09-14-08

Today was a hugely successful day. First off, a $1,000 donation came in this morning for the hay barn, putting the fund at $2,502! Thank you so very much Lynn. We really appreciate your thoughtfulness and donation.

Today's blog is going to run in 2 parts. The first part will be what happened at the main rescue ranch, the second part is what happened at the auction.

First, Jason and Tawnee rushed around all morning, getting all the chores done, so they would be ready to head off to the auction. Before they left, a new horse was donated, the horse's name is Ninia, she is a 8 year old Arab cross. She was rescued by an individual, brought up to good health, and she is ready for a forever home so Ninia was brought to us.

Durham has someone interested in him, so they sent their trainer out to work with Durham. Haven't heard any results yet, but we're sure we will soon.

The tack room is almost completed! The roof was put on.

The sheeting was nailed on.

And then by the end of the day, when the adopters were tired weary and hot, Arrow got to go his new home with the contractor and his family. They absolutely fell in love with him and can't imagine life without him.

It was so thoughtful for a young man that visited the rescue today to take it upon himself to make sure all the horses were fed and watered before we got back to the ranch tonight.

Part 2: The Auction.

Jason and Tawnee and a large number of volunteers arrived at the Roseville Livestock Auction this morning to save as many horses as they could.

After the mountain of tack was sold, the horses were finally starting to be sold at around 3:00. As the auctioneer was going along, *poof* the power was gone. Apparently they had trouble with their main breaker. The auctioneer had to yell even louder trying to keep everyones attention. It was definitely different! Finally they got the power back on and the auction continued normally.

17 horses were saved by us with the donated funds and 5 others were saved by NER volunteers privately. So all in all there were 22 horses saved today that have Norcal to thank for their second chance at life! And we have you to thank for making this a reality. We will have names and pictures of each horse up soon.

After the auction was finished the volunteers headed out with halters and lead ropes to find all the horses we had saved. It's quite a chore finding so many horses in so many pens, all mixed in with everyone else's horses.

Soon there were lines of volunteers leading NER horses to a holding pen where they could all get to know each other before being loaded.

They all got to settle in, roll around, drink water and scrounge around for some morsels of food.

We had to check the tags and numbers, double check, triple check, and make sure we got the horses we had saved and not someone else's. It all took a very long time while the sun kept sinking lower and lower into the west. Two of the volunteers that brought their 2 horse trailer loaded up a couple of the rescued horses and headed off to the rescue.

It was very dark by the time everyone was sorted and loaded.

It was a long and tiring process, but eventually all the horses were loaded. Ron and Claire brought their new (used, but new to them) 6 horse slant load trailer, and it was filled up.

There were about 15 volunteers that helped us throughout the day. By the time it was 9:00, there were about 9 of us left.

A quick fill up for the trip.

Here is the first 2 horses that headed up in the 2 horse trailer getting out at the rescue safe and sound.

Finally everybody made it back at 11:30 at night and we started unloading.

Some of the horses looked bewildered and confused, and we can't say we blame them as it was a long and stressful day for everyone, but soon they were unloaded and got their fresh clean water and hay.

Again, a huge THANK YOU!!! to each and everyone person that donated what they could so that these wonderful horses were saved. Without your support, each of these 17 horses that were rescued today would be facing an unknown future, one quite possibly full of danger, cruelty and a brutal death.

We've updated the Petfinder voting information on our website. The system has apparently all been hacked, people that should be able to vote are emailing us telling us they can't vote. Obviously people have figured out how to make Norcal get a crazy amount of votes. While we were at the auction today we got an insane number of votes. Petfinder contacted us that they are working on the situation to see what they can do. It seems Norcal has somewhere close to a million votes now. Hopefully Petfinder can get this resolved, but for now, don't worry about voting. It's no longer a legitimate vote, hopefully Petfinder can figure out a way to make it work properly. We apologize for soliciting your votes and taking your time. We truly wish Petfinder the best as they struggle to overcome the difficulties in running an online voting system.