I'm sure everyone is waiting for spring! It's snowing today, with a heavy snowfall warning of 10 - 25 cm (4-10 inches)! I don't think the horses mind, but with the ground warming all we're going to have is mud and more mud once it melts. 

Hmm, I didn't realize it's been so long since I've written an update. Max left for his new home, as did Joshua the donkey. The same day that Joshua left we got in another donkey, Buckwheat, from the Alberta SPCA. Buckwheat had very overgrown hooves but we were able to get him trimmed right back and his feet look great now. He was pretty happy to be able to run again! Buckwheat has also been adopted, as have Mellow and Nicki, Captain, and Paloma, and one of the new colts.

Speaking of new, we took in 6 weanlings, they came from a local horse feedlot. Three of them were part of an elderly farmer's hoarding situation, is the best way I can describe it. The other three ended up at the feedlot through a breeder who was clearing out his 'leftovers' I guess. Both are pretty typical situations of why youngsters end up going for meat. We also just got in 6 more from another breeder/ hoarding/divorce type situation. These last 6 are in pretty rough shape, very underweight, but they're already looking and feeling better. We also were contacted by the owners of Allie and Pup, who were both adopted out last year, about returning them; Pup, because of training issues and Allie because of a change in circumstances. Thankfully, Pup is going to stay with the lady who was boarding him, thank you Penny for that (Penny adopted Hank last year). Unfortunately with Allie, even though I told her owners that we would be happy to take her back, I haven't heard anything more on her, which kind of has me worried. I'm hoping they found her another home and just haven't bothered to let me know.

Welcome to our new volunteer Heather, and thank you to Emily for coming out and volunteering during 'reading week'. Thank you to Hannah for donations in lieu of your 10th birthday! Thank you to Monty, Hope, Belinda, Kathy, and Donna for the feed/tack/supplies donations. Thank you Anne for coming out and working with Eddie and his feet! Thank you to Judy and Linda and all our other volunteers. We've got some new sponsors on board, thank you all for your contributions, we do appreciate it!

We had Mike's horse, Shiloh, xrayed as he's prone to founder and has some rotation of his coffin bones. He now has nice shoes on all 4 feet and is much more comfortable! We also had Farrah's crooked foot xrayed and Cecil's foot with the abscess. We were able to get Farrah trimmed back nicely, though she's still crooked and has an abscess coming out but once that's healed we're hoping she'll do better. Cecil didn't have any internal issues with his foot (I was concerned because of the previous abscess where he lost half his hoof!) and he's back down with the herd. We also brought Red up to the house as he had an abscess develop too, this one in the opposite front foot from last year. It seems certain horses are more susceptible to abscesses and not always in the same foot! Thank you to Didsbury Vet, Energy Equine, and Carson Richardson (farrier). Kahlua came down with heaves, so she's up at the house now and being fed flakes on the ground rather than having her head stuck in a round bale. Shandra came down with a touch of pneumonia in one lung, not sure why but she did have a very bad-smelling discharge from one nostril. After several weeks of antibiotics she seems to be over it.

We are looking for more round bales, so if anyone knows of any for sale in the central Alberta area, Red Deer or Calgary, please let us know.

A quick note, we're at The Mane Event in Red Deer April 26-28 this year. Unfortunately the Pet Expo in Calgary is the same weekend (April 27-28) so we've got to decide if we can do both venues. If you can volunteer either in helping create the booths or in manning the booths, please contact either Mike at [email protected] or Carmen at [email protected]. Time is of the essence as we have already paid for the Mane Event booth but have not committed to a Pet Expo booth yet. This year the Pet Expo is at Spruce Meadows, which would be a really great venue for us!

Also please note our annual general meeting will be held Feb 9th here at the rescue; RSVP if you will be attending so we know how many people to expect.

I've had two things on my list for months now, and hopefully soon I'll actually get to them - adding a wish list to the website; and creating a 'foster horse follow-up form'. Oh, and also, we're looking at starting a fundraiser for an 'Anderson Glide', which would be a great thing to have for down horses that need to be moved. The price looks to be around $1800.

Our upcoming fundraising casino has been moved up from the first quarter of 2014 to the last quarter of 2013. The casino will be held in Red Deer. We will be advised of the actual dates in May. There will be accommodation provided for volunteers to stay overnight in Red Deer if required. We had a lot of fun at the previous casino, so let us know if you are interested in helping out!

Sue Chataway, one of our older foster horses (and former pmu mare) was euthanized at her foster home last week due to a sudden debilitating illness. Thank you Jenn and Mike for fostering her for a number of years. Shandra developed pneumonia in one lung, we believe from inhaling some fluid from a draining abscess in her nasal cavity or throat. She's on antibiotics now to treat it. She's not coughing or showing other symptoms other than pus coming out one nostril (and of course the congestion in one lung). The smell from the one nostril was pretty bad, but it's improving so hopefully that means the antibiotics are working. We think that Lucky had a minor stroke a couple of days ago. His tongue is tending to hang out the right side of his mouth and he's drooling quite a bit. He thankfully doesn't have any other visible symptoms and we're hoping with time he'll recover fully. He is able to eat his mash and doesn't have any trouble walking, was even still being his normal playful self this morning, goofing around with Old Red.

We delivered Mugsy to her new foster home last week, she's going to keep another old pony company. Tomorrow we'll be delivering Blizzard and Kiwi to their new foster home, along with Cassie who has been adopted to the same home. Today I dropped Twobits off at her new foster home just down the road. Max is adopted! He's such a cute little guy, I'm really happy he's going to have his own person. Poncho the donkey and Lexus the Thoroughbred mare have each been adopted by their respective foster homes. Smudge is back and up for adoption; he was fostered out for 2 1/2 years with the Christman family and it worked out wonderfully that we were able to deliver Mugsy and pick up Smudge on the same day, as they were within about 10 kms of each other. I haven't had a chance yet to spend much time with him but Smudge seems to be much quieter and better mannered than when he left. Trouble is also adopted! She'll be leaving for BC at the end of February.

Our farrier Pat was out for 3 days last week and we got lots of horses trimmed again. Thank you to everyone who was able to help on the farrier days. We also were able to deworm all but 2 of the weanlings. The last 2 (Girl and Atticus) will be done next week once they're halter-broke. Of course I had to do the poop inspection afterwards and see who's pooping out worms. Boy, some of them were pretty infested. I'm so glad we got them done. By the time we do them again in the spring they should all be halter-broke and easy as pie to do, just like the previous year's bunch.

Wow, I don't know where the time went, it's been a month since the last update. The on-line auction went well, thank you again to Kyndra for all her hard work in collecting items and getting it going. Thank you as well to Mary Ellen for helping to get some items together. Our sincere appreciation to everyone who donated and bid - we will net over $3000! We should receive the funds shortly and any shipping credits should be taken care of this week as well. Please contact either me or Kyndra if there are any issues that still need to be resolved. We do have a couple of items that did not get sold. I have listed them on the fundraising page if you'd like to snap them up now. If anything got missed please let me know.

Very sadly, we lost both Major and Patches recently, about 10 days apart, both just about the same way, namely they went down in the cold for unknown reasons. Major was already gone when we discovered him, which is always a shock and so saddening, and Patches we worked on for 12 hours to try to help her recover but without success and she was euthanized quietly. We have to be reconciled to the fact that we did the best we could and their lives were good while they were here with us.

PQ and Vega have gone to their new home - PQ was very pregnant so I'm glad she's gone somewhere were they can keep a closer eye on her and have her inside to foal. Paloma, Amadeus, Max and Captain are back from school. They all did really well while they were there! We delivered Malone to his new home - our vet adopted him! Lilly sliced her shoulder open. We had Dr. Erickson out to clean it up and stitch it up as best she could. There was surprisingly little swelling and it's healing up nicely, though the vet did have to do some more cleaning up of the dead tissue as it died back. Lilly was a good patient and didn't seem to mind the week she had to spend in the barn even though it was probably her first time being indoors. Aric's bloodwork to check his testosterone level was... inconclusive! Due to the time of year, his results don't really tell us for sure what his status is as it's borderline between a gelding and a non-breeding stallion. However because he seems to think he is a breeding stallion we're fairly certain his reading shows he's a gelding, if that makes sense. 

Thank you to Darcy & Karen Grudeski for the hay donation. 

A reminder to all our foster homes, further to the email I sent out (let me know if you didn't get it!), if you would like to receive a tax receipt for fostering we need to address it within the next week or so. I've sent out all the year end charitable receipts, so if you made a donation in 2012 and don't receive your receipt by late next week, please let me know.

We have a new application for volunteering - check out the 'how you can help' section of the website. Thank you Carmen for volunteering to be our volunteer coordinator! You can contact Carmen about volunteering at [email protected].

The on-line auction is up and running! It runs until Dec 20th, but I'm not sure exactly what time it ends (for those of you who will want to sneak in those last minute bids!). I'll find out and post it here and on facebook.

Four more youngsters have gone to Olds College for the equine program - Amadeus, Paloma, Max, and Captain. They'll be back end of next week. Flint, Lena and Trump left for their new homes. Our farrier, Pat, was out last week and over 4 days we did about 60 or 70 horses. We even did Slinky the mule; though she did need some sedation it went quite well and her feet look great now. Susanne has been very busy working with the horses; as you can see from those that went to Olds College this time around, she halterbroke Paloma and Captain. Sphinx is now almost halterbroke and Salsa is halter- broke as well. Mackenzie is just about there, and Glory is getting ready to be started. I've started playing with Vita a bit, and even Ocean is coming around. Java and Valentino are now down with the main herd. Java halters and leads and today she loaded well for the short trip across the road.

Some important updates and thank-yous! Thank you to Rebecca for the donation in lieu of birthday presents - The horses appreciate it!

Where did October go?! Winter jumped right in with both feet - From one day to the next we went from beautiful fall weather, plus temperatures in the high teens and warmer, to cloud and snow and ice and COLD! We're already feeding hay and everyone is trying to stay warm and dry.

We've started bringing home some of the horses that were out on foster for the summer. Kiwi and Gemma are back, thank you Carol for giving them a good summer on pasture. Sasha, Farrah, and Brandy are back as well, thank you Deanna for summering them with the minis. We're picking up Sylvia this coming weekend, along with Harley, Raffles and Joker. Raffles was ridden, has an issue with bolting but at least not with bucking any more (I think that's a plus!). Harley was packed and saddled/ridden a few times but can be headstrong and stubborn - just needs more time put into him. Joker has some apparent lameness in his rear fetlock that was injured at some point in the past so wasn't worked with much - we will look at maybe having him xrayed and see if there are any options for it. Remi, Duchess, Promise, Aurora and Neeka all left for their new homes. Dee, Promise's dam, also went out on foster with Promise. Trouble is back, as Thor is now weaned and leaving for his new home.