Yesterday and today I have not gotten home until late; last night at 9pm and today around 6ish but I had to travel to PA for work -- what a long day. I feel like I haven't seen my horses or my dogs...or my husband [!] for days! And of course, other than necessary chores, nothing has been getting done.
I have a hayride planned for Saturday for the kids to all come over for. Of course, I had to get the lecture from my mother about making sure my house is clean before I have people over. It isn't like we live in filth, but for cryin' out loud, I cannot sweep and mop every fricking day. And maybe my house is a little cluttered at the moment - so what! I live on a farm, what do you expect. It will get taken care of when there's 20 feet of snow on the ground. She also told me to be sure I sweep off our patio; my dad mentioned to her that we haven't seemed to have done that in awhile. Ok, it's an OUTDOOR patio. It is Fall. Leaves are FALLING. In my mind, waste.of.time. To only turn around and need to sweep again - yeah, I don't think so. *sigh* So I left that conversation feeling like a bum who lives in a dump!!
Sometimes I think it's hard for people to understand that even though we do not have children, we have 4 horse, 2 dogs and at the moment, a harvesting apple orchard and so we are BUSY beyond belief and sorry, but dusting and sweeping are not my top priority at the moment. You can still be busy and crazy and overwhelmed w/o having children!!
So then, today, upon coming home from PA, I find a note left by the guy who had helped us get the orchard back into working order and guided us on what to spray and when; however, as the season progressed, we heard from him all but once and he never stopped out to tell us what KINDS of apples we have! So his note, as he apparently stopped out while we weren't home, said that the "apples look nice - pick EVERYTHING now before it drops, hope all is well". *SIGH* Thanks for sharing what varieties you think we have AND HELLO, there is still close to 100 trees that need picked! OMG - reality check, WHAT AM I going to do with all those apples and HOW am I going to get them all picked!! Allen cannot take any days off work right now and I don't have many left to take. Plus, I don't think I even have close to enough bushel baskets for them to all be picked right this second!!! Oh yeah, and we have no means of transporting them as Allen's truck is out of commission - S.U.P.E.R. And Allen tells me I need to relax and quit pushing myself before I wear down and get sick -ha! And let all those apples waste? Over my dead body!!! So this is sure a predicament to stay tuned for an outcome on! Oh all the notes I am jotting for 'how to do this better next year'!
Onto another issue that is a complete soap box for me, and takes me off of business here at the homestead, but I feel the need to vent....animal rescue (horses in particular of course!)
It never ceases to amaze me how STUPID people are. I don't care if an animal is not your child; it is still a living creature with feelings (emotional and physical) and I don't care who you are, it doesn't give you the right to dump, hurt, abuse or abandon an animal.
So, just to give you a taste of what I deal with, I see IDIOTIC PEOPLE who have no clue what they are doing and the poor animal suffers for it. It breaks my heart. UGH - DAMN, EDUCATE YOURSELF PEOPLE!!!! [I gave a speech Monday night for a group on the horse rescue; who we are, what we do etc... and OF COURSE someone asked if horses are still sent to the glue factory - ha - hillarious! I was NOT laughing - GROW UP!]
I am not saying I know everything, lord knows I don't. But at least I try. I learn, I ask questions, I make decisions based on the best interest of my pets and not myself. Have a heart, own up to the responsibility you have taken on. I understand that sometimes it is not always in the control of the owner, but in those circumstances, make the decision that is with the animals best interest in mind. Don't ship your horse to auction because you need to get rid of him or her and at the least, at auction, you might make a buck. That is SICK!!! For the adoption show I do at work with local county shelters, it breaks my heart every time I met a dog there and their story is "brought in by owner because they cannot take care of it....because they are moving....because they don't have time for it......because it chased after the cat.....blah blah blah - the excuses go on and my heart goes out to all the animals that fall under the ownership of IDIOTS.
With my position at the horse rescue, I get most of the calls about horses in need. Heartbreaking to say the least. The calls are always at high volume, but that level is through the roof starting right around this time of year when the grass is dying down and the weather is getting cold. When people have to start buying hay for their horses to feed them *gasp* heaven forbid. You didn't know this when you bought the horse!!?? Like I said, I understand right now lots of people are experiencing job loss, financial hardship etc... sometimes some things are out of your hands, but again, at least make the best decision for your horse with their best interest in mind if you can no longer care for them. You can bet that if, god forbid, I found myself in that situation, I would do everything I could before I threw in the towel so to speak.
Today, just within a couple hours, I received 2 emails and 1 phone call for horses in need. One needing a home due to foreclosure, one that simply stated 'we have a horse in desperate need of rescue' and another about a horse whose owner is not feeding it and a concerned citizen claims they've reported it and animal control has done nothing [don't EVEN get me started on that soap box.] And the calls will keep coming. Last week I had 'Hillbilly Joe Schmoe' call because he had a draft with a leg infection that required him to tend to it daily and *gasp* going to the barn daily to care for HIS horse who needed HIM, who was HIS responsibility was just too much for him so he needed to find her a new home. The only 'props' I will give this idiot are the fact that at least he attempted to call a rescue where he knew she'd be in good hands. He even took it upon himself to text me her photo :/
We are PAST max. capacity at the rescue and it is so heart breaking to turn so many away. You just hope that the owner will [again] do what is best for the horse. But you never know. And the only way this will ever even slightly change is if people take responsibility for the living beings they take in.....and of course a load of other things, like STOP UNNECESSARY breeding, but that's another topic for a whole other day! This blog today was about how I am overwhelmed with everything at home and you see how quickly it snowballed to everything else I am overwhelmed with! Having my own property now and barn makes it so much harder not having space to help each of these horses, but I'd only being doing them an injustice by taking them in when I have no space for them or no extra room in the budget to feed them....but somehow, no matter how many times I tell myself that, it still doesn't make it ok, doesn't make it settle right with me :(
And I question posting this; I believe in Karma and I don't want it to bite me in the ass to one day find myself in a pressing financial situation caring for my animals, but I believe that things need to be said and brought to light to educate people, ultimately, in hopes of helping more animals. And as I said before, for my own animals good, I won't go down without a fight, I won't throw in the towel without exhausting all other options. They can count on that!!
I have a hayride planned for Saturday for the kids to all come over for. Of course, I had to get the lecture from my mother about making sure my house is clean before I have people over. It isn't like we live in filth, but for cryin' out loud, I cannot sweep and mop every fricking day. And maybe my house is a little cluttered at the moment - so what! I live on a farm, what do you expect. It will get taken care of when there's 20 feet of snow on the ground. She also told me to be sure I sweep off our patio; my dad mentioned to her that we haven't seemed to have done that in awhile. Ok, it's an OUTDOOR patio. It is Fall. Leaves are FALLING. In my mind, waste.of.time. To only turn around and need to sweep again - yeah, I don't think so. *sigh* So I left that conversation feeling like a bum who lives in a dump!!
Sometimes I think it's hard for people to understand that even though we do not have children, we have 4 horse, 2 dogs and at the moment, a harvesting apple orchard and so we are BUSY beyond belief and sorry, but dusting and sweeping are not my top priority at the moment. You can still be busy and crazy and overwhelmed w/o having children!!
So then, today, upon coming home from PA, I find a note left by the guy who had helped us get the orchard back into working order and guided us on what to spray and when; however, as the season progressed, we heard from him all but once and he never stopped out to tell us what KINDS of apples we have! So his note, as he apparently stopped out while we weren't home, said that the "apples look nice - pick EVERYTHING now before it drops, hope all is well". *SIGH* Thanks for sharing what varieties you think we have AND HELLO, there is still close to 100 trees that need picked! OMG - reality check, WHAT AM I going to do with all those apples and HOW am I going to get them all picked!! Allen cannot take any days off work right now and I don't have many left to take. Plus, I don't think I even have close to enough bushel baskets for them to all be picked right this second!!! Oh yeah, and we have no means of transporting them as Allen's truck is out of commission - S.U.P.E.R. And Allen tells me I need to relax and quit pushing myself before I wear down and get sick -ha! And let all those apples waste? Over my dead body!!! So this is sure a predicament to stay tuned for an outcome on! Oh all the notes I am jotting for 'how to do this better next year'!
Onto another issue that is a complete soap box for me, and takes me off of business here at the homestead, but I feel the need to vent....animal rescue (horses in particular of course!)
It never ceases to amaze me how STUPID people are. I don't care if an animal is not your child; it is still a living creature with feelings (emotional and physical) and I don't care who you are, it doesn't give you the right to dump, hurt, abuse or abandon an animal.
So, just to give you a taste of what I deal with, I see IDIOTIC PEOPLE who have no clue what they are doing and the poor animal suffers for it. It breaks my heart. UGH - DAMN, EDUCATE YOURSELF PEOPLE!!!! [I gave a speech Monday night for a group on the horse rescue; who we are, what we do etc... and OF COURSE someone asked if horses are still sent to the glue factory - ha - hillarious! I was NOT laughing - GROW UP!]
I am not saying I know everything, lord knows I don't. But at least I try. I learn, I ask questions, I make decisions based on the best interest of my pets and not myself. Have a heart, own up to the responsibility you have taken on. I understand that sometimes it is not always in the control of the owner, but in those circumstances, make the decision that is with the animals best interest in mind. Don't ship your horse to auction because you need to get rid of him or her and at the least, at auction, you might make a buck. That is SICK!!! For the adoption show I do at work with local county shelters, it breaks my heart every time I met a dog there and their story is "brought in by owner because they cannot take care of it....because they are moving....because they don't have time for it......because it chased after the cat.....blah blah blah - the excuses go on and my heart goes out to all the animals that fall under the ownership of IDIOTS.
With my position at the horse rescue, I get most of the calls about horses in need. Heartbreaking to say the least. The calls are always at high volume, but that level is through the roof starting right around this time of year when the grass is dying down and the weather is getting cold. When people have to start buying hay for their horses to feed them *gasp* heaven forbid. You didn't know this when you bought the horse!!?? Like I said, I understand right now lots of people are experiencing job loss, financial hardship etc... sometimes some things are out of your hands, but again, at least make the best decision for your horse with their best interest in mind if you can no longer care for them. You can bet that if, god forbid, I found myself in that situation, I would do everything I could before I threw in the towel so to speak.
Today, just within a couple hours, I received 2 emails and 1 phone call for horses in need. One needing a home due to foreclosure, one that simply stated 'we have a horse in desperate need of rescue' and another about a horse whose owner is not feeding it and a concerned citizen claims they've reported it and animal control has done nothing [don't EVEN get me started on that soap box.] And the calls will keep coming. Last week I had 'Hillbilly Joe Schmoe' call because he had a draft with a leg infection that required him to tend to it daily and *gasp* going to the barn daily to care for HIS horse who needed HIM, who was HIS responsibility was just too much for him so he needed to find her a new home. The only 'props' I will give this idiot are the fact that at least he attempted to call a rescue where he knew she'd be in good hands. He even took it upon himself to text me her photo :/
We are PAST max. capacity at the rescue and it is so heart breaking to turn so many away. You just hope that the owner will [again] do what is best for the horse. But you never know. And the only way this will ever even slightly change is if people take responsibility for the living beings they take in.....and of course a load of other things, like STOP UNNECESSARY breeding, but that's another topic for a whole other day! This blog today was about how I am overwhelmed with everything at home and you see how quickly it snowballed to everything else I am overwhelmed with! Having my own property now and barn makes it so much harder not having space to help each of these horses, but I'd only being doing them an injustice by taking them in when I have no space for them or no extra room in the budget to feed them....but somehow, no matter how many times I tell myself that, it still doesn't make it ok, doesn't make it settle right with me :(
And I question posting this; I believe in Karma and I don't want it to bite me in the ass to one day find myself in a pressing financial situation caring for my animals, but I believe that things need to be said and brought to light to educate people, ultimately, in hopes of helping more animals. And as I said before, for my own animals good, I won't go down without a fight, I won't throw in the towel without exhausting all other options. They can count on that!!
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