It's been a long, cold winter already and winter hasn't even started!

I went out to feed yesterday afternoon and was getting out of my car just as the vet's truck zoomed past the barn. When I arrived at the pens, the vet, the farrier, the barn manager, and several other volunteers and boarders were doing their best to get Bella up. She went down about an hour before I got there, and the farrier and barn manager were right there and at her side instantly. Bella suffered nerve damage in her hind legs from West Nile, and then, a year later, managed to survive EPM but not without lingering severe neurological problems. Two other rescues rejected her before she made it to us, and I guess we have a weakness for retired, damaged horses. She had a lot of trouble balancing but, through massages and physical therapy, was sound enough to enjoy many years at the rescue playing with the other mares in pasture and getting love from all her human friends. Often she would roll and need help moving her hind legs into position to stand up again, but she always got up on the first or second try!

Yesterday, however, was very different. It looked and felt as if her legs were petrified- we could not move them into position for her, and after a couple attempts she stopped putting much energy into it. By the time got there, she looked completely defeated and was barely lifting her head. The decision was made to put her down, and it was a hard one to be present for. Always a fighter, Bella was on her side, whinnying to her friends, "running" with her front legs, and looked each of us in the eye before she calmed down, took a few deep breathes, and was still as the last dose was administered. As the vet said, not many horses can survive West Nile AND EPM, then live a happily into their late teens with the severe neurological damage Bella willfully pushed through!

2009 has been a hard year for many, and the rescue was no exception. In addition to three of our 33+ year olds, our 29 year old pony, and Bella all passing on, we saw four horses return to the rescue after their owners could no longer afford their care, two of whom came back sick but thankfully in good weight. This year, we have had so many horses in need that we perpetually had horses in iso pens, boarding spaces, and even turned out with boarders' horses.

On the plus side, we participated in a nation-wide effort to save 300 starving mustangs, and our two boys are looking fantastic and have started groundwork training with a professional who has volunteered his time! The downturn in the economy left us with some very nice riding horses who were adopted before they left iso, and many volunteers finally had the chance to adopt a horse that met their riding needs. We took in a mare from a kill pen who, at four years old, has grown more than 6" now that she's being properly fed. We took in a horse who had been abandoned along the highway and was severely underweight, but clearly well-trained, and watched him transform into a gorgeous, sound gelding who will make someone a very nice riding horse. And, thanks to the wet spring, hay prices went down enough that we could still afford to take in all the extra horses in need :-)

Back Home!

St Thomas was a refreshing little break from reality. Mike LOVED the water, which makes me really happy because I'm basically a fish. We've never had the chance to swim together and he hasn't been in water in probably over a decade, and I was a bit worried about this trip being so hydro-centric... but no, he took to the ocean just fine! The first day, Katy and I taught him the basics of snorkeling in the pool plus some diving tricks, like how to clear your mask without taking it off. The next morning we were off on a sail to St John, where we spent the day snorkeling in Caneel Bay. We were all a bit apprehensive about Mike jumping off the boat and not being able to reach an edge or touch the bottom, but in the end I could hardly keep up with him! We saw lots of rays, a turtle, a 3' barracuda, and the usual array of fan and brain corals, sponges, parrot and angel fish, yellow-tailed jacks, etc.

The rest of the trip, Mike was in the pool every chance he got and kept up with us as we snorkeled for hours around the coastline. We didn't do any diving, but I think Mike is motivated to get certified so we'll have to go back to do our open-water. It's very hard to complain about after being there again, even if rentals are stressful and repairs constant and consistently over-priced. Gram is always happy to visit with all her friends on the island, and it's been five years since I last went so it was nice to catch up with with the people who made my childhood so special!

We also got a chance to work on invitation wording and write some of the ceremony, plus we bought Mike's wedding band and decided to skip a second band for me and instead bought a lovely tennis bracelet. Would it have been better to use the money we saved but didn't use for ring purchases to pay off some loans? Yes. Do I regret buying something else useless with that money? Maybe, but only a little :-)

How come all injuries are stupid?

Yesterday I had a nice lesson, my right leg swung a bit more than I'd like in the sitting trot but as I was thinking that my trainer commented on how still my legs always are :-) This horse has MASSIVE gaits, too, and I'm still figuring out how to effectively ride them.

Anyhow, he can really extend those legs of his and it sometimes fools me into thinking he's bigger than he actually is. We did some stretchy-chewy figure eights with a cooling sheet on at the end, leaving me to dismount a la side-saddle so I don't take the blanket with me. The combination led me to jump down with a little less grace than usual, thinking I had a ways to fall and could correct myself before I landed.

Of course, I landed funny when I hit the ground a few inches sooner than I thought, and tweaked my ankle something awful! Mike wants to take me to the doctor, I don't want to go because I'm pretty sure they'll just tell me to take some tylenol and keep my weight off it.

So I lied... in a good way!

I went out to feed last night, which was tons of fun because I also locked myself out of our house so I got to feed in what I was wearing and it got COLD when the sun went down! I made Mike bring me a hat and gloves when he got home, but I really missed my coveralls and waterproof boots.

Anyhow, I went out to feed and Honey was still there! Turns out, they had planned to put her down over the weekend and had increased her pain meds (added more bute) to give her a comfortable last few days. When the vet came out, she was galloping full-tilt around the pasture having a blast. They did a flexen test and she passed it, and her chronic abscesses looked fine. So the decision was made to take her off bute, keep her on aspirin, antibiotics, and all the supplements she gets, and see how she does. The amount of bute she was on is not a workable long-term solution, but if she is feeling better and we can go back to managing her pain in other ways, then hooray! She looked great, and even put a little effort into defending her side of the hay trough she shares with Bella, the mare with nerve damage in her hind legs and back. There is a third mare in with them now, a healthy and sound but flighty paint mare who was just separated from her foal for weaning. Luckily, Glory is such a wimp she doesn't go near her lame but alpha-type pasture mates.

Also, cute new gray Arab-type (?) gelding. Ride-able, sound, and had very nice gate manners but I didn't get a chance to hear his story. Put his blanket on him and he was much more respectful than most of our newcomers are. He came up to the gate when I called, slipped his head into the halter, and was friendly without demanding attention. I get the feeling he's a real winner, and won't be with us too long :-)

Blech

Again, mad at CU. Well, mad at myself for not dealing with CU. I hate that I get As in upper-division hard science classes as long as there is no homework. When there is homework and/or the class is lower-level, I get Cs. WTF? I know why, though: I don't go to class if lecture makes me want to bang my head against the wall (hello there, PHYS 2010!) and I don't do homework problems that are "plug and chug" if I've already done the same friggin' ones on another assignment and had no trouble with them. I will do problems out of the book (that are, naturally, not graded) if I'm having trouble with a concept. If college is about learning, why do we get graded on how well we do busywork?

In other news, I need to finish this concept map now so I can raise my homework grade with an assignment that is actually helping me learn.

Oh, and we put down Honey. Some horses are easier to let go of then others, and Honey was a tough one for me. She wasn't even 20 years old, but we couldn't get rid of her pain. After a failed too young career, she was bred, starved, and rescued (by us). Someone adopted her, and after a couple years disappeared off the face of the earth with her (doesn't happen often, but does happen) and she reappeared with us, once again as a skeleton, over a decade later. We learned that she was bred at least once, abused and rescued by another organization out of state, adopted to someone who then sold her, and brought back to Colorado where she was kept in a dirt lot and not properly fed. The dirt-lot people had a huge house and lots of "toys" of the 4-wheeler/boat variety. Their excuse for not feeding her? They had no money to buy hay for the horses they weren't showing. Fuckers. She was one of the first horses to come in after I started volunteering beyond volunteer days, and I helped soak her abscessed feet and get her to move her legs. She was so sore, with abscesses in three of her hooves, that she wouldn't even come to her bucket for dinner without lots of physical coaxing. She was better for a little while, but with the winter weather her legs started bothering her and the decision was made... She was a total sweetheart, in spite of all the crap people had done to her.

People suck.

We finally closed on the condo today, so yay!!! Mike is a home owner!! Even better, we have enough money left to pay for the cat to have his surgery! I think Mike's a bit depressed about how quickly our money disappears and how "little" we have to show for it... but he'll be happier when he files taxes and sees how many deductions and returns he's getting.

Today, I was finished with my workout and chatting with my trainer when I started to feel not so great. I sat down, felt worse, got up, spent 5 minutes puking, then felt okay and drove home. It was extremely strange, especially since it was at the end of my work out and the exercise hadn't made me nauseous or anything and since I rarely vomit. I'm going to blame it on the fact that I hadn't eaten anything in five hours and try not to think about other implications. If it wasn't a blood sugar crash, it was probably the flu: Mike has a flu thing and my parents both had swine flu last week. My mom is on the high-risk list for swine flu so she went to get her vaccine and the doctor tested and saw she'd already had it, so we know for sure that we were all exposed. I was hoping I already had it- I was laid up for ten days earlier this semester with an awful bug- but the morning sickness allusions (my trainer has a ten week old baby boy and the cat breeder is currently preggers) are scarier than the thought of swine flu!

Other than that... my clones keep dying :-( and with midterms I haven't had a chance to start again, and I miss the lab! I keep going in and saying "hi" and puttering around a bit, doing some chores etc, but I feel like a slacker studying in the library instead of trying to get something started and then studying in the lab while it digests/ incubates/ runs/ autoclaves/ whatever. The fact that it's 4:30 and I'm home is frightening. My brain being fried is even worse, since I still haven't studied for my molecular test tomorrow. Crappity crap crap, indeed.

Everyone makes mistakes, right?

My day today:
"Multiply everything by 0.6 to make 600 mL of agar for plates." "Okay. Wow, this does not seem like enough agar." "You started with 1.5 g, right? So it should be okay!"

Two hours later...
"These plates aren't setting. Are you sure you remembered to put the agar in?"
"Yes, I am sure I put agar in. I'm making agar plates: I hope I'm not that dumb!"

Fifteen minutes later...
"These don't look right at all. Are you SURE you put agar in?"
"YES I am SURE I put agar in."
"You put 9g of agar in the bottle with the LB?"
"You mean, 0.9 g or agar in the... oh, crap, what?"
"You put 1.5 g of agar per 100 mLs, no?"
"No. Shit nuggies. I totally put 1.5 g per 1000 mLs. These are not going to gel. I have to leave in 20 minutes. The bacteria is ready to plate. Fucking fuckity fuck!"


In other words... I am that dumb! And I am going to spend the rest of the week making up for it, especially since my supervisor was just assigned to me last week and I've only been to work one other day since then! I wanted to make a good impression, but I think I'm failing pretty miserably at that! At least he is very friendly, and doesn't seem to be too bothered when I ask him a million questions and then five minutes later ask the same million questions because I didn't write enough down the first time...

It sucks to be completely new to something and have everyone expect you to know what you're doing! I think they've all forgotten what it's like to do all these standard procedures for the first time, but at least everyone is nice about answering questions and double-checking my work.

At least I have the cutest little pumpkin ever!!!

SO MUCH SNOW!

This is the Halloween weather of my childhood memories- snow up to my knees and lots of wind! I hear we had 20" by 9 am this morning, and I do believe we are well over two feet now.

I took a second snow day today. The roads weren't bad, but the blowing snow was and my commute is notorious for white-out conditions when everything else is sunny and calm so... not in the mood. Work and school have been crazy, and with wedding planning and being sick I've had no time for anything extra. So, instead of catching up on school work or doing dishes, I went out to the horse rescue today and trudged through the snow to pet each and every little velvet nose. I haven't been out there since the first week of August.

The mustangs from Nebraska look like horses, not shadows and skeletons. They don't look like yearlings, but they look healthy. I wonder how badly stunted their growth was from spending their first 6-8 months of life starving. Maddie, the 5 or 6 year old mare who came to us in January near death and looking like a starved yearling, reached 13 hh last month! She looks great, like a real, grown-up horse! There's a new skeletal horse up front, I would guess early 20s but everyone looks pathetic in this weather. He was enjoying his hay, and whinnied when I walked up. Who could let such a sweet horse get like that?

In the months I was gone we had two deaths, one I knew about (34 year old QH mare, Codi) and one I found out about today (28 year old hackney pony, Jack). Both were well loved, and Codi at least spend several years living the dream before passing peacefully into the next realm. I feel bad for Jack, though. He didn't get the retirement he deserved until last fall, and thinking of him out in the snow with no shelter for all those years makes me sick!

A few other new horses, including a mini in sad shape back in iso, a paint mare with a foal at her side, and a huge roan gelding in Codi's old pen. Two horses who had been in foster homes are also back, they both look great so I'm assuming it's the economy's fault that they've returned. Bobby looked depressed, I think he was really enjoying life as a beloved pet!

I need to get back on the feeder list, I miss it out there!

Work is insane. We won our grant, so I get paid a whooping $500 this semester for 20hrs a week of work, which works out to a little over 50 cents an hour. Another way to look at it is I'm paying $500 less this semester to go to school. I don't know how I could get this necessary internship experience if I didn't have external financial support! I am seriously considering getting a teaching license in biology and working in a middle school for five years just for the student loan forgiveness that program offers!

I realized that I said something the other day along the lines of, "What is more important than curing cancer?" and then laughed. The people I was talking to gave me a weird look, and I realized that what seems rhetorical to me is also rhetorical to them, but not in the same way. My sanity is more important to me than curing cancer, as is my family. I think many people in the lab would say that beer is pretty important, their kids are the most important, etc. I guess, to me, curing cancer is not what our work is directly about, and staying in the lab all hours isn't really going to make much of a difference in how long it is before we have a cure. If we don't enjoy our own lives and take care of the people who matter to us, then we lose grasp of why we want to end this awful disease in the first place.

I think a lot of people will be disappointed when the first cancer cure debuts, because it's highly unlikely that it will be universally effective. Cancer is a disease of the genes: Just like how everybody's genes are unique, each cancer patient has a completely unique disease. Our understanding of genetics will have to explode before we have a universal cure for cancer, but until then we can keep working on understanding how cancer cells work so we can attack them more effectively.

Fun Times with Kitty

Cultural Irrelevance

Mike and I have been having some scuffles with our insurance company as of late, so when my uncle Peter recommended we switch to the one they use, we checked it out. Surprisingly enough, we could get far better coverage for far less money so we called them up and got started.

After talking to Mike and getting his car and our condo approved, the agent called me to approve my car. We were planning to go to the Taj (JefCo's massive courthouse) on Monday to get both cars put in both names, so I told the agent this and asked if we could do a joint policy. Apparently, we have to be married or demonstrate "intention to wed" in order to have a joint car policy. He seemed more embarrassed about having to tell us this then I was surprised by the seemingly outdated policy. I asked him what we would need in order to demonstrate commitment similar to "intention to wed" and told him that lack of commitment isn't the issue- we've had joint finances for over a year and have no qualms about co-owning cars, condos, etc- but since we don't belong to a religion that celebrates marriage and we don't feel our families care all that much, it's culturally irrelevant. He said he'd ask his underwriter about an exemption and get back to us today.

The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth, in spite of the agent's apologies and clear willingness to help us get around this clause.

• This is the third time we've been denied the coverage we want because we're not married
  
• We could save $700+ per year on car insurance by being married
• It would cost us $30 to go to the courthouse and become married
• We seriously considered going to the Taj yesterday and getting a license
  
• The fact that we seriously considered just doing it should tell you something about how seriously we take that piece of paper
  
• If my uncles applied, having been together for 20 years and co-owning everything, they would be denied coverage because they are not married
• Suddenly, I understand a lot more about how fucked up the legal issue of marriage is and how it really has nothing to do with religion or ethics
• 50% of marriages end in divorce, so how is "intent to wed" proof that we are committed to each other for life?
• I'd also like to point out that we've been living together for longer than the average American marriage lasts
• We are going to two weddings and a wedding shower this weekend and I need to not be bitter

In other news, I was feeling so useful at work until the Czech post-doc panicked about his samples being above -20 C for too long and promptly undid several hours of organizational work during his freak-out. I was following the exact directions given to me by the head of the lab, but el jefe is in New York this month and I had to take the blame, no excuses. It also sucks that I completely understand the Czech guy's problem with what I was doing, so I feel guilty about following directions blindly and ignoring my own common sense. Today I need to go in there and attempt to re-stack identical, unlabeled boxes in the order in which they were origionally stacked. It's extra fun that the boxes are now in three seperate freezers and have all been moved around by people using things out of the two back-up freezers so I'm not sure I'll even be able to identify the boxes that need to move vs. the boxes that need to stay. FML.

Okay, I'll Wear Gloves...

If it comes in a special bottle wrapped in a thick plastic bag and is stored buried in sand in a super thick paint-can-like container, I'm willing to buy that it's pretty damn toxic.

I spent a good part of my day pulling boxes of 1 ml tubes (think half the size of your pinky finger) out of the freezer and trying to interpret the writing on top of each one before they began to thaw. Reading other peoples' handwriting is bad enough when it's not a series of seemingly arbitrary numbers, letters, and symbols written small enough to fit on a tiny round sticker, and having limited time with each box made it super fun, but I did eventually update and correct the stock catalogue.

Lab work is super glamorous.

Bleck

Tired, grumpy, tired a bit more, worn down, amazingly not sick (yet), getting pale again from being inside all the damn time.

Let's see if my sister has any cool pics on her laptop, shall we?




Okay, good portfolio shots.

Anyhow, yeah. Mike's sister, Melissa, is visiting. She's awesome and very laid back and sweet, but it's always a bit stressful to have house guests. Plus, Organic Chem is at its peak, my sister is visiting from Tasmania (hence her laptop being here), and I just want to go outside and do something active but my brain is too weary to properly coordinate my limbs!

From My Phone:

The one I love.

The place I always want to be come Summer.

The thing I miss most from May through October.

"Lolrado" Weather= rain pouring down from clear blue skies.

Kitty Heaven, Fruit Hats

Soooo Happy!!! Chin Rubs Rock!!

Isn't he just the cutest little wrinkly rat creature ever???

And, same dress different day... The awesome "wig" I found the day I had my head shaved.

My Day, In Photos (okay, and words)

I woke up and checked my e-mail while Mike was still sleeping. Mr. Mewton sat on my lap and watched Neighbor Kitty out our sliding glass door.


When Mike woke up, Mr. Mewton decided to give his lap a try. Mike re-heated some Mexican food from last night and we watched Angel.

Mr.Mewton was very playful; here he is gnawing on my thumb while I attempted to eat.

The babies are doing better! Apparently the bay is now named Second Chance and the white-faced one is Apache Spirit. They're excited that Elysa's carrying over some fresh hay.

I pulled out Kahlua and we worked for a while under saddle, then cooled off in hand. Here I said "stay" and she froze with her front leg mid-stride and held it there until I told her to move again- good girl! The ground work is clearly going well!

A thunderstorm rolled in as we were riding, but the rain didn't start until the moment I latched her gate at the end. Good timing!

I fed Asia, the barn cat, in the being re-built feed room

This barn used to be a coach stop, and they defended themselves from Indian and bandit attacks by shooting out of these holes. The stone walls are a good foot thick, and are the only part of the barn that hasn't had to be replaced.

After a quick shower, Mike and I drove an hour North to my aunt and uncle's new farm. They moved in last week, so this was the welcome BBQ. Here my dad enjoys his beer on the porch.

The males all gathered in the "entertainment room" to discuss the new electronics.

My cousin Kiersten has her own apartment in the basement, complete with a fridge adapted to have an easy-access beer and chocolate milk door!

The skies cleared up as we headed home, giving us this great view of Boulder.

Further South, we drive past Eldorado Canyon, through Boulder's green belt.

Mr. Mewton crawled out from under his down comforter as we walked in...

...and the day ends as it began, with the cat on my lap as I tried to work at the computer.

Thunder Storm Suckage

I'm grumpy, bored, and want to play with the ponies after a day off yesterday, but we're having some big-time lightning. Thunderstorms are pretty much the only weather that keeps me away from the barn; lightning strikes are too common here to not take seriously. Something about the altitude? Plus, it makes all the horses nuts and no one else is on the property this evening so it's not a great plan to go out alone and try to get some work done with horses with issues. Crap.

Mike's grumpy, the cat won't play, Mike's being grumpy in the office so I can't play violin, my plants don't need any more attention, calculus makes me want to cry, and I want to bitch about it all so that's why I blog to nobody. Fuck it all. Goddamn it.

Also, the awesome professor who is offering an interview for an internship wants to meet while I'm in lab, and is apparently only available to meet at times I am in lab. Guess that means THAT isn't going to pan out so well after all. Fuck.

Amigo, and Kahlua's Adoption

Yesterday, I had the immense pleasure of working with Amigo, our one and only "child-safe" rescue horse. I'd heard nice things about him, but frankly had not been all that convinced about his manners due to the ugly ugly faces he makes at mares and how pushy he can get during feeding. In spite of the fact that Kahlua won't walk by his pen if he's anywhere near the fence line, the barn manager suggested that we use him as the babysitter for her first trail ride.

Kahlua's adoption is almost finalized, and her new mother, Cassandra, has been meeting with me every day for the past week. The barn manager recommended that I evaluate her riding (part of adoption policy for rideable horses) and after that first session, Cassandra decided that she wanted a few "lessons" with me before finalizing the adoption. Normally, I would have said no way! I'm not a trainer and I don't pretend to know enough to be one! Still, Kahlua isn't a normal horse and I have been able to make some huge strides with her thanks to having trained a similar horse of my own before, and I feel good sharing what works and what doesn't with her new owner. Monday night we had a great break through with Cassandra getting Kahlua to bend both directions and pick up the correct lead on a circle, and I'm thrilled that they are getting along so well!

Anyhow, Cassandra would like to, eventually, take Kahlua on some trail rides. Kahlua gets very nervous outside the arena. So this is where Amigo comes in.

As Cassandra warmed up Kahlua in the arena, I pulled Amigo out of his pen and went to tack up. He was so excited to get out, and very vocal about it! We have a no-tie policy, so we don't have a hitching rail. Amigo is thus tied to the fence (NOT the gate) in the below picture because he actually does know how to stand tied! Hoorah!

He loved getting brushed off, picked up his feet easily and held them up with no weight in my hands. He got excited and knocked over a trash can that I thought was out of reach, but did not spook at all! He stood quietly while I put the saddle etc on, and lowered his head to take the bit. Somewhere in his past life someone took a lot of time with this horse!

Under saddle, he was a total winner! He stood at the mounting block and waited there until I cued him forward, and went into a nice Western frame before I'd even touched the reins! In a 4H or local open show, I'm confident that Amigo would win any pleasure class you put him in, with just about any intermediate rider! Cutest jog I've ever seen! On the trail (well, in the hayfield) he walked right next to Kahlua and stayed calm even as she started to get antsy. I "lost" a stirrup and shifted my weight funny a few times and he instantly shifted his own body to get me back in the correct position :-) Total babysitter, but also capable of more advanced work if you ask for it!

Everyone, we need to get this boy adopted! Details here on most of our adoptable horses (I must admit, it's a random selection... clearly the website needs to be updated more often!).

Mustangs as of Tuesday, Mr. Mewton

Kitty enjoying some cuddle time

One week after arriving, the babies check out the board president as she cleans out their hay trough. If they look skinnier, it's because their worm bellies have gone down and they're starting to lose some of that fuzz, not because they're losing weight! Looking at their legs and backs, you can see the beginnings of putting weight on. The little white-faced colt is standing more comfortably and even showed off a tiny maybe buck when one of the dogs walked by! He's getting brave, too- I was chatting, leaning against the fence, and he came and sniffed my arm a few times, even mouthing it once!

The bay colt is still too shy to let anyone touch him and is very aware of his space. Where the white-faced guy will lightly rub against into people in his pen, the bay has his eye on you at all times. His skin is in worse shape, too, as you can see here from where he's rubbed the hair off the side of his face. They both are in desperate need of a medicated shampoo bath, but the vet's orders are to wait to handle them at all until they're put a bit more weight on. As they shed, it's getting clearer just how skeletal and weak they really are!

Vet also re-evaluated ages: The White-faced colt is 3-4 months old, and the bay is 9-12 months old. That's more the ages we were expecting, and it feels like we've been given back those many months before they "should" be able to do basic things. Not that we're expecting them to know the things a domestic handled-from-birth foal might be able to do at their ages, but by the time they're 2 we can have them handled enough to do the basics.

The Horses: An Introduction

Yesterday I got to thinking, why don't I have more pictures of the horses? Well, aside from the fact that a wonderful photographer donates her services and we have lots of pictures around, I always have my hands full while I'm there! So after running to town to pick up a couple things, I came back and took some photos. I'd like to do a post on each horse, but here's a quick intro for all the horses currently up for adoption!

Sadie is a small gaited mare in her teens who's been here about a month. She had a few years off of work, but she's sound and we evaluated her under saddle on Sunday. I don't know much about her history except that she stopped being ridden after backing her way home on a trail ride. She tried to back into the gate multiple times during her test ride, but our wonderful young rider kept with her and eventually had her going on the rail at a variety of gaits...

This is Hope. She's been up front for three days now and seems very sweet, but a bit shy. This is not the best picture, but you can still see how underweight she is even after several weeks of proper feeding. I think she's been here about a month as well, but spent longer in quarintine thanks to some skin parasites. I don't know how old she is, I think late teens.

Meet Kahlua, the awesome paint mare is who I've been working with lately! She has a club foot but stays sound with proper shoeing and is learning to work calmly at the walk and trot in the arena. Some of the other riders think she's squirrely, but I think she's a smart little mare who will give you the run-around if she thinks she can get away with it! She'll be a fine trail horse for a calm, confident rider. She's only 7 or 8 and hasn'd been working under saddle very long.

This cute fellow is Badger. He and his penmate, Billy, are both very late 20s and have been living together for at least a decade. They came in together with a couple other horses who had been starved more than once on dude strings and are not up for adoption due to their repeated bad luck. They get used a lot for group demos like massage and basic horse health because they're calm and love having lots of people paying attention to them!

Princess is the fattest mini on the face of the planet. See my previous post on her if you're curious as to why...

Mattie is a nearly 3 year old registered Quarter Horse mare who was bought from the kill buyer at the last possible moment by a kindhearted woman who was there picking up a mule she'd bought at the auction. Mattie had strangles and was severely underweight, and this mule had apparently been standing over her and refused to leave without her! We initially thought she was a yearling, she was so tiny! After her long stay in quarintine, she's put on tons of weight and grown several inches! We're still learning a lot about her past...

Winston is a five year old, 17+ hand Quarter Horse gelding who has injuries in all four legs from a jumpping carrier that began at 3, way way way too early!

Romeo got his name from that heart-shaped spot on his shoulder. He's an Arab in his early 20s, mostly sound, likes going on the trail.

Winston and Romeo think they're so studly!

Bella has had pretty much every neurological disease possible, and thus has permanent nerve damage to her back legs. Lots of dedicated people have worked to get her sound and happy, and last month she was even able to hold up her own back feet for the farrier!

Honey's a black Thoroughbred mare with a long history of bad homes. Her hing legs are covered in scars and she came to use with abcesses in three of her hooves. I think she's been her over 6 months, and she's a different horse now that she can move around comfortably! She was such a great sport getting her feet soaked those first few weeks, it was hard to believe a horse that wary of people was letting us mess with her so much! I think both Bella and Honey are late teens.

Oh, Bailey! 42 years old, mostly blind, mostly deaf, completely spunky! She's SUCH a love!

I've talked about Isis before. She's 8, has terrible ringbone, and was beat nearly to death by a kill buyer. After a few years here, though, I'd say she's looking pretty damn good!

Codi was a barrel racer back in her prime, and at 33 she's still got plenty of spunk! She has cushings but is otherwise in pretty great shape for the shape that she's in! This is a terrible picture of her being disspointed that I wasn't bringing her anything delicious, but she has the cutest face and it always so excited to see people, she's one of my favorites!

The little hackney pony in the foreground is Jack, and Storm is the Morgan in the pen behind. Jack came in this fall with a big Saddlebred gelding, both nearly skeletal. His eyes were bugging out of his head and he cowered in the back of his shelter for weeks, but an equine eye specialist, dental care, and haycube/ beet pulp/ Triple Crown senior soup three times a day made all the difference in the world! He's very skittish about people, but we hear he was quite the looker as a parade horse in his prime! He's 26 years old.

Storm belonged to an older gentleman who owned him for all 20 years of his life. They went trail riding every single day, and we did our best to help him keep Storm but in the end we couldn't help him out enough to keep up with the rising cost of hay. He's a total love, and I do hope his old owner will make the difficult trip out here to visit him sooner or later!

Finally, we have Amigo. Aside from being a butthead around mares, this 18 year old quarter horse is a total champ! He had a long carrier as a reining horse before being used in lesson programs for begginer riders. He's sound, reliable on the trail, and takes care of his rider. I would love to see him go home with a little boy who will love the snot out of him! I mean, this is the sort of fallen-through-the-cracks wonderful horse that people wish they could find at a rescue! Now that he's in good weight, there's no reason for him to still be here!