The Golden Carrot Newsletter's Archive

 

Happy Heat, Folks! Temps in triple digits for the last several weeks have been wearing on the horses and I, but here’s a quick letter about some of our activities...

 

 

1. Hershey’s progress

 

Very quickly, here is a picture of Hershey taken today.  Please look at his page to see side by side photos to compare and see his improvement http://www.thegoldencarrot.org/Hershey.html

This character really loves his food, and knows the routine perfectly. He joined the herd within 5 days of arrival, despite being still too fragile to stay out for long. He followed me back to the stall line each morning and looked for me each noontime for his extra buckets. He would munch down his buckets and take a nap in the shade of his stall for the first couple of weeks, but now, gobbles them down and heads right back out to the herd. At this point, he’s down from 5 buckets a day to 3, and eats bermuda grass in the herd every morning like he’s lived here all his life. His skin fungus is under control; he still has a runny right eye and I may have to get Dr. Z out again for further cleaning, but otherwise ..... what do you think? Many thanks to those of you (many already sponsors) who stepped up with some extra dough to help me bring Hershey to a safer condition. I suspect this will be a whole new guy after summer is over. And PS? The girls caught Hershey and brought him thru the herd to get his bath, with no problems at all. Well .... horses love girls.....

 

 

2. Julia’s Birthday -

 

This was a wonderful day for me, and I believe our birthday girl enjoyed herself too.

 

 

I know the horses LOVED the attention, and the girls worked hard to bathe 25 horses! There was a very short learning curve, and then we had quite the ‘horse wash’, complete with bikini babes, going strong. Three of the girls tired more quickly, and they formed a crew to create nameplates for those horses who didn’t yet have a nameplate for their stalls. (I forgot to note Surely’s name down, so my neighbor created one for her the next day). I'm about as creative as a stone, and could only provide the saddest of materials (some spray paints, sponges, magic markers) but look at what these girls did!  It's fabulous....

 

 

The girls also distributed buckets for the horses in the evening and helped to put them away as well.

 

 

Some of these pictures had me really laughing - particularly the solution to the problem of cleaning the back of very tall Buck, by a very tiny girl!

 

 

In addition to all this work and their kindness to The Golden Carrot horses, Julia insisted that her friends donate to TGC rather than give her birthday presents - and in this way, she raised $180 for the horses! This is an exceptional young lady, and her friends are wonderful as well. I hope to see them again in the future....  Please see more pics of a great day at http://goldencarrotrescue.com/JuliaBirthday.aspx

 

3. Prophet’s skin problem, and resolution

 

Some of you know that I’ve been dealing with a sudden and horrible looking skin condition that flared up on Prophet all of a sudden. Although it’s tempting to blame his stall mate Hershey for this fungus, since it hasn’t affected Ronan (on Hershey’s other side) or any of the other horses, I think it’s just a problem Prophet had, probably the result of all the sweat and dirt in his coat. He lost big areas of hair on his face and neck, and little on his legs just above the hock. Its responded well to medicated shampoo and fungus medications, no thanks to Prophet who has always hated having a bath. On Julia’s bath-day, he kept as far away from the bathing activities as possible, screaming for Topper when she was getting a shower! He’s kinda bald-faced now, but hair is starting to come back in ....

 

4. Desperate times for donations

 

I think Desperate Times is probably a good title for everyone’s lives right now. Phone calls and emails from people wishing to "find a home" for their horse(s) have increased to several a day. I know unemployment is high - and as it’s never been easy to find work up here, I know how frightened people are as they watch their savings dwindle, and worry about unexpected expenses.

 

I want to take this moment to be sure you know that each and every one of you who sends any money at all this way is an angel in my book. I know how hard it is to do, and am in awe at the willingness to set aside another treat in favor of helping these horses. I want to remind you that every penny helps - enough pennies from enough people can do the job. Don’t feel that you can’t "send enough" - don’t feel that if you can’t send what you used to send, it won’t be so much appreciated, or that it won’t do any good. It will, I promise you. I too have problems finding work, and am feeling so stressed as a result. I always have to pay a percentage of the expenses of these horses myself. But I feel if we work together, pooling what we can, and encouraging others to give a little too, we can make it through these hard times.

 

Let Julia be our inspiration this month - can you imagine giving up your birthday presents, your special goodies on your special day, for the horses, when you were her age? I don’t think I could have! If Julia thinks that highly of these creatures, in her innocence and kindness, perhaps she’s on to something! Let’s join with her and do what we can .... It WILL help. Thank you for all you do - the Golden Patrons of the Golden Carrot horses....