8-8-10

Despite losing Trooper on Thursday, Friday morning Ginger was doing just fine and buddied up with other horses. Thankfully Trooper was more attached to Ginger than Ginger was to Trooper. Ginger has some health issues, but seems to be enjoying her time in the barn. Our vet will be doing a quality of life evaluation on her soon, but for now she can sit back, eat yummy food and just hang out being a horse with no worries.

Friday Cookie Dough's new family came up to adopt him. They are so in love with him.

They loaded Cookie Dough into their nice air conditioned van for the ride home. Cookie Dough loved traveling in style.

A dirty window is a perfect place to write a special message: "Goat on board."

After Cookie Dough was loaded up, Tawnee headed out with Gato to take him to the irrigated pasture. Our fattening center for horses in need of fattening.

Gato couldn't believe his eyes, looking out over the beautiful green field. We've all heard of the Biggest Loser, well, this is the Biggest Gainer camp.

Gato settled right in and enjoyed eating some carrots and meeting his new foster family who will be keeping a special eye on him.

Soon Gato was let out in the big pasture. He enjoyed trotting around with excitement, all full of life.

Sunday was a busy day. The first horse that arrived to be surrendered is Lulu. She is a beautiful 12 year old AQHA mare. She is so beautiful, but her joints have not been kind to her. She has arthritis pretty much all over, in her hips, hocks,knees, just everywhere. Poor girl.

She is fine just hanging out and being a horse, so we are hoping we will be able to find her a pasture pal home on level ground.

Hilly was the next surrender, she is a 10 year old mule who is extremely sweet and well mannered. She is trained to ride and has been packed on, but has some mild lameness that does not allow her to do heavy work anymore.

First thing Hilly wanted to do was take a nice roll in the round pen and send dust flying everywhere.

Juanita the jenny was excited to see some new long ears at the rescue. She looked and looked and just couldn't get close enough.

Before you go rushing off to Paypal to put a hold on Hilly, some visitors were out looking for a nice beginner's horse, and absolutely fell in love with Hilly and put an adoption hold on her since she is a great beginner's mule. We don't get too many mules into the rescue, and ones like these don't last long at all. If only all of the rescued equines could find homes this fast.

The next horse to be surrendered is a great big beautiful grey gelding.

He is so pretty, Tawnee guessed by looking at him that he was in his middle teenage years. He is put together so nice and was just bright eyed and alert. There were some folks at the rescue looking for a horse, and Tawnee thought they might be a good match. She asked the owner if she would be willing to fill in the prospective adopters on his info. Tawnee asked the owner quickly as she walked towards the potential adopter "How old is he?" "33" was the answer Sir Peter's owner gave. Tawnee's mouth dropped open. Sure enough, being old doesn't mean being skinny. He is an amazing looking 33 year old. He is very well trained, sound, and you would never guess his age by looking at him. Sadly the potential adopters were looking for a slightly younger horse.

Derada was the last surrender of the day. She is Sir Peter's friend and is a 14 year old Arab mare.

Soon she was settled into a stall, the trip was probably a little hard on her as she is crippled. She was kicked in the leg by a horse 4-5 years ago. Her owner told us she spent a lot of money trying to fix her knee. She said the vets thought she wasn't going to make it, but she did. After she was better, she said she was successfully bred and had a foal a couple years ago.

Her poor knee. It's amazing that she can get around at all on this leg.

There is a chicken that has come home to roost at the rescue. We were told that it is a young hen. Being that it was all black, Jason named it Crow because it was all black just like the crows that fly around from time to time. Towards evening Crow decided (s)he like her/his name so much (s)he started actually crowing. Maybe she's a he after all and the name is even more fitting. Crow is a White Faced Black Spanish chicken of unknown gender. As Betsy said on Facebook: "The proof is in the egg."

Speaking of Facebook, we have over 1,500 fans now. We would love to have over 15,000 fans, so if you are not a fan, become one today and invite your friends! www.Facebook.com/norcalequinerescue If you are looking for a horse, typically right when the horses come into the rescue they are put on Facebook before being posted on the blog or website. Some horses are in adoption pending even before the blog is sent out. Jason and Tawnee want all the Facebook fans to know that they really enjoy all of your comments, on rough days it helps keep them going.

A huge "Thank You!" to Patricia F., Yvonne P., Montra F., Marilyn R., Cindy M., Yvonne W., Lance A., Josh W., Katie G., Bandit Blue, Rhonda R., Carla G., Select Enterprises, Show Dressed Up, Sara H., Lee E. for their very generous donations to save lives and to sponsor the Hay Wagon.