Muck Update

Scraping out the muck...

Muck, muck, muck. It's everywhere! Sheets upon sheets of rain coming down. Virtual waterfalls from the heavens. And my horses stuck out under a tree.

The neighbor finally made it down. The muck was scraped up. Fence posts were snapped in half. New gates were put up. Gravel was moved. More gravel delivered...and another trip over today for the neighbor and his tractor.

Tractor? This thing is HUGE! Heavy equipment, not just your run of the mill tractor. But let me tell you, that muck was scooped up in record time. Trouble was, my gates were too narrow and the paddock barely large enough to contain it. As he tried turning around, he bumped the new post in my barn addition! Easily could have snapped it in half if it hadn't been for City Boy hollering for him to stop. We had no idea his tractor was so big. We thought in terms of little farm tractors...silly us!

Anyway, today the remainder of the gravel will be in place, the panels set up to divide the paddock into runs, and the horses will have their own bedrooms. Which will mean no more hooves churning up the pasture during the soggy months to come. I sure hope the gravel holds up in the barn and paddock!

I think I have tractor envy!

Thanks for the feedback on the rescue. Yes, MiKaela, a website is certainly among the list things needed. I registered a name the other day and have been working on putting a few pages together. Y'all wanna see it? Remember, very baby stage at the moment. Lots of blank pages, but hopefully it gives you an idea. Please let me know what you think...and be honest!

Wild Horse Rehabilitation and Rescue

Desperate Horsewife
Wild Horse Calendars now available!
http://www.cafepress.com/mustangfever/3572746

Which would you choose?

I woke up at about 4:30 this morning. let the dogs out. It was dark...still...quiet. The past two or three days the wind and rain have been downright deafening. But nothing this morning...all was still. And I hope it remains until the neighbor gets his tractor down to play in my muck.

I'm hoping y'all didn't misunderstand my question as a request for funds. That wasn't what it was at all; I know you've got your own horses and your hands are full. Nope, I'm looking for what would make a person comfortable with any charity, really. How best to go about building trust. And, of course, whether or not someone would still consider giving if the rescue wasn't a federal non-profit (meaning donations were tax deductible.) I suppose that ought to be the final goal or folks may wonder why you're not going for it?

In any case, I've got my short list. Take a look and let me know if you think there should be things added:

Being able to visit facility
Enough room for horses; no over crowding
Follow up visits after adoption takes place
Clean, safe environment
Lack of mud (well, within reason, I suppose, depending on weather conditions?)
Financial statement
Quarterly newsletter
Public message board or some other way of open communication

Aside from this occupying my mind nearly full time these past 48 hours, I've done nothing. At least not horse-wise. The rain is just too hard. Jet is getting along with her flock, Sunny and Quiet Storm are doing well and no one is getting beat up on either side of the fence. Sure wish it were nicer out as Sunny could benefit from some consistency when it comes to being saddled up and worked. Such is life, though, eh?

Desperate Horsewife
Wild Horse Calendars now available!
http://www.cafepress.com/mustangfever/3572746

Of Rain and Rescues

Jet and the sheep dine together.

Rain. More of it. Again.

It's monsoon season...even though I don't know if technically that's what they'd call it here in the northwest. But it's wet and it's windy. And wet. The addition to the barn has flooded and the horses are standing under trees until the neighbor can get down here with his tractor to remedy the situation. He was supposed to be here earlier this month but ran into a few priorities that came first. I've kept the paddock free of horse hooves for the better part of the month, knowing they'd just churn it up to the point I'd not be able to do anything with it. Still, it's churned enough on it's own. The portions that aren't deep in clay and muck are too slick to walk on (hard, wet clay is like ice...)

Thankfully, despite the heavy bouts, it's not been 100% rain 24 hours a day. Jet is in with the sheep while Quiet Storm and Sunny share the other side of the pasture. They're all contentedly munching on their breakfast right now. By Wednesday night (cross your fingers) the neighbor will have come and gone, the paddock stripped down and the gravel added for drainage. Hopefully we won't have horrendous weather between now and then.

The two mustangs have disappeared from the CBER website. I'd called the feed lot to see if they were there last week and he said no, they weren't. I'd asked if they had their titles, and he said that there was no paperwork with them. Hopefully they'll get into good homes. I notified the BLM that they were out there, at least, so if there's any foul play at hand hopefully something can be done.

I've been giving the whole rescue thing a lot of thought. Dealing with Sunny has left me wondering just how many people give up their mustangs, and how many of them end up back at the BLM corrals? I saw a couple of them head back down to Burns in June that'd been previously adopted. It's sad to see horses go back into the system, both because they lose whatever training/socialization they've received and because they become the responsibility of the tax payer once again, not to mention a statistic that reflects negatively on the program and the horses themselves.

So let me ask you a question or two. Do you feel comfortable giving money to rescues? Do you think that a non-profit status is necessary before you'd give? What would it take to create a level of trust between the rescue and the donor?

I'd love to be able to take on one or two mustangs, spend the time getting them started, then place them in new homes. I can't, however, afford to feed that many horses out of my own pocket without some form of support. The best way to approach this is what I'm wondering. Last night I felted up this little version of Sunny (no falling on the floor with laughter, please!) and wondered about selling them with a little hang tag that gave a horse's name and a bit of it's story. Think anyone would buy?

Felted version of Sunny still needs her eyes and nostrils.

Desperate Horsewife
Wild Horse Calendars now available!
http://www.cafepress.com/mustangfever/3572746