The Golden Carrot Newsletter's Archive

March 2012

The Golden Carrot

Newsletter

I'm very sorry I haven't sent any news since January.  So much has happened, and on top of that, the day to day life has been difficult with some heavy snowfalls, not having the use of a utility vehicle, struggling with web stuff (SO technical!) as well as the usual.  Well, in some ways, this is a very sad newsletter. But read it all please - because there’s some good news too!

Since I last wrote, we have lost three more friends. Comet, Falcon and Sooner have passed away. You may read about these losses at the links below:

Comet -

You can read about Comet at her page at www.thegoldencarrot.org/Pages/horsescomet.aspx or go directly to her Goodbye at www.thegoldencarrot.org/Pages/GoodbyetoComet.aspx

Read about our sweet, beloved Falcon at www.thegoldencarrot.org/Pages/horsesfalcon.aspx, or www.thegoldencarrot.org/Pages/GoodbyetoFalcon.aspx

And our sad Sooner's painfully brief story (we knew so little) is at www.thegoldencarrot.org/Pages/horsessooner.aspx or www.thegoldencarrot.org/Pages/GoodbyetoSooner.aspx

These losses were heart breaking. After losing Oso, Buddy and Allie in a short period, we only had a short period to recover before these dear friends passed away. It is the nature of things, when we take in the injured, disabled, infirm and elderly. But each comes with their own sweetness, and leave emptiness behind. Please don’t forget these elderly horses, so many of whom have had less than stellar care in their pasts which will often contribute to their untimely demise.  Sometimes they don't have a lot of time with us. They need to know we care. It’s the last kindness we can show them.

I also had one horrid and one wonderful referral for our web troubles. Rick Freeman has been helping me actually transfer our website completely, before the Office Live site is closed by Microsoft. The site is out-of-date a little, as I’ve been reluctant to update the old site, and then have to re-do it on the new site. But I’m working on that now and hope to have it all up to date in a couple of weeks. (The horrid referral cost us $200 and 7 weeks of wasted time, as well as a lost supporter, but ... what are you going to do? I am conferring with board members about whether its financially sensible to pursue a legal action to try to get our money back.) This is a big site, and people who know their business can tell that - Rick looked at it, said he could help, and is doing so despite having a job and a life to deal with as well.  We are continuing to encounter the problem that we can't move all 819 of the pictures on the old site to the new one - one volunteer thought she'd done it but had only actually moved about 258 of the pics; Rick tried too and got another couple of hundred.  Hopefully, we'll be able to figure it out before we're shut down in 3.5 weeks. THANK YOU RICK, for all you’ve done so far, and your kindness to me and the horses!

The GOOD news is this - we have new sponsors, and old sponsors have stayed with us through the loss of their sponsored horses!

Falcon’s sponsor Diane and Peter have agreed to transfer his sponsorship to Prophet, meaning that Prophet is now almost completely sponsored! Comet’s sponsor Sonya and Hanna have transferred their partial sponsorship to Sarge, who was already partially sponsored by Pepe’s sponsor. This means Sarge is half sponsored now! And Sooner’s sponsor Fi, who also sponsors Beau, has transferred Sooner’s sponsorship to Montego! YAY!!! Thank you for the vote of confidence, and your continued support for the old guys!

New supporters are the Flannery family, who have fully sponsored Ronan and Anaba, and Daisy for three months!! Dang! I was so happy to see our little mustangs get some attention, and sweet Daisy too, after her hardships before coming here. Thank you Kristine, and Jack (Ronan’s sponsor), Kara (Anaba’s sponsor), and Sean (Daisy’s sponsor), for stepping up! Welcome to the Golden Carrot family!

Ok, after a bunch of research and discussions with my farrier, we conducted some "procedures" on Sara’s feet, and Rocky’s one bad foot. Both of these horses were so lame it hurt to watch them try to move. And although Rocky is kinda babyish, Sara is quite stoic, so her difficulty moving was real and frightening. As a draft horse cross, Sara has huge dish type feet, always prone to abscesses. I’ve always asked Juan to leave a little more sole than usual on my horses bare feet, because we have quite a lot of rocks in the areas they roam. But I think for Sara, and possibly for Rocky, this was a mistake. We’d tried shoes on both of them. The shoes do Sara no good at all. And Rocky won’t tolerate any tapping on his feet, standing well for trims, but fighting wildly when the tapping in of nails begins. We tried equicasts to protect their feet from wear and possibly stone bruising, but it wasn’t really helping them. Both had feet that were deforming and wearing oddly, at least in part because of the odd way they moved. Both were off their feed, and laying down hours every day. Enough is enough.

The "procedure" involves, simply, taking out sole until they bleed. Arrgggh, I know I know I know how bad that sounds. It looks freaky bad too. But you would not believe the results. They BOTH showed immediate relaxation and pain relief. Sara had THREE huge spots that bled copiously. Rocky had two. Within a week, I had film of Sara CANTERING out for breakfast!!! She hasn’t moved at better than a shuffle in over a year. Now, Rocky ...his results were not so good; his condition pre-dates coming to TGC, and he IS more of a baby. When we first did his, I didn’t have the poultice to put inside his wrap that we had for Sara’s feet. We redid his foot yesterday with the poultice  and he is already walking and standing a little better, and eating better, but still walking with a "limpy leg". When no one is looking (he thinks) he does trot and canter, but still with quite a limp.

I have to keep the feet wrapped for a while, and put Equicasts on for protection, and I will keep you posted. But we may have finally found some real success with this procedure, and I am thankful for Juan’s willingness to do this, and help with re-wrapping etc.

We also found a bad abscess on Anaba (the good part of that? It was MUCH easier to catch her than usual! "-) which was opened, cleaned, packed and wrapped and she walked off perfectly.  Victor's abscess has healed well. Maybe we'll get lucky and have a little more dryness so everyone's feet will toughen up a little.

Lou

I also took my utility vehicle to a professional golfcart shop, because I just need it so badly (there are many things the GEM is not really designed to do!).  Anyone who might consider donating some money towards the repair of this cart would be so appreciated - I couldn't put it off any longer but donations are very low this year.  

And in that regard, I hope you will all consider if you can maybe send a few dollars our way out of your tax returns.  I suspect most of you are depending on those returns to pay some bills, or maybe pay for a little vacation the summer, but The Golden Carrot would truly appreciate a little donation.  Or a big one! :-)  I have three open stalls.  I have NOT filled them, but there are so many in need out there.  $20 a month from enough people can make the difference between life and death for the horses ..... think about it?   Thank you!

In January, I heard that my chiropractor had died. I was devastated, not just because of the good he did me, but because this was a good man, my age, and his demise was a huge surprise, and shattering! RIP George! My farrier was able to point me to a new man, who I saw for the first time yesterday. Guess what guys? He diagnosed me with ‘chronic fatigue’! "-) No kidding. Maybe I will be a little more cheerful if I can get a few more appointments with him.

I bring this up because the person who made the "terrible" referral for web help was very nasty when it didn’t work out, and after commenting that I wasn’t a "people person" (not news to anyone who knows me!), demanded that I stop asking for help in my newsletters. Well, I’m not gonna do that. How else would I have found our accountant? Rick Freeman? And others who have helped the horses in different ways? But I will admit that I’m not really a people person - other than Facebook, I don’t have a lot of contact with people anymore. Whatever people skills I had are certainly gonna be atrophied at best. But I think 100% of the problems I have with people with relation to the horses is simply this - I keep expecting people to do what they say they can and will do, to live up to the offers they make. Personally, I’m beginning to think that makes me stupid. Because the vast majority of people who offer to help, don’t. And I should know that by now. But somehow, I’m always surprised. And because it hurts the horses, it always makes me mad. 

Anyway, I will keep asking for help, because these horses need someone to be their voice. And while yes, lots of additional donations would enable me to pay someone for the work I can’t do myself, well, lots of additional donations are still just a hope for the future! So sometimes, we get lucky and find a Rick Freeman. Or a Jan Heppert who hears that our camera has died and gets us a new one. Or all the kind people who have heard of our organization and send tack, or materials we can sell at our yard sales, or medications/supplements, or ideas for grants and fundraising. Or all the kind people who spread the word of these horses and their needs. All I ask is, if you offer help of some sort, that you follow through.

Every single day, whether I like it or not, because I said I would, I get up early and feed horses, turn them out, fix booboos, deal with vet and farrier as needed, feed again, put horses away, make repairs of stalls and fencing, make arrangements to get feed and unload it, respond to email and FB inquiries, spread the word about horses I can’t help, and help others I can, keep records, and a myriad of other problems that arise day after day. I don’t get paid. I do it because it needs to be done. Because those big eyes that look at me trustingly cannot be disappointed. Please. Help if you can, how you can, when you can. It WILL make a difference.