Time out Tuesday

I had the day off today, a committment early this morning so no sleeping in and quite the contrary, I had to get up even earlier.....get the horses fed, a couple of stalls cleaned and then into Silverdale by 7:45am........waited until around 11am, then headed back home. I spent the afternoon stripping stalls, cleaning water buckets, rebedding stalls, cleaning up old hay, sweeping the barn........yeah, that kind of stuff......late this afternoon and I got a chance to do some Christmas shopping for an hour. I made good use of my time. The answer is GIFT CARDS. Personally I love to get gift cards for places that I haunt......so I hope everyone else will too.

I spent time with Jake this afternoon. I took his blankets off and brushed him gently. I cut his bridlepath, curried his head and combed his mane out.....it was a tangled mess. He loved the grooming session.......even when I pulled on his tangled mane. He enjoyed the brush up and around his ears, but not so much on his belly and the hair is so matted, the brush hardly had an impact. He really needs a bath. In a couple of weeks when he is stronger we will take him to a local stable and bathe him. I am sure it will feel good. He ate good today and was adamant that I should give him more grain but he had to settle for warm beet pulp and a horse cookie.
I took pictures of him, as I will every few days to document his recovery. It is hard, at this point to say he looks better....but he is perkier, that is for sure.

I have had people question why we want to find Jake's previous owners? They seem to question our motives. Our motive is simple.......we want to know everything there is to know about Jake.....health, illness, soundness, quirks.....saddle training and we also would love to find someone who loved him, perhaps enough to offer him a retirement home. We realize that folks sell horses.....we have all sold horses and I bet we have all wondered how they ended up or that we would offer to take them back if misfortune occurred and we found out about it. Sometimes we trust too easily and we are sold a bill of goods. It has happened to me, much to my regret. We already know who starved Jake and that person will be held accountable. We are not the police, although I wish we were sometimes. We have many horses in our care who simply ended up in the wrong hands......sold or given away......it doesn't seem to matter.

Vinnie was in high spirits today. I was cleaning his stall and took my jacket off, threw it over the fence and kind of forgot about it, until I saw Vinnie swinging it around like a kite. He crushed the zipper and slimed a good portion of it.
Which reminds me. I always leave a pair of boots in the barn and this morning I could only find one. It seemed strange that the boot could be gone or misplaced. I take them off in the same area....both of them. But this morning I could only find one. I looked under the table....over by the hay.....NO BOOT. I found it this afternoon.......in Winston's stall, under his hay. He must have leaned over his door, grabbed it and then chewed on it a while......then became bored and dropped it. Well......it is still useable.

Christmas is almost upon us and then a new year. I pray for a better economy, more jobs and less heartache.

Pony UP fortune for tomorrow:

Finders keepers, losers weepers.........hang on to it.