07-21-08

Randy the pony headed out to the vet early this morning with Jason at the wheel of the truck. Randy had blood work done, along with a fecal examination, and overall he is actually healthy. He is a touch anemic, and he has some tapeworms, but overall he is in good shape, with no signs of organ failure. We are cautiously hopeful that Randy will be able to gain sufficient weight back to be a healthy pony once again. Our initial thought was when we first heard about Randy that the kindest thing to do would be to give him the Last Act of Kindness, but after meeting Randy we are hopeful he can live a few more happy years.

Volunteer Cathy and her girls came out today and named one of the auction rescued horses Sweet Lady. Then she fell in love with her and adopted her! Any horse that can live with Cathy is really a lucky horse. We believe we have filled her life with enough horses for now... If we adopt any more to her she might quit volunteering and stay home with her herd!

Sally, our favorite bare foot trimmer, emailed us yesterday and let us know she would be coming to the area. It was great to get back in touch with her, she was right in the middle of the Concow fire, but thankfully their house was saved, the fire literally burned the horse manure she had spread under her trees for mulch, but her house and new barn are safe! She did evacuate her horses at 1:30 in the morning, went to find her friend who was leading her horse away from the fire. She said it was like a movie, pitch black, spot fires flaring up all around, propane tanks exploding, just crazy. Sally worked on the guy that Tawnee trimmed yesterday along with one other.

After Sally left Jason and Tawnee headed out to return the rest of the evacuated horses. With the 25 evacuated horses here, a couple of them developed a teary eye, either from the dust and smoke or something else. One of the horses that returned today had a weepy eye. Nothing major, just a bit of goo. The first thing that happened when the owner finally arrived at the meeting point, when Tawnee mistakenly referred to the 5 year old mare as "The momma," he scolded Tawnee up and down that she was not a mare, she was a filly! "A filly is a female that has not been pregnant, it doesn't matter how old she is!" And also "I'm sure you love horses, but you really need to learn something about them if you're going to be around them every day." Not sure what book he's been reading, but Wikipedia says that a filly is a female horse under the age of 4, or 5 if a TB racehorse. Click here. Tawnee had been led to believe when the horses were evacuated that the mare was the gelding's mom. Maybe, maybe not, we're still not sure...
Then when Tawnee pointed out the teary eye, he really became quite angry and verbally abusive. Here's the G version: "It has maggots in it, did you check for maggots? This happens when a horse gets kicked by another horse in its stall, I need saline to wash it out right now, this is going to cost me huge dollars in vet bills! The lymph nodes around the eye are all swollen!" While we never pretend to be vets, we do know the horse was stabled by itself and teary eyes are extremely common after being transported and being in a stressful situation by being evacuated.

From there we headed out to deliver the last evacuated horse, and our evacuation is officially over until next time. Which is hopefully never.

Banjo was adopted today by an approved adopter. When she came out today to meet Banjo, she truly fell in love with him and he'll have a great life!

When Banjo first came to us in April he was extremely shaggy and unkempt looking, with ribs sticking out and quite thin overall.

He's now almost up to weight, happy, and a friendly guy that loves people. He now has a new life ahead with his new mommy! Congratulations Courtney, you've got a great horse there!