we all have to work together....the adage of divided we fall could not be more true.  My departure spurred the departure of others, and one member preceeded me. 

This leads to an exciting gain---we are forming a new rescue.  Middle Tennessee Horse Rescue will be formed by our little group of like-minded, hard working people, and we will be taking a firm and direct stance on animal welfare issues---slaughter, soring, Premarin and the other issues in Equine well-being.  We are very excited to be starting the new organization from the ground up.  We are, of course, seeking volunteers, so if you read this and want to be involved, just let me know.

We did however, have a big loss this week.  Jewel, our adopted mare, was pregnant at her time of seizure in October.  She was due to deliver at the end of July, but miscarried Wednesday night.  The foal was stillborn.  Jewel seems to be fine.  We are still sad for the loss of the baby who we were making final preparations for.  Just this week we had designed her foaling stall and paddock and purchased rubber mats to make it as comfortable as possible.  As I write this, I am very sad for Jewel's loss, and the loss of the first foal that we would have had.

In the midst of everything at home and in the periphery, work has been rigorous.  I have been extremely busy with the Philippines project and am almost wrapped up on it.  I have a meeting in an hour to discuss my next chapter here, and have been told that I will be asked to take a bigger role.  Yeah!  I love when hard work pays off. 

I am hoping for a happy weekend, and even though it will be busy, I am looking for some emotional calming.  With so much on my plate, I have been losing sleep at night and not able to let my brain quiet down.

Our Gentle Giant

We were asked to foster a senior mare for VEA.  She is 25 years old, and is a very large appendix bred Quarter Horse.  Her name is Joy.  We figured we would be her convalescent home where she could spend as much time as she had left whether it be one year, 5 years or 10....horses can have a pretty long lifespan with proper care. 

Joy decided to surprise us.  She has a lot of spunk and tenacity for a 25 year old, though she lets herself get pushed around by the other horses.  She has a been there done that attitude, and the other horses tend to copycat her.  It is precious watching her splash herself in the creek and then go take a roll in the grass....and even funnier to see Jordin watching and mimicking. 

When she has a saddle on though, she is all business.  She will happily stay in a trot, but she listens to what she is told.  As a result of her amazing-ness her stay with us went from what we anticipated to be a retirement home to our shortest foster arrangement yet.  Joy has already left with an amazing adopter who has another senior gelding.  We will miss our gentle giant.

Rain Rain Go Away

It had finally dried out by the barn, and the pasture was getting nice and green for Spring---then late last night they decided to put rain the forecast.  That rain turned into almost 5 inches today (meteorologist, I don't like you).  After 1.5 hours of bumper to bumper traffic, I finally made it to work in the morning--just at the nick of time to get to a meeting.  It was cold, and drab all day long, but what I like least about the rain is the effect on the horses.

Claire was a nut case tonight!  She was bucking, kicking, and charging the other horses for absolutely no reason at all.  Poor Jordin was so nervous that after dinner he wouldn't come out of his stall on his own.  I didn't realize the extent of her rainy day crazies until we were on our way back to the house and she started to try to run down Joel.  Thankfully, she lost her courage for that before she did anything, but she is clearly very mad at having to be soaking wet all day, and trying to take it out on everyone around her.  In retrospect, I should have just left her in stall where she could nestle down in her wood chips, get dry, and sleep off her grumpies.  I can't blame her for not liking the torrential down pours, I wouldn't want to stand out in them all day either.  Hopefully everyone will be calmed down by tomorrow, and over this little spell.

Here's to tomorrow.  May we get to see the sunshine again, as it makes us all feel better.

New Feathered Additions

As part of a VEA cruelty seizure, 7 ducks came to rescue along with horses.  We ended up with 4 of the ducks.  They are all muscovies.  Joel named 2 of them and I named two of them.

There are Annabelle, Angel, Heckle and Jeckle....can you guess which two we each named?  The girls generally live by the pond, but are free range, so they can go anywhere.  We had a huge dog crate set up to be their house, but they refused to go into it, so they just do their own thing, and seem very happy about that.  Joel feeds them, so they will follow him everywhere.

The Grey Lady

We generally let VEA place whatever horses they want to at our house (as long as they don't have aggression issues), but for the first time we requested one.  That horse was a champagne who was almost Grey in color that we named Rowena after Rowena Ravenclaw from Harry Potter.

Rowena was really really sweet and gentle.  A very good girl, who we loved from day one.  Unfortunately, her originals owners took a plea deal allowing them to take one animal back, and they chose her.  We hope that she is safe, and being well cared for, but things like this are the MOST challenging part of rescue.

New Friends and New Projects

I never would have known that having the horses at our home would bring about so many changes.  I met Renee, the trainer evaluator for VEA, realized the need that VEA had for a more interactive website, and offered to do that for them.  All the sudden the time constraint of work, MTGRR, and VEA got to be WAY too much----never mind that we are in the process of adopting a child, too!!

So, after much very difficult thought, I made the decision to resign as a coordinator for MTGRR.  I am still involved, but not to the same level, and don't get 200+ emails a day about Goldens anymore.  I'll be forever grateful to MTGRR for bringing us our fur babies.

Working with the horses is a new adventure.  Here are some photos of some of the girls being worked in our own arena.

Visitors from A-Near

We have the sweetest neighbors across the street, and we are so happy to have gotten to know them.  They enjoyed coming over to meet Mazie and the other horses and have a carrot feeding break with the girls.  We learned during their visit that Sybil loves kids.  She was so excited to see them.

Getting to Know You

Joel loves spending time with the horses and feeding them carrots.  Mazie loves carrots more than anything else in the world, so this is a wonderful arrangement for both of them.  You can see her love shining through.