Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Lifelines......




 Part 1

Sometime mid Saturday morning, I got a call from the nurse. She had been to a function at her grange so had the opportunity to speak to a number of her friends about the situation here. Turned out not only were some of them horse people but they were Arabian horse enthusiasts as well. These women were definitely interested in coming to look at free horses.

The nurse was calling to see if she could bring out four women on Wednesday evening after she got off work. She didn't know exactly what time that might be since she planned to meet them in Puyallup sometime after 5 and lead them out to my farm. The women would be coming from the Olympia area which is an hour away and she would be calling them when she knew for sure what time she would be done with her last call of the day.

One of these women is a farrier. Being told my horses hadn't been trimmed in a while, she volunteered to do a few of the worst while she was here. Just knowing that was a big relief because I am not one to let my horses go.

The fact they hadn't been done since my illness had been one of the things that Kelly had described as being neglectful. Those words had stabbed me like a sword but I hadn't stopped to think how inappropriate the comment was. I had been discharged from the hospital about a month at this time  so I was behind the schedule I normally keep but nowhere near the amount of time that could reasonably be called neglectful. The fact this didn't occur to me just another indication of how really sick I was.

The rest of the weekend I used what energy I had to show Dave and Lindsay how to feed the products I had selected to supplement the hay we had. I have used beet pulp and senior feed before but I have always taken care of it myself. I pushed myself through guiding them despite the fact I was shaky on my feet. I was taking no more chances things might not be done properly. The whole process of soaking and measuring seemed to overwhelm them both but I was grateful to even have these products to feed.

The unexpected need for additional feed had knocked our strained budget for a loop. The only thing that saved us was some blogging friends.

Shirley from Ride a Good Horse had auctioned off, as a fund raiser when she first learned of my diagnosis, a piece of artwork she had done of her grandfather's horses  Several of my blogging friends bid on the piece and it was won by BrownEyed Cowgirls.

The money arrived here just as this emergency arose. That generous donation,  some donations gathered by Mrs Mom   and the gift of a ton of quality hay from fernvalley helped get me through a very difficult time.  Not knowing what the problem was with my feed really fed the doubt Kelly planted in my head. Having quality feed to begin fixing whatever caused this problem brought such a huge relief to my tortured soul.  Words cannot express what this meant to me. Thank you, Ladies! I love you all!!

Lifelines from totally unexpected places  began to restore some semblance of control in my world gone mad. I was not out of the woods yet but at least I was beginning to feel the ground even if I hadn't been able to find my feet.

I thought the trainer coming would build on this foundation. There was no way I could have known her intent was to do quite the opposite.

To be continued......

The Trainer's Visit.......

Note: I realized as I did this that I did the post on the trainer background out of sequence. I apologize if I have confused anyone but I promise the beginning of her part in all of this begins with the next post.

7 comments:

  1. Can you please post a small note as to what horse is in the picture at the top of the blog? I'd love to know who we are looking at. I love your blog.

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  2. Thank God for Shirley, BEC, Mrs. Mom and fernvalley. The whole free horse thing still bothers me. I wish someone local could have helped you put on a fundraiser horse auction for your benefit, but of course, that would have taken time and I know your goal was to get as many horses under the care of good people as soon as possible. I just feel like people could have donated whatever they could spare if they took a horse. I mean, if they can afford to take care of a horse, they can part with at least a few hundred to pay for it. Gone are the days of selling $50,000 horses to people in the show circuit, but I would hope people could have helped with your bills in exchange for such high quality Arabian horses.

    When my husband and I went to a horse rescue to look at horses, we left a donation even though we didn't bring home a horse, and had we brought home a horse, we would have paid more than the low asking price because it was for a good cause.

    But these thoughts are all in retrospect, and times are better now than just a few months/years ago. Me saying this is kind of like when someone showed up to my mother's funeral and told me that I should have asked people to donate to The Humane Society in her name rather than to send flowers. A great idea, but it came way too late and I've been chewing on it ever since. When in shock and under all kinds of pressure you do what you can at the time.

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  3. See seems some things were beginning to look up at the farm. I didn't know about the help from blogging friend. Very nice of them to help.

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  4. Thank goodness you were able to get some assistance, it's very nice to hear that! There are most certainly wonderful people out there! Still, though, I am just dreading the part this trainer is about to play in all of this...what more?

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  5. Kathleen: I think that's Storm.

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  6. So glad you got help from far and near!

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  7. What would we do without our blogger friends? seriously - i was helped out big time for Tomez's vet care after the fire and other donations came in so I could buy hay- we had NOTHING and there was a drought and shortage, but I had donations to be able to go and get some at those god awful high prices, all to my blogger friends!!!

    And no one came to take away anything, Mikael, during that time too (although it was burnt up lol...)How unfair that these people took advantage of you!!!

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