Last Rescue Post.

My last day at the horse rescue is quickly approaching, Hopefully when I return next year all my favorite horsey friends would have found a new home. Working at a horse rescue was hard, not only was it physically demanding, by scooping poop out of a dozen dirty stalls, hauling feed and hay halfway across the acreage... It also pulled some good mental strains. While working at the rescue I did see and hear some horrible things that people do to horses, and all critters. I wont even mention them here, but google "windchill foal" and you will see. At least two of the horses that came in when I was there were severely abused, one had limes disease and was horribly thin, the other was previously abused and terrified of men. They both, by the time I last visited had learned about how life can bring joy, and were happy for a pet or two, instead of shying away just weeks earlier. There were also 3 deaths since I started this project, one was an old barrel racing horse, TZ who had come to live out the rest of his days there and thats just what he did. I was going to photograph him for my project but he passed away before I could. The other two were mules that were very feral, and whom the owner (mary) was offering for free to anyone that had experience. They could not even vet the mules and they were living in pain and had to be put down as well. It yanked me towards the good and the bad, I cant help but think towards the positive side of things, that these horses will soon have a loving home of their own, and if they don't, Mary and company will love them enough for now.

I have learned many things through this project, one of the most important things though is that you can never know too much about horses. All this new information was just added onto everything piled on over the years. I became to realized that even though a horse is not rideable due to an injury does not mean its worthless, some of the horses there that are bound to just be pasture buddies have the most amazing personalities. I learned that the best tool in the world when a horse is charging at you is to whip your hand out and police halt them, works like a charm...if it fails, quickly roll under the fence. I learned that spring is not a photogenic season for horses. I also perfected my stall scooping skills.

My learning portion relating to biology was the study of horse colorations and than to produce a webpage with pictures to show this. I am working on some bugs in which I need to seek some technical outside advice, but I should plug in the finished project around saturday afternoon. With this bio portion it was really handy since I never really undertsood genetics, now I do, kinda. The final product can be seen here I am going to post the project on a few web forums, also add some more pictures throughout the next few weeks.

I think the biggest thing I can pull out of this is how I treat the horse I have for the summer, Red, who is a past rescue horse. An ex-racer. I spend alot of time working on the ground with him, thinking back to how it was on the ground that I gained trust and respect from those horses at the rescue. I also know that Red, isn't black like his registration papers say, rather looking closely at him I can tell he is a bay. A dark, dark bay. Though I cant tell the owners that I have leased him from, I think it would ruin their world knowing that he was just a plain ol' bay.