The day after Thanksgiving....hope everyone had a good holiday with their family and loved ones. It has been a busy month for Pony Up and me..... My mother is losing her battle. It is an emotional time for us...heartbreaking and yet there is nothing to be done but to love and care for her each day. Life goes on around her and it is difficult to imagine my life without her....I think of how she loved to work in the yard, shop at Fred Meyer..drive to the Dairy Queen,.....and I am paralyzed to think how we or how I will go on without her. Somedays I cry and other days I simply work hard to drive the overwhelming emotion from my thoughts. My sisters, my neices, my brother in law....all have worked so hard at giving her quality care at home......thank you for your love and unselfishness. My mind is otherwise occupied and I ask for your understanding if I have not appropriately thanked you or mentioned you or answered emails or phone calls. We have taken in a new horse....Bubba......blind like Iris, an ex show horse, a trooper and a sweet soul. He is blind in both eyes. He was left in the kill pen with nowhere to go and although we are not a sanctuary.....we could not leave him. Worst case scenario is that he is a companion to Iris...best case is that he is adopted by a loving family. We have a volunteer who loves him...and we are hopeful he can go home when their barn is built. Bubba is twenty, registered and now well loved. The rain is upon us.....we have had sand delivered three times...and yet we still have mud....this weekend we will work on paddocks again and gutters and gravel and ..........water diversions of all sorts. Pony Up horses got dentals on November 19th......Okalani, Beaver, and a couple of volunteers horses. We will finish dentals on Dec 3rd.....Church, Iris and Jones. Kitty came home to Pony Up this last Wednesday and Baybee left us to go to the Jones Farm. Baybee will be with several other yearlings for the winter....to run, to frolic and to grow. Kitty is a wonderful filly, good manners, beautiful and loves to be groomed. Okalani is doing well in her foster home and Lizzie is doing well in her trial adoption. We are fortunate to have a lot of nice folks who volunteer and support us. I don't always get the names out and some folks don't need their names out.......but all of these folks mean a lot to us.....those who help, those who clean, those who drive, those who plan. The auction in October was a huge help to us for winter costs.....feed, gravel, dentals, ......we couldn't do it without your support or the support and dedication of our volunteers. Thank you. Pony UP is planning a capital campaign to buy a new property for our horses.....more pasture, a better arena...........less incoming water. Look for details soon! Pony UP fortune for tomorrow: It is easy to stir up a fire, harder to put it out. Happy Holidays@

November already?

It has been busy around Pony UP.......winter preparations for the farm, water management (or avoidance?>)...and general life! Okalani has gone to a foster home, Lizzie is on a trial adoption and Joey had an adoption pending a lameness exam! We need to get some horses adopted so that we can make room for what we feel will be an awful winter for local horses. Already our inbox is full of requests for us to take horses, as well as the local humane society. We are full and our farms are at capacity......it makes us sad......so we make a waiting list and try to network for horses on the list. Hay prices are climbing, so is grain......gosh, so is everything! Still we are thankful for people who donate feed, tack items and money. Horses are expensive...if you have one, you know what we mean. We had a very successful fundraiser/auction and also had a lot of fun doing it! 9200 dollars was raised! We are thankful to our local horse community, local volunteers, local vendors and individuals who contributed to our auction items and services. We could not do it without all of you and we are humbled by your generosity and kindness. We had wonderful food , awesome auction items and fabulous friends........what more could we ask for? We bought hay this month and will buy more at mid month. I am a little anxious about rising hay prices and even the availability of hay for later this year or early next January, so I plan to warehouse some. We feed our own horses, the pony down the street and may lend some hay to a hungry horse as necessary. We have also scheduled dentals for five of our horses on November 19th...we will allow farm friends to share the farm call with us in order to help save money. Dentals are 150 dollars and no farm call fee. We are limited to 8 horses..... Today, Saturday, we had no rain and so we too advantage of the weather and moved sand into paddocks that needed more. So far, we are very sold on having sand in the paddocks. It drains well, doesn't pack in hooves and is easy to touch up with the tractor. We also cleaned the larger paddocks, stalls and barn area, plus cleaned water tanks. In early afternoon we went to the second barn and moved fencing around so that the geldings both have large pastures to go out in during the day. We were treated to a display of a tantrum by Iris (the blind horse) who had a fit because her friends "moved" to a different area. This is the first time we have seen her gallop, buck and strut around her paddock. So...we know she can gallop and her feet didn't seem to hurt her! Pony Up needs more room ...a bigger farm........it is hard to have two separate farms. Two farms means hay delivered two places, volunteers to two places......mud management......fencing, gravel, sand.......at two places. We recently had a board meeting and the board has decided that we need one farm.....one bigger farm. So we are looking...the parameters are that the farm has to be close......a minimum of five acres.....just have water already available......a barn would be nice..must be dry and have ample flat pasture. We have two places that we are interested in locally......and we just need to make it happen. We dream big... It may be a fundraising extravaganza...it may be that we sell everything we have that is not nailed down........but if we want to continue to help horses.....we have to grow.......in order to grow, we need more room...more room costs money. We appreciate your ideas and suggestions. Don't forget to turn your clocks back.........I will be glad to do it this time...it is so dark in the morning. I am already tired of it... spring where are you? Pony Up fortune for tomorrow: Set your sights on the nearest mountain top ..then put your climbing shoes on. .