6-15-09

It is really great to be out of the motel room and back in the office writing the blog. The expo was a wonderful event. The outpouring of support, both financial and emotional, was at times overwhelming. Jason has this comment about the event: "It was a wonderful learning opportunity for many people in our organization, it was certainly the largest booth we have ever attempted. It was a work in progress, on Friday morning we really had no idea what we were doing, but as people came by we really got it figured out. Next year, we will definitely not have any signs sitting on the floor in front of the table. If we made people donate $1 every time they kicked the sign over, we could have needed a poop cart to haul the cash out. About half of the people that came to the booth already knew who we were and said "Hi" and that is great, it means the other half now know who we are and hopefully enjoyed meeting us. I really loved being there, meeting people, and making new friends. During the weekend I engaged a couple people in conversation that want slaughter plants opened up, my thought is, do horses really only have value when they are dead?"

Don't forget, Jamie is going to have a booth set up at the Nevada County Reignstorm event at the Penn Valley rodeo ground this weekend. Click here for more information. What a completely awesome volunteer Jaime is!

The euthanasia clinic is in 2 days, this Wednesday, and so far only $1,334 has been donated. With your help, we know that the funds will be raised. Please donate what you can to give horses a peaceful, dignified ending to their majestic lives. The Euthanasia Clinic poster board was a definite "eye catcher" at the Horse Expo, a lot of people stood reading it for some time, and we received many compliments on the program. Please help it continue!

Last night it was just too late, Jason and Tawnee made a big mistake in the blog. The links for the news clip went to SAFER's website instead. The proper url is: http://www.kcra.com/video/19750325/index.html Or just click the picture below. It would be wonderful to be able to blame technology, but, it was no doubt good old human error.

This morning found Jason and Tawnee hiking down the walkways of Red Lion motel. We would like to thank Red Lion again for donating 4 rooms for volunteers to stay in. It was greatly appreciated and made the task of manning the expo booth much easier and convenient.

Within a short time they were packed up and ready to hit the road. They had almost received enough sleep and were energized to see what the day would bring.

The entire back seat was packed floor to ceiling with an incredible amount of stuff. During the last day of the Expo Jaime went from vendor to vendor asking, begging, pleading, prying and finally receiving donations from many of them. So many great items were donated, we will be cataloging most of them for the skating party silent auction. A lot of feed and supplements were also donated. A lot of feed vendors had open bags of feed for samples, which they didn't really want to haul away or throw away, so it came our way instead.

The horse expo was held right next to the cart racing track at Cal Expo, on the way to pick up the stock trailer, they passed some horses out for their morning exercises. It is our understanding that cart race horses go about 7 miles every day in exercise.

After hooking up to the stock trailer, the first stop was at Celebrations were the tables, chairs and other stuff was returned. The checkin went without a hitch and soon they were off again.

Next, Jason and Tawnee were in the auction yard haltering the horses and getting them ready to go. Mostly Jason took pictures while Tawnee haltered.

This Appy is a really sweet boy. In fact, he is so sweet he is already in adoption pending. All of the horses loaded without too much fuss, and they were off.

A most amazing, significant event happened all weekend: absolutely no flat tires! The drive to the Expo on Thursday was uneventful, the drive back to the rescue on Friday was uneventful, the drive to the expo on Saturday night was uneventful, the drive to the auction yard on Sunday was uneventful and the drive to the rescue today was completely uneventful! It was very nice not having to change tires alongside the roadway.

With some quick and easy backing up the trailer was sitting in the loading chute ready to be opened. All the horses were anxious to get out and explore their new surroundings.

One at a time they stepped hoof on solid ground and looked around. Voices of greeting rang out from the other horses as each one came out of the trailer. We like to think they are voices saying "You are safe now, you are at the rescue!"

Soon they were unloaded and settling into their holding pens.

Then, Jason singlehandley unloaded all the bags of grain and stacked them around the tack room. Grain may be the wrong word, more like, "all the bags of extremely wonderful, specialized, beautifully package horse feed that smells good enough for a human to eat."

April and Larry were over this afternoon helping out, and they helped unload the donated items.

And, while they were helping out, they finished falling completely in love with this beautiful boy and decided they could not live without him. He got their attention at the auction. When he was let into the auction ring, upon assessing the situation he decided that he did not want to be there. So, he looked for an opening and went for it. Unfortunately, the opening was a human door, maybe 20 inches wide, about 3 feet off the ground, and he just couldn't quite make it through. He got his whole front of his body through the opening, but his back legs just wouldn't co-operate. He wanted out of there so badly! After Tawnee saw his bravery and knowledge of where he could end up, she just had to rescue him.

So that is how April and Larry first met him, so they adopted him today and named him Buddy. It's always dangerous for approved adopters to visit the rescue with an empty stall and an empty trailer...

Little Prince was put into the round pen for his exercise. But instead of exercising he just laid down. Was something wrong?

Yes, certainly something was wrong, his back was itchy! What a cute little gangly guy. This is his first roll ever seen in the blog, or that the rescue has ever seen. Prince has watched his mom roll around, and now he's decided it must be something big horses do, so he will too.

A mom and her daughters came out this evening to visit the horses and help out where they could. Tilly really enjoyed her grooming job. They were so gentle with her, spending the time scratching all the right spots.

Meanwhile mom was helping clean stalls and then played with Button. Button is such a cute little girl, she certainly needs a nice human mommy to give her all the love and attention she can handle... You?

Thank you so much for your continued support while we were gone! Laura P. - Michelle G. - Erin A. all donated to help the rescue in various ways. Not to mention the hundreds of people that donated a couple dollars at the expo, each one of you are precious, and the rescue would cease to exist without your continued support. Thank you especially Gerry B. and Stacy O. for your extra generous donations at the expo!