WOOT*WOOT Here's to the final inSTALLment :o)

Kudos to the American Horse Council and the individuals involved in developing this wonderful code below.

Of course I can't help wondering if anyone will actually follow it...

From the American Horse Council's Website:

WE ARE COMMITTED to the dignity, humane care, health, safety and welfare of horses in all our activities and care. These are our highest priorities. We are the stewards of our horses and must be firm in the standards and practices that guide us. Our first principle is:

The welfare, safety and stewardship of the horse is the guiding principle in the decision-making process for all segments for the horse industry.

WE ARE COMMITTED to promoting responsible breeding practices and to produce better horses, not just more horses.

WE ARE COMMITTED to responsible training techniques. All training should be done with the maturation and ability of the horse considered. Horses should be prepared for competition with proper training and conditioning methods. Excessive disciplining methods, whether in stables, training areas, or during competition, will not be tolerated.

WE ARE COMMITTED to educating owners, trainers, veterinarians, competitors, exhibitors and recreational riders to ensure that they know and respect their horse’s abilities and limits, and their own, so as to not push the horse or themselves beyond their ability level.

WE ARE COMMITTED to making all competitions fair and ensuring all competitors an equal opportunity to succeed. Performance-enhancing drugs, practices or equipment have no place in competitions or exhibitions. Effective drug testing by accredited laboratories is essential to the safety and welfare of our horses and the public support of competitions, with appropriate penalties levied for violations. The welfare of the horse must take precedence over the demands or expectations of owners, breeders, trainers, sellers, buyers, organizers, sponsors, officials, or spectators...

To read the entire Code click here

ABOVE PHOTO: Shadow having a dramatic episode (a people lover and official "Goodwill Ambassador" for the Moo Crew, Shadow is a former "Big Lick" show horse with an abusive past).

- And -

(as long as we are standing up here on the proverbial soapbox :o)

Here are some relevant places to visit:

Beverly Horse 90210

This is one of my lenses on Squidoo (Rated G) about the disturbing changes I noted in the show industry over the past umpteen years.

Photo Left: from the Horse.com - article on "Tail Blocking Gone Wrong" (Link is posted on the lens)

The two blogs featured below are great, but I'd have to rate them both PG-13 due to language (although I totally understand why - this stuff makes me plenty mad too!)

Shame in the Showring

"This blog is about all the shameful things that happen in the equine show industry. If it's bad to do to a horse we're going to "fuss" about it here."

Written by T Jean Maus, who is very point-blank about the sad reality facing so many show horses. It's got some great posts that are well worth reading.

Fugly Horse of the Day

"Snarky commentary on the breeding of poor quality horses, silly or abusive training techniques, and pretty much anything else that annoys me!"

Another great blog written anonymously (?) I'd bet this person gets more "hate mail" than a politician for nothing less than an unapologetic willingness to tell it like it is.

Okay, now go hug your horse (I always feel an overwhelming need to see ours after reading things like this, so they know how very much they are loved :o)

The next inSTALLment (new digs for The Girls :o)

TaDa! I'm so excited...the girl's stalls are DONE! They've actually been finished for about a week now, but because the completion of this project landed right smack at the beginning of school (and our daughter's senior year no less) it took me a bit longer to get around to posting it. Aren't they wonderful??

Actually, I just noticed the protruding 2x4 s underneath the roof on each end (those still need to be cut off). The girls are very happy with their new rooms, although for some reason Lady and Rina are swapping out the first and second stall with regularity. They both seem to like the second one, so it's been on a first come first serve basis. Lady copped it this morning at breakfast, much to Rina's frustration (although Rina beat her to the punch at supper last night...)

I would also like to say a special thank you (again :o) to Meghann of Little Studio for nominating us and one to Etsy for Animals for selecting us as their Charity of the Month in May of this year. Hopefully you guys like what we did with your donations.

Thank you for reading, and we'll catch you next time!

We're Almost There!!

Believe it or not, this small "pile" of metal in the back of this truck constitutes 1.6 TONS of metal roofing material (wow). Rickey made the haul with the farm truck, and though it won't win any beauty contests - can you say RUSTY?? - at least you know we're not spending people's donations on a luxury vehicle for us, right? (apparently not :o)

He was a little leery about hauling it in the back of the truck, but made the trip without any trouble. We were very blessed to have gotten a great deal from the sheet metal manufacturing company by being willing to use a discontinued color that they had leftover - works for me!

Before we could start putting the roof on, however, we had to run some lumber across the frame to anchor it to...

After that, we were ready to start putting on the roof - hooray!



I think the name of the color was light bronze, although I'll be the first to admit it looks more like a light taupe to me (but who cares about the color anyway? I'm thinking the girls certainly don't :o)

There was a bit of a hiccup getting it started (apparently the frame is not quite square so a few adjustments had to be made before they were off and running, or should I say roofing?


Of course "you know who" just HAD to come and park herself right smack in the middle of everything to see what was going on...

Once they got going, they made fairly short work of the first run. Looks pretty darn good so far, doesn't it?






Thank you so much for reading about our progress...See you next time!

The next inSTALLment (shelter for The Girls)

July 10th
Well we've been both rained out and pooped out for several days running, but we finally managed to get a bit more work done on the stalls last night. Taya must have missed poking around all of the cool tools, because she was all over everything. Here she is helping Rickey to measure for a gate...



With Taya's invaluable assistance, Rickey managed to get all of the gates built yesterday and Lady graciously agreed to come down and inspect each one individually. Wasn't that nice of her? :o)


Of course it wasn't long before everybody was down the hill checking out the new digs...


We left the stalls open for the girls to wander in and out of and help them get used to the idea of dining in a new spot. Now all we need is a roof (we're still waiting to hear from the guy in Eufala - I'm praying like crazy that he'll donate most of what we need :o) See you next time, and thanks for reading this far!

We missed a couple days of working on the stalls due to rain (and although Tuesday night was rain-free, we were all just too pooped to do anything but sit around and stare at each other :o)

Tonight we decided to put the dividers in between the stalls. We used 2x6's for these, not only for overall added stability, but also because any squabbling that takes place usually happens between the stalls (you know, "nah-nah" fights).



It would seem that Taya was feeling a bit guilty over sending Evinrude to supervise the other night; she was all over everywhere today...


I think she was a bit disappointed that there was no auger involved in today's work, but she did inspect the post hole diggers most carefully (I explained they were a low-tech relative to her favorite toy :o)

We managed to get all of the dividers put up tonight - it's coming right along. Next up will be the gates, hopefully followed by a metal roof (we still have not heard back from the building place yet, but I am ever hopeful) . I stood on my tippytoes to try to get you a decent photo of tonight's work:


It's looking good, isn't it?? Thanks so much for reading this post (see you next time :o)