07-08-08

First off, we want to thank everyone who offered financial assistance for the poor emaciated pony. The owners have agreed to surrender him, but they want to wait for the weekend. Please rest assured the pony is getting food and water at this time, and we are working diligently to get him into our organization as soon as possible. Again, thanks for your support, we will let you know when it is needed!

Today was quite unlike anything we had planned. With raging fires going on everywhere, it is quite terrible just about everywhere. We met Sally (our barefoot trimmer) yesterday, and she was finally taking her evacuated horses home. This morning about 3:00 am the entire Concow area was evacuated. We know for a fact that homes were lost in Sally's area, we just hope and pray that Sally's home and her new barn were not destroyed.

Then, a fire in the Berry Creek area starting roaring with gusto, causing the entire town to be evacuated. The first thing we did was call Kate's recent adopter, who asked us to come up. We told her we would be on our way.

We were informed that an evacuated tractor needed a home, so we are happy that a nice tractor is on the property until it can go home. Yes, we have the key. The only problem was, th tractore arrived while we were leaving and the tractor and our big trailer were having a hard time passing. It was literally tire to tire, but we managed to squeeze by.

We headed up to Berry Creek and started evacuating equines left and right it seemed like. Animal Control was providing us with address' where equines were needing evacuations, as well as passerby's and the fire department letting us know where needy animals were.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Like this mini horse tied up in the back of a pickup, her three week old baby, along with a pygmy billy goat. We got them safely into our trailer where we could bring them to safety.

One thing was for sure, the baby couldn't ride in the back with everyone else...

... so she got to be the very first horse to ride inside the front of our truck. She did very well and only had 1 accident. Practically potty trained already!

With our trailer full of 9 equines and 2 goats, we headed down to our rescue to get these animals settled. At the road closure, the Highway Patrol asked us to come back up the hill and evacuate more horses.
The little baby mini did great on the way to the rescue and even fell asleep on the back seat and had a little horsey dream as she nickered and wiggled in her sleep. What a way to start your life off!

We got all the equines unloaded safely.

One of the goats with a volunteer who was pressed into service for about 3 minutes.

A 30 year old senior who has seen it all for sure now!

We headed back up and got through the road blocks no problem. The horses needed us!

Most of the horses were bewildered and confused by the situation but we tried to make them feel as safe and at ease as possible.

By this time we had volunteers tagging along being an absolute great help! They were willing to take their vehicle into tiny spots where our big rig should never go. We learned that after backing up for over half a mile out of a tiny dirt road scraping the bushes on both sides today.

Finally about 10 pm we all got back to the rescue safely and tucked everyone into bed. The horses were definitely happy to be able to breath the cleaner air instead of the ash filled, smokey air in Berry Creek.

The evacuated horses are tucked away and are settling in nicely.

Evacuated dogs that have found a safe haven here as well.

The whole rescue was quite unexpected and any financal assistance with it would be greatly appreciated! The evacuees includes 12 equines, 2 goats, 2 dogs and a tractor. For now, who knows what tomorrow will bring.

Please pray for all the people that are no doubt losing their homes in the terrible fires. We rescued as many animals as we possibly could, but there were some we had to leave behind as they were already beyond the fire lines.

It's now the next day and we are off to get a couple hours of sleep...