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| Scott Bayerl-MHWF, Inc. |
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| #26 |
I know it's been since Thursday since we posted here. It's just been one of those really busy with too much planned weekends and in reality, we shut the program down this past weekend because of it.
Karen's brother Randy and his wife Laura were up from Texas this past weekend and although it was a weekend packed with plans, we really wanted to spend a little time with them before they headed back to Texas. So, on Friday night the whole family met at the local Italian joint and we all had a nice dinner together. After dinner we came home, Karen's sister Sandy came home with us, and the three of us watched " A Haunting in Connecticut". Not a bad movie, but certainly not a good one either.
Saturday we got up, did chores and headed into town for Chinese since Karen and I had plans to go to Rock Fest that night in Cadott. We figured a Chinese buffet might be the way to go....fill up once and be done eating for the day. Plus concert and fair food is expensive. So the thinking was to eat early, be done with it and save some money as well. After lunch we came home, got packed and cleaned up and headed to Rock Fest. On Saturday night at the concert we opted to have a few drinks while we were there and let's just say they were going down pretty good. Eventually we had to cut ourselves off and make sure we had enough time to burn the alcohol off before the long drive home. We got to see a few bands on Saturday night with the headliners being Judas Priest and Journey. The long drive home at the end of the night got us back home at around 3 am.
Well, up again bright and early on Sunday morning after about 3 hours of sleep, did chores and headed back into Rapids to meet the family at church and attend the baptism of our Nephew's 3 month old son Wyatt. Karen was the Godmother. After church and the baptism we did some family photos and all met in the park to grill brats and have a family picnic. It was a beautiful day and that was nice, even though Karen and I were really tired and a bit ragged feeling from the night before yet.
So, after the picnic we ran home quick, changed clothes, let the dogs out one last time, did chores and headed back to Cadott for Rock fest again. NO drinking on Sunday....just kicking back, relaxing and watching the bands. That was nice and the weather was perfect. We got to see Sevendust, then one of our very favorite bands, Shinedown, then Buckcherry and last was Korn. Yikes, any of you ever see Korn before? Let's just say that your not going to want to bring mom and dad to watch..hehehe.....pretty loud and about as hard and nasty as it gets. We watched them for about an hour until our heads were ringing and opted to cut out a few minutes early to beat the traffic out of there. Boy did that pay off. By cutting out about 20 minutes early, we probably got home a good 90 minutes or more earlier...no traffic and parking lot woes.
So we got up around 7 this morning feeling pretty old and tired after the busy weekend. While we had so much going on, we feel pretty good that we were able to squeeze everything in this weekend without having to give a whole lot up. We really wish we had more time to spend with Randy and Laura, but are glad we found the time we did and will find a way to see them again really soon, whether that means them coming up this way or us going down that way. Neither Karen or I have ever been to Texas.
So what else is new.....we had a baby peacock born on Saturday morning! Mom brings the little stinker out of hiding off and on here and there for a few minutes at a time. It will be a few months before we know if it is another male or a much needed female.
Another really busy and crazy week ahead. We have a few horses coming in this week, so keep your eyes open. Casper the Spotted Saddle Horse is also coming back. The scratch on his eye is just not healing like it should be and he will be coming back and watched closely until we know how that all plays itself out. Besides normal workday stuff, I have fence to stain, a stage from the party to tear apart and about a zillion other projects going on. We'll get them done though.
Hay Drive and online voting contest:
We need one last giant, monster, pass it on to everyone and everywhere push these last few days of the online contest. We are dropping spots and are dangerously close to getting knocked right out of the prize winning spots, which would be terrible and very sad. So please, take a moment to vote each and every day this last week and please get everyone you know to vote every day as well. Tell them it's important to you and ask them to do it for you as a friend or family member. Thank you.
That leaves us with the Hay Drive. So far the Hay Drive is a massive dud and we have to do something to pull out of it. We understand it's so early to be talking about buying hay and trying to collect money toward it, but waiting until fall just isn't smart and is not an option for this program. Please help us get the Hay Drive going...we need the help desperately. If you can spare $5.00 great...every penny counts. Very few people have contributed to the Hay Drive and we know you all better than that. There are a group of super people out there who all share a common bond as well as friendship. We are counting on all of you to help in any way you can. Please consider making a donation to the Hay Drive. It's as serious as it can get and waiting is not an option for the hay this year. Thank you for all your support!
I will leave you all with a couple of snapshots from some of the bands we saw this past weekend.....enjoy and talk to you again really soon!
They should show up in alphabetical order ( I hope)...so...Buckcherry, Journey, Judas Priest, Korn and Shinedown.
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| | | Karen-MHWF |
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| #27 |
What the heck, I'll post here. I can never decide whether to post what I feel like saying on here, or on a particular horse's thread and since this is about more than one horse this is a good spot. I'll let Scott keep you updated on our meals and such. hehe 
As we were getting some loads of round bales delivered this afternoon and evening I had plenty of time in between to hang out with the horses. I spent my time playing mostly with Gracie and Cakes. They are both getting very good about giving to pressure (i.e., halter and leading and those commands, etc.). The girls have really gone through some changes over the past year and have come so far. They are finally getting quite a bit more social out in the herd and you will actually see them sniffing and hanging close to the other horses in the herd finally. Gracie's bridle path was so long and out of hand, I decided to trim that tonight (just with the scissors, she's not ready for a clippers yet). She is so good about having her head messed with and her bridle path turned out so nice. Well, Cakes just can't stand it if Gracie gets more attention than her, so Cakes got a nice bridle path too and she is every bit as adorable. We got all of this accomplished in the time DJ was in the paddock area finishing up his dinner. The girls also got a good all-over grooming and more working on picking up all four feet. They are getting much better with their trust and giving up their feet, and this will start to carry over to the farrier too. You can see their gained trust in people is really carrying over to strangers they meet now as well.
This brings me to the sweetheart, DJ. DJ is doing so well. He really loves the girls and them needing him when they were turned out made DJ feel very special and has helped him settle into the herd as well. DJ had a really rough time and did not want to be out with the herd, then did not want to be in his paddock...he just was not happy. He would go out in the pasture for maybe 10 minutes and then beg to get back in his paddock, then when in his paddock for 5 minutes beg to get back out in the pasture (and by beg, he would actually stand and weave, either to get in or to get out). Having the girls changed all of this for him and now DJ happily spends all of his time out to pasture, other than his meal times. He has this routine down pat and is just thriving. (if DJ is out to pasture at meal time all I have to do is go out there and be visible to him and he comes up, DJ cannot hear very well) The girls do come up and wait for DJ most of the time while he is in the paddock area eating his meals. It is just so cute. If anyone remembers, DJ came in with the little WonderDonk, Spencer, and I think that DJ just lived with the little donkey for many years so was not used to being around other horses, and especially not a herd of them. He just didn't know how to react out there, but he has surely finally fit in and is a very happy guy.
I guess if there has to be a point in all of this rambling it is that it has been so interesting in how these three horses really seemed to need each other. So often in life things do happen for a reason. I guess most things always happen for a reason, even if we can't always see that right off the bat at the time. There is no doubt that these three horses really helped each other and none of them would be doing as well as they are without each other, and now doing well with other horses.
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| | | Scott : MHWF |
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| #28 |
Horsemanship:
What is horsemanship? Is it simply everything you do involving horses? I guess, in some ways it is. Put the term horseman (or woman) into the same context as outdoorsmen or countrymen. What does that term imply? It implies that they are not simply someone who spends time outdoors or someone who fights for their country, it implies that they are good at it and the term implies respect for how they do it. The same goes for horsemanship. Anyone can pet a horse, hand it a treat, hop on it and fall back off, but how many people are true horsemen or women? Owning a horse makes a person no more of a horseman than running a lap around your yard makes you a collegian. The term horsemen gets thrown around a lot and to be honest, it's meaning has been faded and distorted in recent years. Horses are and have been somewhat of a fad the past 10 years or so and with more and more people getting into horses every year, the term horseman has lost a lot of it's sparkle. To call a person a horseman used to be a compliment and implied that the person being referred to was respected for their skills and how they handled and treated their horses. There were other, not so flattering terms for people who were not good "horsemen".
So what does it mean to be a good horseman or woman? To me, and I hope most of you would agree, it means a couple of things. A good horseman always tries to do what's best for the horse. A good horseman takes proper care of his or her horses. A good horseman realizes that no horse is perfect, just like you and I, and that each horse has it's quirks and imperfections. A good horseman works within the horse's ability. If it has a bad habit, a good horseman either works through these problems to resolve them or is smart enough to realize that some quirks are just part of a horse's personality and are something they can live with. A good horseman does not care about impressing anyone. They only care about being proud of the way they carry themselves and the way their horses reflect that. Many of the best horseman have never been off the ranch, have never been on an organized trail ride and have never been on a show ring. A good horseman also always realizes that as our friend Charles Wilhelm always says, "It's never the horse's fault". How true that statement is.
In most cases if your horse bucks, bites, bolts, rears, won't stand for the vet or farrier, whatever the problem is.....it's either your fault or the fault of someone who handled this horse before you. A horseman realizes this and does not point blame, but instead always asks the same question....what is the reason the horse is doing this and how do we deal with it? So one of the most important traits of a good horsemen is the ability to be a problem solver. If your horse is doing something you do not like, then it is either trying to tell you something or you accidentally taught him or her that habit. There is always a reason a horse does something...always. As a horseman it is your job to figure out what that reason is. If you can't, it is your job to find someone that can help you and work with you.
Now why this post you ask. It is because a great many people call themselves horsemen and women, but the minute their horse does something they do not like, their first response it to get rid of it.....dumb horse bucked me off or crazy horse started biting.....time to move it on down the road. A true horseman only has one response to a horse that does any of these things and that response is what did I do wrong.
We get a lot of calls that go something like this....we adopted the wrong horse for our family. It was good for us for a while, but lately it started doing this (insert your own incident here). We need to return it and a lot of times they are mad at us or no longer support programs like ours.
In reading this, what was your first reaction? Was it that we placed a bad horse with someone and did a bad job with that placement? If you know anything about horses, I am sure your first reaction was if the horse was fine when they adopted it, what are they doing wrong or what is the horse trying to tell them that they are not hearing. The answer in most of these situations is not what is wrong with this horse, but is what am I doing wrong and what can I learn by taking the time to listen to my horse and solve this issue. Wouldn't you all agree that giving up on a problem is the wrong direction to go, but learning from a problem and finding the remedy is what makes a person a good horseman?
So next time your horse does something you do not like, please do not point the blame at the horse or the person you got the horse from. Instead ask yourself, what is the horse trying to tell me and work on that. In the end you will end up with a better horse, a happier horse life and you will be able to call yourself a true horseman or woman.
Ok, enough of that for today....what's new with the program? Well, Monday evening marked one full month since Karen or I have had a cigarette. If you don't smoke then that probably doesn't mean much, but if you are a smoker, you know a month without a smoke is a huge deal. I can remember the first time I had to drive into town without a pack of cigarettes in my pocket. You smokers will relate to this. The entire trip I was half panicked because a smoker might go without food, might leave their head, arms and legs at home, but they sure as heck will have their smokes with them. After a little over a month now without a cigarette, our sense of smell and taste are back, our lungs do not hurt anymore and our smokers cough is gone. The idea of being a 2 pack a day smoker really seems like a bad dream we had and hopefully it stays this easy to be a non-smoker. Although, we are still complete nicotine junkies...hehe.
What else, all the wooden fences here at the farm, including the picnic tables got a fresh coat of stain this week. They look good. With the auto waterers in, the lawn mowed, the parking lot with fresh gravel and the bird feeders filled up, it's looking pretty good around here. Now for a bulldozer to dig a giant hole and push this house into it and cover it with dirt....no, we won't do that. Someday we will find the time and the money to make the house livable....someday. Anyone who has even been in our house knows what we are talking about. Our horse is pretty much gutted and has no ceilings, is missing a lot of walls and really has no floors that anyone would recognize as floors. We do the best we can though and who cares anyway. It will get done someday. That's the trade off for doing this kind of work. You live a very meager lifestyle and our house is a good example of that.
Remember the baby peacock we told you all about that was born this past weekend? Well, we found him drowned in a water dish we had set up for the birds in the barn. So no baby peacocks this year I guess. That stinks.
We started moving hay onto the property this week as well. So far we have 154 round bales here and ready for the winter. Now all we have to do is pay for them....hehehe, and go pick up the other 220.
Sad to say that we had to serve court papers to an adopter this week as well. They simply refused to send in the required paperwork and after several attempts by our attorney to solve the problem peacefully, this person still chose to ignore us. So, the case was filed on the 20th and a court date will be set. We will keep you updated as this progresses.
Ok, last but not least.....a few things going on.
The online voting contest....only a few days left to go. You guys have all been doing a fantastic job. We need you all to give it one last giant heave ho fo these last few days. It would be a terrible shame if in the last hours we got bumped out of the prize winning spots.
The Hay Drive.....so far less than 10 people have contributed to the Hay Drive. We know that not everyone has money, but that number is really really sad. 10 people out of the hundreds and hundreds that read this forum every day is not a good number and we are going to need help with the hay from a lot of people here on our site. Over the years we have taken in close to 800 horses and have adopted out that same amount. Certainly a good many of the people who were happy with the placement of their donated horse or people who have adopted and are happy with the adoption can spare a few dollars to the organization that helped them? We are done begging for now, but sincerely hope that more people will realize the importance of the Hay Drive and help in any way they can.
Fun Auction.....
We were not planning on having another fundraiser auction for quite some time, but are going to be doing one in the next couple of weeks. All the money generated from this next auction will go toward the Hay Drive, minus the cost of shipping. Hopefully that will give the hay Drive a big boost. We need this to be a BIG auction, so if you have items you can part with to donate, please consider doing so. Thank you!
Got a few appointments tonight! Let's hope for some adoptions!!
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| | | Scott Bayerl-MHWF, Inc. |
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| #29 |
Monday already....the weekend flew by. We had a pretty relaxing and enjoyable weekend though.
Friday night we actually stayed home. We skipped the fish fry with family and grilled some chicken on the grill and worked online for a few hours. Nothing fun about working on a Friday night, but we did for a few hours and it went ok. A couple hours never killed anyone.
So Saturday we got up, did chores and headed to Rhinelander for a family reunion. The first 1/2 of the day it rained on us all, luckily there was a big tent and a garage to hang out in, but eventually the sun came out and it turned out to be a nice day. It's been a couple of years since we have been able to make it up to Rhinelander to see the family, so that was nice, even if it was just for a few hours then the long drive back home. WE made it back before dark though and took the dogs out for a walk when we got back.
Sunday was a full day of appointments and as you can see, there were some adoptions as well. The first one adopted was Dylan and it looks like he and his adopter a near perfect match. We tried out Star as well but it did not go well. We are pretty sure his back is sore from his flipping over the hitching post incident last week. So we are going to give that scratch on hos back some time to heal and try him again another day soon. Nobody got hurt, but Star wanted no part of being ridden.
Lucy also got tried out by a couple of people and both of them liked her. One of them really did well with her and it looks like that adoption will happen tonight when she comes back for one more try out of Lucy.
Some of you may have noticed Hailey hit the site yesterday afternoon and then marked as tentatively adopted just a few hours later. That one was not planned. We had an appointment last night with someone from Rhinelander. With all the adoptions that took place earlier in the day, there were not a whole lot of horses that suited her to show her. Hailey was a perfect fit and this morning we got the call that they would like to adopt her. Hailey will be headed to her new home in Rhinelander as well.
That leaves Lakota. We showed Lakota to one person yesterday and he did very well. That's a heck of a horse, no limitations, big, strong and does what's asked with no complaints. I think he was just a little bigger than they expected yesterday and we will simply just show him to the next person on the list in the next day or so. We fully expect him to be adopted in the next 24 to 48 hours as well.
Chrystal.....wow! She did fantastic under saddle last night. Once morning chores and appointments were over around 2 in the afternoon, we had a little while to come in for some lunch, sit and rest for a little bit, then head back out for evening chores and appointments. It was a long day, but it was fun and one of those rare days spend all day, no rain, no heat, working with and spending time with the horses. With the hottest days of summer coming to an end soon, we expect a lot more of those days in the coming weeks. Ok, so back to Chrystal. During that evening session of chores and appointments we got Chrystal out and Karen H. test ride her. We started in the round pen and ended up around the yard and up and down the driveway. What a magnificent horse...full of energy and action, really well broke and as flashy as they get. If you want a heck of a horse, don't let Chrystal's age fool you. She's as spry as a 5 year old, but with the brains of a 20 year old. She may be the gem of the pasture. The only catch is that she is high energy and her rider needs to be able to ride and have some confidence. Other than that, wow! They don't come any nicer.
So here we are back at work on a Monday.....a few more appointments tonight, gotta run to town and get dog food and make arrangements to get Chocolata in for her surgery, order grain and get the bank deposits ready. In other words, back to normal this morning, typing and sipping coffee.
Oh yeah, a couple other things......tonight marks 5 weeks since Karen or I have had a cigarette....still going strong. And....the online voting contest ended last night. MHWF took 9th place Nationally and first place in the state. Thanks to all of you and your voting and hard work, we will get another $1000.00 as a prize for coming in first in Wisconsin. Thank you for sticking with us over that very long and drawn out contest. Your work and your votes awarded this program $2000.00 total since the start.....no small deal. Thank you! The horses thank you as well.
What a nice weekend we had, time with family and lots of time out with the horses. We hope you had a great weekend as well. Apples on our trees will be ready soon and that means......our yearly apple tosses are coming soon as well!!!!
Take care!
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| | | Scott : MHWF |
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| #30 |
Misunderstood horse terms and other info:
We get a lot of applications, visitors and yearly health reports here at the MHWF farm. While none of the things I am going to mention here are life or death things, they are things that a lot of horse owners seem to get wrong on a pretty steady basis. These are not complaints, but simply observations we see and hear constantly that we feel every horse owner should know.
What is a hand?
A hand is the measurement of a horse's height. It is measured from the top of the withers to the ground. A hand is 4 inches. That term came from the old days when they would measure a horse by the width of a man's hand. When you stretch out your hand, for most people it will be around 4 inches wide.....some a little larger, some a little smaller. A hand goes like this.....
12 hands: 48 inches - 12.1 hands 49 inches - 12.2 hands 50 inches - 12.3 hands 51 inches. The fourth inch would be the next hand up, so 52 inches would be 13 hands.
There is no such thing as 14 and 1/2 hands and no such thing as 15.5 hands. A horse 15.5 hands tall would actually be 16.1 hands tall, which is 65 inches at the withers.
Worming:
When asked how often do you worm your horses, almost every time the answer is every 3 months like we are supposed to. We see this one on health report after health report. The correct answer is every 8 weeks, just like it says on the tube of wormer. There are a few exceptions such as Quest wormers. For those of you that are worming your horses every 3 months, that's only 4 times per year and not enough. According to the Equine Practitioners guidelines, your horse should be wormed a minimum of 5 times per year and preferably 6 to 7 times per year. Again, not a life or death thing, but something a lot of horse owners and adopters get wrong.
Teeth Floating:
This is another really common one....teeth floating. Many horse owners do not even know that their horse's teeth need to be floated. Floating teeth is the process of your vet filing down the sharp points in your horse's mouth. Without a good float your horse cannot chew properly or grind it's food. Often times the points get large enough and sharp enough that not only can your horse not chew properly, but the teeth are actually cutting the horse's mouth and sometimes puncturing the roof of the horse's mouth. A lot of horses have had their teeth floated and are still having chewing, weight or health problems. In many cases that is because whoever floated the teeth did not use a speculum. The old way of pulling the tongue to the side to float teeth is outdated and the person floating teeth this way is not getting at the back molars like they should. Make sure your vet uses a speculum when floating your horse's teeth. Ask beforehand and if they do not use a speculum, don't pay them. Find someone who does. Your not getting the job done and are missing one of the most important parts of the mouth.
The bones and joints:
This is one that really gets us and is so common that we can hardly believe it. Know the names and locations of the bones and joints in your horse's legs. This is key to owning a horse and being able to relate injuries or problems to your vet and others. Know the difference between a pasturn and a fetlock and know where they are. Know the points of the hoof and leg. The term "ankle thingy" isn't helping you or your horse. This is basic horse owner stuff and for me, if you don't know the bones and joints in a horse leg and hoof, you have no business owning a horse, plus when you talk with other horse owners it does not leave a good impression of someone who knows what they are talking about.
Vets and farriers:
Farriers are not vets and vets are not infallible. A farrier is trained in trimming and shoeing horse hooves and should know the bones and joints of the leg and hoof. Most times a farrier is also a pretty experienced horseman or woman, but they are not vets. A farrier can give you their opinion and even help you with your horse questions. What a farrier should not do is diagnose a bone or joint problem. That is the job of your vet who will do xrays or ultrasounds to determine what is going on with a bone or joint.
As far as vets go, they are your friends, but are also working for you. You pay the bill right? Ok, so then it's your job to make sure you ask the right questions and understand what they are telling you. If you ask your vet a question and the answer goes right over your head.....tell them and ask them to explain it so that you understand it. Don't be embarrassed to ask or even disagree. You need to understand the hows and whys of your horse's health and the more questions you ask, the more you will learn. Saying I do not understand or I do not agree is how you learn and problems get solved. Yes, even your vet is human and can make mistakes. So ask questions, your vet won't hate you for it. It's part of their job and you will feel a lot better not having to call your friends after the vet leaves to see if they know what all the lingo means that you heard. Yes, you have done that.....you know it...hehehe.
Ok, that's enough for today. What's new.....we have a new horse coming in tonight. Her name is Tana and she is a very nice Anglo-Arab mare. Sundance also comes back tonight as well. Thank you Holly for putting some saddle time on him for us and making him a much more adoptable little guy!!
We finally got the rain we desperately needed! Maybe now our dry, crispy pastures will come back a bit. We were a few days away from calling the pastures a total loss for the rest of the year. This rain we had yesterday may have bought us another month or so...we will see.
Chocolata goes in for her surgery this coming Monday. The adopter who refuses to turn in her paperwork gets served either today or tomorrow. We have a new fun auction starting next week sometime that all the proceeds will go toward the Hay Drive. If you can contribute items, please let us know. We can surely use the help.
That's about it for today....take care and enjoy the day!
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| | | Scott : MHWF |
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| #31 |
There are a few of you out there probably pretty mad at us today because you have been calling and calling and not getting an answer and no calls back. While we apologize for that, we also want to explain why that might be.
The past few nights we have been getting about 30 or more calls per night with just about every kind of situation and question. The fact of the matter is that with chores, appointments and just normal every day life, we cannot answer them all and do not have the time to return them all. 30 calls at only 10 minutes each is 5 hours of phone time. It's just not possible. It's not always that busy around here, but the past few nights have been hectic and really busy.
For a few people the frustration got to be too much and they have been calling during the daytime off hours. Please do not call until after 4 pm weekdays. This is a volunteer job and we are trying to work during the day. Each call is another interruption of our real jobs. When we get 10 or 15 of those in a day like we have been, it's hard to get any work done at all and our jobs are starting to ssuffer because of it. So please, only call during our posted hours and we will do our best to answer or call you back. Eventually things will slow back down to normal craziness around here. Thanks for understanding! So for the next few days we have a pretty crazy schedule with a few appointments and 120 round bales being delivered. We are going to shut down for the weekend other than the hay and appointments we already have scheduled. If you have an emergency, by all means, get in touch with us. But if you are calling to ask about a horse or donating a horse, please give us the rest of this week and the weekend to regain our sanity and call us next week. We would really appreciate it.
A couple of very popular horses:
As you might have guessed, the couple of new horses on the site are very popular and we have been getting a lot of calls on both of them and more than a few people irritated that they are proably not going to get a chance to meet either of them. Right now we have 2 appointments set for each of the two horses. When 30 people are all interested in the same horse, it's always a sticky situation and there are always going to be some people that are not happy. Please keep in mind that we are always trying to do our best, not only for our potential adopters, but for the horses. The first person that calls on a horse with an approved application and that might be a good match is the first person that meets the horse and so on.....we don't like to go too many people out simply because it's too hard to keep track of all the names and appointments. So, our best advice to anyone interested in either of those horses is to wait the weekend out, give us a chance to show them to the people who have their appointments and if they are still available on Monday, give us a call and we will put you in line to meet them. That's really the only fair way to do it. Plus, you just never know.....sometimes it's just meant to be.....right?
On a good note, we are getting the rain we needed so badly. We just hope it's not too late to help. Chocolata goes in for her surgery on Monday, Casper comes back on Monday for an evaluation of his eye, we hoepfully will get some items in and be able to start a new fun auction to go toward the horribly dead Hay Drive and we have appointments all weekend. So lots going on here lately.
Take care and enjoy the weather!!
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| | | Scott : MHWF |
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| #32 |
What a crazy busy week last week was! Seems like things all happen or come up at the same time around here. We are just glad to have it behind us and can look forward to a new week.
Ok, so what happened last week.....we had Lakota and Tana come in and everybody on the planet called about those two. To be honest, that was the craziest part of last week. More calls were coming in than we could keep up with and after a few days it started to really get to us. Lakota did get adopted though and that seems to have slowed things down a bit. Now maybe we will get a few calls on the other horses still looking for homes. We still have some fantastic horses here for adoption.
We purchased and hauled another 120 round bales this weekend. Saturday we spent most of the day loading and hauling round bales here to the farm. With the load we hauled in the week before, that puts us at 260 round bales here and ready for us this winter. We have another 100 bales to pick up and haul yet. That will get us close to enough hay for the winter...close. Now we just have to pay for them...yikes!
Moving round bales around with a skidsteer tends to really dig up the yard and driveway/parking lot. We spent a good part of the day on Sunday cleaning up the mess made on Saturday and leveling the parking lot back out. It looks good again now though.
Chocolata headed off for her surgery this morning. Her surgery is scheduled to take place between 10 and 11 this morning and we will post updates as we get them here on the forum on Chocolata's thread. The hospital will call once the surgery is over to let us know how things went so far. The surgery itself is not the only worry. Besides the obvious, sedation and infection, the biggest worry comes in the days after the surgery. She needs to be kept sedated and kept from exerting herself for a full week after surgery to keep from rupturing and bleeding to death. This is a pretty routine surgery now days and there are rarely complications, but things can happen and we will keep you all updated as we hear back from the hospital which will call each day until she comes back here to the MHWF farm.
If you read the forum then you probably already know that Casper is also coming back to us today from Minnesota. When he was donated, he came in with a scratch on his right eye. We had no worried that it would clear up with the meds we sent along with him, but it has not cleared up. So Casper will be back tonight and we will keep up his treatments and will keep him here until his eye problem is solved one way or another. In a worst case scenario he will loss sight in the eye. We will do our best to make sure that does not happen, but it is possible. As most of you already know, losing sight in one eye isn't a huge deal with a horse, but we sure want to do what we can to save the eye if possible.
So today is Monday again and tonight will mark 6 weeks since Karen or I have had a cigarette. Looking good...we can taste and smell again and our smokers coughs have been gone for weeks now.
We have been eating off the grill for the past 3 or 4 days and tonight no more burgers, brats, hot dogs or chicken......might have to be a Chinese or Mexican night. Gonna try to catch up with some sleep tonight as well. A late night hail storm kept us up last night.
Take care....
Thanks for reading!
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| | | Scott : MHWF |
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| #33 |
We didn't want you to think we forgot about this thread or have been neglecting it. There just hasn't been a lot going on to report other than the busy little day to day things that don't seem to add up to much.
A few things did happen the past few days. As you probably already know, Chocolata went in for her ovary surgery on Monday. Sadly she did not make it through the surgery and it took us way off guard. We did not expect this. The mortality rate of this surgery is around 3%, so it is rare that a horse dies during this procedure, but it does happen. We won't spend all day talking about why and how. We just wanted to let people know about it if they didn't already know and let everyone also know that we were very saddened and shocked by her passing. We very much had high hopes for Chocolata and her future. She will be greatly missed.
Casper is back for some treatment on his scratched eye. So far so good, but we are by no means out of the woods. Casper came in with the scratch on his eye and we thought it was just about healed. Apparently it keeps hanging on and we will deal with it and treat it until it either heals or he loses the sight in that eye. Apparently we was getting run off his food quite a bit where he was at and lost some weight as well. While his eye is being treated he is up in the paddock, so getting some weight back on him won't be hard to do at all. In any case,we are very hopeful that the eye will heal and fully expect it to soon. A huge thank you to Wendy W. and Mel and Jeff D. for picking him up and getting him here to us. It was a very kind deed and really helped us and Casper out a great deal. Thank you guys and gals!!
Other than that, we have some things planned for the weekend. We are going to update the photos on the website of all the horses here that need updated photos. Som eof the pics on the site still have snow in them...yikes, that's old. We will have new ones up sometime over the weekend.
We are also going to saddle up and test ride a couple of horses again...one of them being Chrystal. Our intention is to get some video of her being ridden so you can all see what a fantastic horse she is. You will be amazed by her poise and action under saddle for sure.
That's about it for now, other than we just started a new fundraiser auction a little bit ago. The funds raised from the auction will go directly toward the Hay Drive, so please bid big and often!
Here is the link: http://www.equineadoption.com/funauction.htm
Have a great day....
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| | | Scott : MHWF | | | Scott : MHWF |
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| #35 |
Pretty routine day yesterday, got up, did chores and started the work day. After work we did chores again and actually spent about 90 minutes cleaning the house which was out of control. It has been about 3 weeks since we had any time to do house cleaning and it became a big job. It's by no means clean, but it isn't cluttered and the floors are clean now.
Anyway, Princess came back last night. She needs some weight which will take us some time, but when she is ready she will make someone a fantastic horse. I will get her listed on the site sometime today. Zema is also coming back and will be here tonight. I will get her listed either later this evening or first thing tomorrow morning. I might was well list Casper right away too. He's not ready to be adopted yet with his eye still healing, but we should still get him on the site.
That leaves us with 3 more horses besides the ones I named coming in yet this week....well, this weekend. We have a QH mare coming, an Arab gelding and a TWH mare coming as well.....all are pretty nice horses and will will get this listed as soon as they arrive. So horse wise it will be a busy week.
For the program it has been one of the slowest weeks we have seen in a long long time. The forum is dreadfully quiet, the fun auction is not doing well at all and our phone must be broken. Usually we get call after call until we are pulling our hair out. The past week or so it has been so quiet that we have to check to make sure it still works. We do realize that a lot of you are probably giving us a little break after the loss of Chocolata and Hercules last week, but please do not hesitate to get in touch with us if you have something to bring to our attention. As rotten as last week was, the best thing we could do for ourselves is bury ourselves back into our work and keep busy.
Fun Auction:
The Fun Auction is off to such a slow start that we are really starting to worry. Yesterday we had a total of 5 bids all day and night. Not sure what it going on, but we really need some of you to hop in and bid bid bid....or at least pass on the word of the auction to anyone and everyone you can. We are in serious danger of actually losing money on this one and there's too much time and energy put into these auctions to lose money, not to mention how important it is to do reasonably well on this one since it goes toward hay and we have to pick up another 100 round bales no later than the end of the month. We need another $2000.00 to be able to do that or we lose that hay. It's a really good deal and excellent hay, so we cannot lose this 100 bales. Please consider bidding on the fun auction....thank you.
Health Reports:
So out of all the health reports we collect each year, we are only missing 3 right now and 2 of those are from the same person and on their way. The 3rd one got turned over to the attorney and the courts and that person has until Saturday to take action. We should know the outcome or at least the direction this one takes early next week. We are anticipating it to go to court. If that happens and Karen and I have to go all the way down to Milwaukee with the attorney and waste our time and this program's money, we are going to name this person here on our website and are going to do whatever it takes to make this person's life miserable until she complies. What a piece of work she turned out to be and we are going to deal with this as sternly as possible.
U2?
Ok, here's a strange one....Karen and I have always had U2 at the top of our list for concerts we need to go to at least once in our lives. They don't tour that often and when they do tickets are super hard to get ahold of. So when they announced a few US tour dates this past winter, we were right on it and got a couple for ourselves.....opening night of the US tour at Soldier Field in Chicago! The 80,000 tickets that were available sold out in 2 hours. We were lucky enough to get ours though. The problem, now we can't go, or to be more truthful, cannot afford to go. If any of you out there want our tickets we have them for sale at what we paid for them.
The show is Saturday, September 12, 2009 at Soldier Field in Chicago. It is the opening night of the US tour. The tickets are section 433, row 10, seats 13 and 14 and we are asking $300.00 for the pair. That seems like a lot and it is, but they are selling much higher most other places....if you can find them. We know it's a long shot here on the forum, but thought we would at least offer them here. Email me if you are interested. It will be a weekend you won't soon forget.
Back to normal we hope:
So hopefully things start to look a little more normal around here after the rotten week we had last week. Hopefully the new horses come in with no problems, the fun auction picks up and people start calling about horses again. In the meantime, thank you and talk to you again soon.
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| | | Scott : MHWF |
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| #36 |
There's actually something to say today other than the same old, please bid on the auction, donated to the Hay Drive and all those familiar things...so I will get right to it.
Thank you
First we want to thank Faye and her husband for bringing us some small square bales of hay last night. They wouldn't let us pay for them like we wanted, but that was really nice and really helped us and Casper out. Thank you!
U2 Tickets
In my post yesterday I made a small mistake, the U2 tickets were $300 for the pair and not $350. So they are available for the $300 and not $350. Feel free to email me if you are interested.
Montana Truffle
Why is Montana back here and available again after only 2 days? I had no intention of saying anything about this, but changed my mind for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that her leaving, then coming back right away puts a huge black mark on her and it is not deserved. She is still the good horse she was a couple days ago. The second reason is because we were insulted pretty badly last night when she was returned. So, I will tell you the story and leave it to you to think over....
Tana was looked at on Saturday morning. Even though Hercules went down and Karen sat with her horse most of the morning we still went through with the appointment. Karen stayed with Hercules and I took over the appointment. Everything with the appointment went well. She rode very well, did everything asked and never did a single thing wrong. The appointment lasted at least 90 minutes, probably more and at no point was the appointment hurried in the least. They were allowed to catch her, bring her out of the pasture, tie her, groom her, tack her up, ride her, then untack her and spend some time deciding what to do and asking questions.
As the appointment was winding down, I ran into the house real quick to grab the phone. When I came back out, the horse was loaded on the trailer, which caught me a little off guard. I asked, "I assume you like her"? and got a reply confirming that. I went back in, grabbed paperwork and came right back out, did paperwork and they were on their way. No pressure to make a decision, no time limit, ride, groom...do whatever you need to help make your choice.
Ok, so last night I get a call at around 7 pm. The horse needs to come back. I have to admit, I was was a little miffed right off the bat, who wouldn't be? An hour or so later a trailer pulls up, the horse is unloaded and put back into the pasture and we began to talk about what happened. We were told that the horse was flighty and wouldn't stand still to be mounted. My response was that she had only been here 2 days and she might need some time to settle in and get to know her surroundings. Did she act like that while she was being handled and ridden here.....no, was the response I got. I said that some horses need a little time to settle in. The response I got was.....I have been around horses for 40 years and a horse should always stand still if it has any training at all. Ok, BS.....some horses do need a little time to settle in and don't stand in front of Karen and I and tell us different. We do this pretty much full time and have been for almost 10 years. We also know a thing or two about horses and certainly know that some horses need time to settle in. Instead of arguing we let them leave. On their way out they had to throw out an insult......live and learn....sometimes you get burned.
That's what really ticks us both off....burned? Burned? Are you kidding me? They had all the time they needed to make a choice, had a chance to ride her and do whatever they needed to make that choice. The entire time she was perfect and there was absolutely no pressure to make a choice. Then to return her after 2 days and tell us she isn't trained and that we burned them? I don't think I need to say one more thing to prove who screwed up here. The horse was perfect here and if she was not perfect there then what could the reason be.....she needed some time to settle in. To stand there and insult us after we gave up our time during a traumatic day to help is not only tasteless, it is way out of line and we will no longer deal with them without an apology.....plain and simple. Some other lucky person is going to get a wonderful horse and I am sure they will have enough sense to let it get to know it's surroundings before accusing us of burning them on an untrained horse. Boy, do you ever get sick of rudeness and morons in this business. That's all I have to say about that.
Hercules
Someone here on the forum asked a question about Hercules and how this program got started and I promised to say something here on this thread about it. So here goes....
Back in 1999 I adopted 2 horses from another program in Southern Wisconsin. I enjoyed them and wanted to get involved. I did just that and worked my way up to the Board of Directors and the job of Placement Director, approving applications and setting up appointments to view horses as well as taking in new horses. I will not badmouth this other program other than to say that there was a difference of opinion over the issue of whether barbed wire was acceptable pasture fencing for horses or not. Since I was not in a position to decide that policy and was the one asked to put horses in homes with barbed wire....I resigned after 2 years.
I loved the work though and wanted to keep doing it. So I came up with some ideas and invited some folks to come to a meeting to determine whether or not we wanted to start our own program. We hired an attorney and a CPA and got to work. This was the spring of 2001. Several months and piles of paperwork later, Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation was born.
But we had no horses and a name that nobody knew. How do we get to be a name people know? At the time I was a house painter and I had just finished a job and got paid. After my bills I had $3800.00 left over. I took that money to the local auction in Stratford and outbid the meat buyers on this program's first 13 horses. We now had horses to put up on our website and were ready to get started. Those first 13 horses got their feet trimmed, they were wormed, vaccinated and some of them had some weight put back on them. They got adopted within a few weeks. The money from their adoption fees brought us back to the same auction the next month where we were able to rescue the next 18 horses....and so and and so on.
So now we had a website, horses and some people were starting to hear about us.... great start.
That's when I met Karen. She sent in her application and within a day or two I called her back to let her know it was approved. How could I not approve it, she was the President of the South Wood County Humane Society. Anyway....she came to look at a horse named Ginger. Instead of adopting a sound healthy riding horse, Karen picked out Buddy and Clancy, two older pasture buddies. Neither of us had that planned. Someone willing to take on two horses like Buddy and Clancy is a rare find, so Karen and I immediately hit it off and soon became good friends. Who would have know a few years later I would be getting Clancy and Buddy back when Karen and I got married. They are both still here today and Clancy is now a 35 year old QH.
Anyway, One day I got a donation in the mail with a strange last name on it and a note mentioning Karen. So I called her and found out that the donation was from her sister Sandy who is now not only on our Board of Directors, but is also my sister in law who I pick on and harass mercilessly....hehehe.
Karen had always wanted a draft horse and Sandy wanted to surprise Karen with a draft horse. Well it just happened that the next auction I purchased a giant Percheron gelding who I named Hercules. At the time we were naming rescue horses after Greek and Roman gods...so there was Hercules, Ares, Zeus.....you get the idea. So I called Karen and told her that I had the perfect draft for her...huge, but a big baby who wouldn't hurt a flea. She came to meet him and was terrified of him and his size, but really liked him. Several days later he was delivered to her door and has been a part of our lives ever since his passing this last weekend.
There is a lot more to the story as far as how we actually got together and all that, but I wouldn't want to bore you all to death other than to say that both of us were in not so perfect relationships and were ready to move on. Being good friends already, taking the next step and becoming a couple, getting married and running this program together seemed like a very natural thing to do and here we are, still doing it.
That's all for today...thanks for listening.
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| | | Scott : MHWF |
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| #37 |
Whew....what a long and tiring day this is turning out to be. We started at 8am this morning and 12 hours later are still going and working with about another hour or so to go before we can eat supper, kick back and watch the Packer pre-season game.
Let's start off with a giant thank you to Holly and Felicia T. for sticking it out all day with us and getting all the work done today, plus doughnuts! Thank you guys!!!
Where do we start.....oh yeah.....went out to do chores at 8 this morning, farrier showed up at 8:30. Everyone who needed a trim, or was close to needing a trim, got trimmed this morning...and wormed. So we got 16 horses trimmed before noon today and got them all wormed as well. We even got a new set of shoes put on Zema and she's looking and moving great.
About the time we were finishing up trimming and worming, the first of the new horses came in. That would be Callie. What a nice horse. I won't go into detail here, but look her up on the adoption horses page. Got Callie's pictures taken, paperwork done and got her introduced to the herd then went back to work.
We put out a few round bales of hay, cleaned up a little of the mess in the drive from the hay and hoof trimmings then spent a little time cleaning out the pasture shelters and getting them ready for repair and paint tomorrow.
That's when the second new horse came in today....Laney....again, another very nice horse. Want a big strong TWH mare who loves the running walk...have a look ont he adoption horses page. Another very nice horse.
So, pictures of Laney, paperwork and intoductions into the herd for her...no issues, all went well.
Mow the lawn quick, eat a very late lunch and back here online getting the new horses in the database and on the site as well as posting this and getting a few applications done and a few new photos entered into the photo contest. great photos by the way you guys...there are some fantastic shots there and it's alreay looking like it's going to be hard to chose a winner.
So here we are, a little after 8, got another hour or so of work to do, then chicken wings and the Packer game.
A little off topic here, but this weekend marks the 40th anniversary of Woodstock and although I was too young to go to Woodstock, I have a few friends who did go and have always felt like that was my generation, even though I was too young and missed most of it.
Princess is doing well and gaining weight and we hope to make her available very very soon. Same with Casper. He has really put some weight on and his eye is lookng good. The eye is not 100% though and we won't make him available until it is, so we have no idea whether that will be in a week or a month. In the meantime he is looking and feeling great and someone will really appreciate this laid back guy when he is made available.
Well, time to get back to work. Have to get the photo contest pics up on the site before I sign off for the night. Big day again tomorrow.....shelter repair and painting, plus whatever else comes up.
Have a good weekend!!
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| | | Scott & Karen: MHWF |
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| #38 |
The forum was having some major problems today, but it looks like they have them ironed out now.
So don't be shy, post away!
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| | | Scott : MHWF |
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| #39 |
Well, our shelter repair day got rained out.....booo. So not a whole lot new to talk about today other than a couple quick things.
1. Don't forget the fun auction ends tomorrow night! Get your bids in before it's too late. Most of the items are still below their value, so there are tons of good deals to be had yet.
2. Montana had so many calls when she first came in that we were on here complaining about all the calls on the same horse. Since she has come back, not one call asking about her. Please do not let her return scare you away from asking about her. She is a fantastic horse and when we rode her here, she was wonderful and never so much as questioned a single cue. She also stood nice for being mounted and tacked....hint, hint. Anyway, she is here and available and if you were originally interested in her, give us a call. She is still the exact same horse as she was before she came back.
3. As much as we would like to talk about how well Limerick is doing, we have to be honest. Since spring she has been wonderful, gained tons of weight, no breathing problems, no medications..wonderful. Now that allergy season is here she is having some of the toughest days we have seen her have yet. So it looks like allergy season is tough on her and once you're feeding hay she again has a really rough time and can't tolerate any dust as well. This is not just labored breathing, but struggling for breath and very labored. We are not saying this because we are planning to put her down or anything along those lines. We simply wanted to make sure that we relayed her recent problems here on the forum so that everyone is aware that we thought we had this issue beat, but it turns out that we do not.
4. New horses.....got some wonderful new horses listed on the site this past weekend and it won't be long before we are ready to release Princess and Casper. Sadly we have to take Limerick off the list of available horses for now.
5. Hay Drive....yikes, as dead as it gets. Yes. the profits from the fun auction are going to the Hay Drive, but it won't knock the hay drive out if you know what I mean. So, if you can spare a little or a lot, we can sure use the help and desperately need to get the hay bill behind us and not hanging over our heads every day. You can donate by bidding higher on a fun auction item, or if there is nothing there for you, just make a donation to the Hay Drive. It is our single most important function each year and with the economy beating up on programs like ours this year, we can use all the help we can get.
I guess in hindsight there is a lot to talk about, but I need to get back to work, so will end this for now. We will be back...talk to you later.....bid, bid, bid!!!
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| | | Karen-MHWF |
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| #40 |
I am sneaking a very quick post in here. Mamma peahen surprised us this morning and showed us that she has 4 new babies! All water buckets have been removed from the floor in the barn and there will just be the chicken type waterer now (if you read about the last peababy you'll know why).
This is all I have time for this morning, but here is a picture of mamma and the new babies:
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| | | Scott : MHWF |
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| #41 |
Well, day two and all the baby peacocks are still with us and alive....good start.
Our email problems....we stayed up pretty late getting fun auction email invoices out on Tuesday evening/Wednesday morning. Got up on Wednesday morning to find out that we could receive email, but could not reply. After hours of phone calls and being on hold, here is what we found out....lovely TDS decided it was time to turn their email services over to Google without notifying us. Once they turned the accounts over to Google, they deleted their mail servers, which were the ones that supplied our outgoing mail....nice huh? They also decided to block port 25 which is the most commonly used port for outgoing email.....double whammy. Ok, so no big deal right....just call our website and email hosting company and find a solution. Turns out our local company doesn't have a full time tech support person on staff and they would have someone call us late in the day, when they could find someone who might be able to help.....again, real nice. This is the same company that charges this program $60.00 a month to host our website and email.
So they do eventually call back to let us know we are out of luck. They do not have another port that hosts email and even if they did, they do not allow relaying, which is what we would need to do in order to use our email again. Basically we were told that our only choice was to use web mail forever and ever and if you have ever used web mail, you already know it stinks. So we were left pretty much with no options.
Then it occurred to me.......hey, don't I build websites and set up email accounts for a living...duh. I have a company that I always use for those sites.....Godaddy....love em. So, as of this upcoming Monday, the MHWF website and our email will be hosted through GoDaddy. Everything will once again work as normal, including our email and the best part......instead of $60.00 a month.....it is now $100.00 a year, saving this program a good chunk of money. You won't notice a thing when the change takes place on Monday, so don't worry.....everything will look, feel and act the same. Just now we have a faster server with more space and for a lot less money.
We had the county bring us a new horse late last night. With our nightly appointments behind us and the nasty rain coming down, we opted to run into town for Chinese food last night. When we pulled in the driveway to come home there was a truck and trailer in the back parking lot with our new buddy in the back. He's obviously an Amish owned horse, a STB gelding, about 8 years old, bay, about 15.2 hands tall, freshly trimmed and shod. You can see the spots in his wet coat where a harness had recently been, so we know he was an Amish horse. He's a little scared, but very very mellow and sweet. We have him in a stall right now. So far three different Amish people have tried to claim him. The trick might be figuring out which one, if any of them, are his real owners. All kinds of fun at 10 o'clock at night huh? We will update you once we learn more.
The fun auction ended and it did pretty well. Once the tees, hoodies, calendars and sweatshirts are made and everything is mailed out we will see how well we did and how much we generated for the Hay Drive. It should be a decent number hopefully. Please keep in mind that if you ordered a jacket,tee or hoodie, it will be a couple weeks before your items get mailed to you. If you ordered a calendar, it won't be shipped to you until about a week or so before Christmas, which gives us enough time to sell as many as we can before the new year. Everything else will go out sometime next week assuming it is paid for. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the fun auction by either donating items or bidding on the items we had available!
Just a quick heads up as well, the U2 tickets we had available last time I posted here have been sold, so we no longer have those available.
Casper continues to do well. We have stopped his meds and are just watching him to see how it goes. If he does not flare backup then we will make him available. Princess will also be made available very soon. A few more pounds and we will change her status to available.
No idea at all why Montana Truffle and Callie are still here.....way too nice of horses to still be sitting here looking for a new home. The same goes for Zema as well. The fact of the matter is that until these horses find homes we cannot bring any new horses in and won't. We have one more horse coming so far then we are done with new arrivals until we find homes for a few of the horses we have now, which is an exceptional group of horses.
Right now we are forced to turn down between 10 and 12 horses per day, which isn't that out of the norm.....usually this time of year it's more like 8 or so a day. Once pastures dry up and hay feeding time comes that will double easily.
With a lot of the smaller adoption programs out there going broke and folding, it only leaves a few of us still standing and struggling to stay alive and viable. So when you see us on the site and on the forum begging and harassing for donations and involvement in some of the fundraisers we do, that is nothing more than me doing my job and making sure we stick around. Times are tough and if we didn't need to beg and harass, we certainly wouldn't. It's no fun to beg and beg for support and donations and is a hard thing to suck up and do most of the time. We do it for the sake of this program and the 9 years of hard work we have into it.
So I guess what I am saying is that when we beg for donations to the Hay Drive or for donated items for the fun auctions, or even a few people to sign up for our dying Sponsorship Program, it is not because we enjoy the begging and asking, it is because we have to...plain and simple and we hate doing it more than you could ever know. So when you see these things, instead of just glossing over them and moving on, all we ask is that you take a second and consider helping in whatever way you can. It's not up to someone else. It's on all our shoulders. Whether it's the photo contest, the Hay Drive, Fun Auction, Sponsorship Program.....whatever. We try to provide a variety of ways people can join in regardless of whether they are young or old, rich or poor. Everyone has a way they can help and until this program is financially secure or the economy and horse market improves, we will continue to fight to stay alive and not go down like so many others have and will be. Thanks for listening and for your support through the years.
Looks like I got a little side tracked. I guess this program's bills are on my mind this morning, like most mornings. Hopefully things pick up soon. Winter is not as far away as it seems. On another note....last year we cut caffeine out of our lives, all decaf coffee and caffeine free sodas, 9 weeks ago we cut cigarettes out, still hooked on nicotene, but no cigarettes, tomorrow is going to be out first day with no coffee. Too expensive, not good for you and time consuming when you add all the garbage we add to our coffee. Should be an interesting morning.
Thank you!
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| | | Scott : MHWF |
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| #42 |
We are a little surpised that nobody commented on or asked about the stray horse that ended up here on Tuesday. Well anyway, it looks like it's owner has been found and we are told they are picking him up today. He was a nice quiet boy while he was here.
We were forced to sue one of our adopters for failing to submit her paperwork this year. Being that she is not being an intelligent person and decided to fight this in court, it is now public record and we can post her name here. Susan Larson, you are being sued. Comply or it's going to cost you a lot of money only to lose in the end. Hope you read this too....keep in mind we have access to 5000 website viewers each day. Here is the case number in case anyone of those 5000 people wants to have a look at it: 2009SC004051
No good news on Casper's eye. It seems he decided he was going to rub it on something last night and today it is swollen right back up....not good. We will keep you updated, but this sets him back a while and it doesn't look like we will be able to make him available any time soon. I wish we had better news on his behalf.
While i was typing this they showed up for the stray horse. So he just left. I found out his name is Sailor....a big bay STB gelding. The guy who owns him seems like a really nice guy and Sailor was in prety nice shape with a fesh set of shoes on him.
Ok, back to work....
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| | | Scott Bayerl: MHWF, Inc. |
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| #43 |
Boy, we sure wanted to post all kind of good news today, but the truth is that the last couple of days have been rough.
It started on Sunday evening when my cell phone puked on me and we went to the Alltel store only to find out that the insurance would only replace the phone with a $29.00 model...nice huh? So we ended up having the phone serviced which took a few hours and got a second phone as a backup....gonna take a while to get used to this Blackberry Curve.
Ok, got that solved, not a huge deal. If you have read the lastest posts here on this thread then you probably already heard about our email problems from last week....we are still having those problems. It's not the end of the world. We still have web mail and have the problem located and fixed, it's just going to take another day or two for all the changes to take affect. Also in this process we opted to move our entire website to a new server and a whole new company. It will save the program some money and is a company I use a lot and trust in my website building work. The website was supposed to change over sometime either today or yesterday. Well it did, it switched over about 10 minutes before the hard drive on my main pc died.....hehehe. I bet your starting to get our mood now....hehehe. So last night at around 9 pm, my computer died just before I was about to move the site over to the new server, make a late supper and call it a day. Instead we stayed up until a little after 4am getting back online and getting data restored.
So we get up at 8 this morning, did chores and started our work day. It's getting close to quitting time until later tonight when we will get back online and get back to work on the website and backing up comuter files.
So not much sleep and a lot to do. In the meantime, we lost all the emails that had addresses on them for mailing the fun auction items out and I lost the two websites I had been working on for new clients.....time to start over.
When you get this tired and stressed out you eventually slip into a weird euphoria where you no longer really have the ability to stress and kind of walk around with a goofy smile on your face. We have all had those days I am sure. That's kind of where we are at. All in all we are both in pretty decent moods though. We will get our 4 pm appointment done and behind us and go from there.
In the meantime if you have not done so already, please email us with your mailing address if you got something from the fun auction. If you have not yet paid for your auction items, please do that as well.
If all goes well, things will still be a little crazy trying to catch up, but will be as close to normal again as we could expect for such a crazy couple of days.
Thanks and hang in there with us.....
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| | | Scott Bayerl: MHWF, Inc. |
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| #44 |
Yay!!!! We have our email back again!
So, if you tried to email us in the past day or so and it kept bouncing back, sorry about that, but we do have the problem fixed now and our email is back up and working 100%.
If something bounced back, please try sending again....thank you!
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| | | Scott Bayerl: MHWF, Inc. |
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| #45 |
As of around noon today we feel like our computer systems, email and website are all back to 100%. I ended up having to rebuild two websites and I lost about 2 years worth of saved emails, but other than that, we are ok. If you have never lost your computer or email it's hard to explain the way it affects your day. It's good to be back.
As you probably already noticed, Sunny got adopted last night. They are picking him up tonight. It's a very local family and Sunny will only have to travel about 15 miles to his new home.
We have an appointment to show Callie tonight as well and if that one falls through we have another set for tomorrow night. If she is not listed as adopted by around 8pm on Thursday night, then she is still available. I would be surprised if she was still available though....nice horse.
Most of the Fun Auction items are now paid for with a handful of exceptions and we expect to get the first big load f packages out in the mail this week....maybe all of them depending on how it goes. BOxing up, addressing and shipping all those boxes is a huge job, so please be patient with us. They will be on their way soon. Once all that is done we can do the math and figure out what is left to go toward the Hay Drive. We will update that as soon as we know.
I'll keep it short for today.....yikes what a long couple of days it has been. Good to be back to normal...dead tired, but normal.
Take care!
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| | | Scott Bayerl: MHWF, Inc. |
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| #46 |
It's been about a week since we posted anything here, mostly because it has been quiet for the past week or so. It's back to school and fair week in a lot of places, so we expected it to be quiet and slow this week, no surprises there. It's actually a nice little break after a long busy summer.
So what's new right? Well, last night Karen and I went to the Central WI State Fair here in Marshfield. We ran into a few adopters and chatted with them a bit, stopped by the Kettle Korn booth and talked with Karen H. a bit then went in and watched Saliva. They aren't for everyone...hehehe, but we have seen them a few times before and like them a lot. You gotta love loud and rude every now and then. We had great seats in the 3rd row, so we got some great photos and had a great view. We were lucky enough to be able to have seats with Ralphie and Caleb too (of Feleicia, Ralphie and Holly).
Let's see...remember that cute little face we like to call Bella? Well, she's not so cute to us today. Yesterday she killed one of the baby peacocks. It wouldn't be such a huge deal had she not been scolded for playing with them the day before. Looks like Bella is under house arrest for a few more weeks until they can fend for themselves a little bit better.
Princess is starting to look better and we are very close to making her available for adoption. It could be any day now. She's a very nice horse and anyone would be lucky to have her.
Casper is another story, we were contacted this week by someone who knew him before he was donated to us. It turns out some pretty important information was left out when he was brought to us, like the fact that he is completely deaf. Yes, Casper is deaf. We had no idea. We were also told that he has seasonal allergies and during allergy season his eyes swell up and cause him problems. It is supposed to be easily treatable with an anti-histamine which we will have in our hands in a couple days. We have no reason to believe this is untrue and have new hope for Casper and his eye. Being deaf doesn't really matter. If nobody has noticed by now, how much of a problem could it really be? He is obviously very well adjusted to it. WE will let you know as we learn more and see the results with the new medication.
A few new horses are scheduled to come in. The first one will most likely be this weekend. Keep an eye on the site for some new faces.
Other than that, our computers and website seem to be back to 100% now and we are caught up on most of the little things that seem to pile up on us over the summer. We have some time to concentrate on the Hay Drive once again. If you can help with that, we could sure use it!
Almost forgot, we have decided to open up a few spaces on our website for advertising banners. We aren't going to bury the site in banners, but are willing to add a few. If you would be interested in having your banner added to our site with a link back to our site, please email me with your website and any questions you have on pricing etc. Our site is a very busy one as you can see and our rates are going to be very reasonable at $300.00 per year which comes out to only $25.00 per month. If you have a horse related website and need more traffic, maybe we can help by adding your banner. No training banners or boarding facility banners please. Horse related products only.
That's it for today. Back to work we go. Have a great week and enjoy this beautiful weather!
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| | | Karen-MHWF |
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| #47 |
Scott didn't share any pics?! Well, I can't help but share just one. My favorite shot from the night.
Oh yes, and it's off to the fair soon today. I have my fingers crossed and hoping that Scott maybe wins a ribbon...he has entered a few photos in the fair this year. 
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| | | Karen-MHWF |
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| #48 |
There is really nothing new in a day to talk about, but I do have to say that I am very happy and proud to say that Scott did win a ribbon with a photo entry to the fair! He got a 3rd place in the "other" category, and I'll tell ya, that is a pretty big deal with over 2000 entries into the photo contest this year! 2000!! I felt really bad for him that he had worked so hard taking photos and then having his computer crash and losing most of the new ones that hadn't been backed up.
I will close with sharing Scott's winning shot here. Congratulations Scott!!! Great shot!
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| | | Scott Bayerl: MHWF, Inc. |
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| #49 |
Well, Karen entered 6 photos into the photo judging. Out of the 6 photos she entered and 2000 entries, she got 2 first place ribbons and one 4th place ribbon.
Sorry, she won't let me post the pics.
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| | | Scott Bayerl: MHWF, Inc. |
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| #50 |
AS you probably noticed, Abe came back into the program on Sunday and got adopted already on Tuesday. Nice horse and his adopters really checked back a lot to make they didn't miss out on any newcomers to the site. Looks like that paid off. We also have an appointment set for Saturday to show Princess who is looking pretty good now. We will post new pics of her in the next day or two to show her progress as far as her weight is concerned. We also have someone coming up from Janesville this weekend to meet Trico, Figaro and a few others. So there is a good chance we will see one of the harder to place horses go to a new home this weekend as well.
We have a couple of horses coming back this next week as well...nothing to do with the horses themselves, just an unfortunate family situation that requires them to come back. We also have a 10 year old paint mare coming in as well....well, as soon as we can find a few minutes to go pick her up. She is about 15 minutes or so from here, so a short haul. There was supposed to be 2 other horses coming in as well, but their donors never bothered to get back to us, so no idea there.
Did you all notice the horse trailer that was donated this past weekend? If you are interested, let us know. It's a vwery good deal on a nice solid trailer.
The Hay Drive has stopped dead in it's tracks. We had to go to the bank and borrow the money to cover what we needed to secure the hay we will need. We really need to get the Hay Drive back and alive. That loan is coming due soon and we could use any help we can get. If you can spare a little or a lot, we ask for your support with this most important fundraiser of each year.
Photo contest still has a couple weeks left. We started off rolling right along, but it also has really died off. Come on folks, $10.00 per photo not only gives you the chance to show off your favorite pics, but you could win some cash as well. Get your photos entered before it's too late!
Other than that, same old same old round here....Monday marked 13 weeks since either Karen or I have had a cigarette. We even cut out caffeine now too. Now, to lose a few pounds. After all the grease and junk food of the fair, we have decided to try to eat healthy for a while. So I went in and bought a lot of fish, lettuce, things like that. No more fat foods for a while. Last night we threw together a stir fry with chicken...very good, nice and lean. Today will be day two. I'm gonna really miss my chocolate!
Have a good day!
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