4-15-10

Tuesday morning found Jason and Tawnee at the Blue Apple Ranch. It is such a beautiful place, and every time they visit the beauty grows with leaps and bounds. They had welcomed the remaining 6 Clint Ritchie horses on Monday.

Jason and Tawnee said "Goodbye" to the horses, including Ace and Button seen below, and wished them the best of luck. Button, who typically doesn't like hanging out with humans, came over to the fence to say "Goodbye" as if she knew what was happening.

There was one little face that Jason and Tawnee had to see before leaving the Blue Apple Ranch. That was Petie, now renamed Skittles. She is doing marvelously and they have gotten her a cute little companion who will probably grow larger than she is, a goat named Elvis.

One of the recent additions to the Blue Apple Ranch is a 30 stall horse barn. Absolutely gorgeous! It definitely makes Jason and Tawnee dream about the upcoming facilities at the new 20 acre property.

Up north, April and Larry and some volunteers were heading out to pick up a horse.

Joey is a QH and he was at a therapeutic riding facility. He was just a little too much for the 8-10 year olds in the therapy program as he didn't' quite have perfect ground manners.

Then they took Joey back to the rescue.

Joey was more than happy to get out of the trailer and into a waiting stall. He settled right in and is waiting for his evaluation.

Meanwhile on Wednesday Jason and Tawnee were struggling through LA traffic. Driving a huge trailer through traffic is never fun but really gets some heads turned. People no doubt think "Why is that here?"

On the way up I5 Tawnee decided it would be a good idea to call EQ-Wine Covers to see if we could pick up the shelter their foundation had granted us. They said "Yes" and arrangements were made to pick it up this morning. We really need shelters at our new facility because there is no natural shade on the place, so shelters are a must. It was decided to try and purchase an addition 9 shelters, for a total of 10 shelters. Tawnee got on the phone and started making calls to get a first-ever "on the road emergency fundraiser" up and going. Not having access to update the website would make it challenging.

Back at the rescue exciting things were happening. The 304' of 3 rail white vinyl fencing came that had been donated from Buy Direct Vinyl Fence. This is so exciting!

We are excited to have Buy Direct Vinyl Fence support in setting up our new facility. They are the first corporate donor for setting up the new facility. They care deeply about horses and horse welfare, and donated over $2,000 worth of material including shipping. If you ever want to buy beautiful vinyl fencing, we highly recommend them. To view their website, click here. In exchange for their generous donation we are giving them, and any significant corporate sponsor, free advertising on our website. Look for them as one of our new sponsors! You have no excuse, when you want to buy vinyl fencing, buy from them!

Another exciting event was the solar pump arriving. Everything is coming together for the new facility and it is so amazing.

Jason and Tawnee were still working hard on the fundraiser. Since they had no access to editing the website, they used the power of the blog to raise awareness and the need for donations to purchase the much needed shelters.

They also used Facebook to spread the word and to keep a tally of the needed funds.

Incredibly, a little over 12 hours later, enough funds had been donated that they went ahead and got all 10, stepping out in faith that the rest of the funds would come in to cover the bill.

Soon the shelters were being unloaded from EQ-Wine Covers flatbed into the stock trailer.

Piece after piece, roofing, poles, it seemed to be never ending.

Finally their flatbed was empty...

...and the stock trailer was full of shiny steel.

We would like to thank EQ-Wine covers for generously donating 1 shelter and giving a generous discount along with free upgrades on the 9 shelters that were purchased. We would also like to thank them for donating 1 shelter to Home at Last, making 11 shelters in the back of the trailer! If you need good quality, easy to build shelters, click here.

An donor who chooses to remain anonymous saw that our fundraiser was not completed and donated the funds to finish off the shelter donation. They are naming their two shelters "Bunny Bop Bear" and "Rosey Bop Bear." At the rescue, a horse was being surrendered, and the lady chose to make a donation to help care for her horse, and also made an additional generous donation to help set up the new facility. Tawnee is so excited that she has a fencing budget! We have the shelters, and now we have some funds to put up some pens around them too! We are hoping to have pens with fencing similar to this.

Jason and Tawnee are getting quite road weary from all the driving. They have been on the road since Sunday. We would like to thank April and Larry, and all the other volunteers, for keeping the horses fed and watered, cared for, phone calls made and received, emails written, and all the needed things done while Jason and Tawnee were on the road.

This blogs eBay's Giving Works item is a Wall-E 3T Boys / Girls navy blue shirt. So cute, it's starting at $4.99 and 10% of the winning bid goes to help the horses. To view this shirt, click here.

Many thanks to Katrina L., Gail G., Holly V., Show Dressed Up, Pamela N., Jeanine H., Sheri B., Diana B., Teresa A., Lance A., Melinda M., Christine G., Iris L., James G., Linda M., Cindy M., Ruthann C., Stacey S., Celestial Dreamtime Productions, Mari V. for their very generous donations!