Pictures

Here are the picturesI promised - from Carriage Classic to Vernon County Fair - horse shows, kittens in barn manger, and more!

Please Give

We are once again in a financial crisis.
Adopting horses is one way that we are able to provide for all of the horses still waiting for homes.
When adoptions are slow, we must reach out to ask for assistance.

If you are unable to make a donation, think about logging on to ameaningfulgift.com
A portion of the proceeds of sales of items on this site will go to ASAP.
There are great gifts for animal lovers - great Christmas gift ideas, etc.

Please think about making a contribution using Pay Pal.
Even if you are only able to donate $5 a week - it would mean so much to have each donation add up.

We are now trying to lease our arena in order to pay bills. We hate to see our arena, designed for training horses, giving lessons, and storing hay turn into a storage place for boats and RV's, but at this point we have no choice.

We are also trying to sell our six horse Featherlite slant-load aluminum trailer, and downsize to a four horse.
Please contact me if you are interested.

Other ways to help include online shopping at the Country Supply site - a portion of sales go to ASAP.
Also, how many times do you google something? If you think of it, going to goodsearch.com means a penny from every search goes to ASAP.

Last but certainly not least, please please please go to www.theanimalrescuesite.com and click on the tab at the right called
the Great Shelter Challenge.

Type in American Standardbred and the state WI and you will see our name come up. You can vote once per day starting now.
Please don't forget us! We need you!!

Susan

It's a Joint Effort

AAAAHHH - the county fair is over.
Super Night has come and gone.
Carriage Classic is now 9 days past - where does time go?

Congratulations to my children - Zachary and Rachel - for their hard work and dedication to their pets during the fair.
We showed two rabbits, two cats on Thursday night, and one wonderful Standardbred horse known as Remmie.
Zachary took a white ribbon on his rabbit Thumper. Who was to know that white rabbits with blue eyes and lots of black spots on their ears were basically utterly undesirable by judges? Live and learn! Rachel's rabbit, on the other hand, took a first place in her division (Lop-eared doe under six months). Rachel's bunny is brown with a white cottontail. The judge loved her.

The cat show was a scream! The judges were warm and friendly - helpful - and comical. They gave out trophies for such things as longest tail, scariest face, cuddliest, and so on. Zach showed Oreo the black and white domestic short-hair, and Rachel showed Adam (formerly an orphaned kitten who was the only one in his litter to survive distemper, and bottle fed by us). Adam is a short-haired tabby cat. Well, the kids did well again! Zach got a red ribbon for Oreo and a trophy for shiest cat, and Rachel took a blue ribbon with Adam!

Zach won second place for his picture of domestic animal (Magnum in the creek), and a white ribbon for his landscape picture (water with no buildings).

And last but not least, Rachel took home the trophy for the walk/trot class on Remmie! She also took a blue for the costume class, and a red ribbon for the halter class. She placed a first in something else (can't remember which class), but the 4-H club took home a merit award for Rachel and the other members' hard work in keeping the area clean, horses fed and watered, and
horses exercised. During the four day stay at the grounds we were once again chosen by the man upstairs to have three kittens under the manger board in Remmie's stall discovered. The mother, a feral cat, was scared away by the fair activities on the first day. She must have come home at night to nurse them, but by noon the three kittens were screaming for her loudly. Remmie put up with the incessant meowing, but others had a tougher time tolerating it. After much debate, and a report from another woman saying that the fair groundskeepers will kill the kittens if found because they hate feral cats, we called Tabby Town Cat Rescue. Marie and I met at 3:30 outside the gate and I handed over three very hungry baby kitties to her rescue.
The very neat thing is that they have set live traps for the mother, hoping to find her. If they do, they will bring her back to their place and she will have a whole room to herself to be with her kittens. Then today I got an email telling me that the fair groundskeepers asked them to remove the live traps. This is very upsetting to all of us, as we know there is a cat desperately searching for her kittens right now, and no one at the fairgrounds appears to care. We'll keep you posted.

Thanks to Alice and Ray H. and Danielle S., Super Night was a huge success. I managed to get a heavy box with display materials down to Ray and Alice in time. They had the privilege of bringing Pistol Pete N to the track to share with the public during the races, and got to hand out brochures to anyone interested in adoption. Danielle manned the table down near the clubhouse/race office area outside. Alice said each time she looked Danielle seemed to have someone at the table. We were also part of a live interview done by Joshua Potts, thanks to Danielle!!! Joshua reported to me that Danielle did an absolutely excellent job of representing ASAP. The 60 second dvd was shown in between races to promote ASAP. We are very grateful to Debra from Balmoral for all of the assistance and support this year! And Danielle and Ray and Alice - you are tops!!!
Ray and Alice, in addition to all of the above, even went out of their way to haul Cam's Matte Finish to their place after they left the track that night. ASAP is made up of many many people - it is such a great feeling to know that you are out there for the horses! Thank you again and again.

The Carriage Classic was very interesting, and thanks to Mike Rider, we were able to have a table set up there for the weekend.
It was a first time for me to see the events at the beautiful Villa Louis. The best thing about being there was seeing Ray and Alice, who had traveled from Gratiot to Prairie du Chien to watch the driving classes. I have never seen such elegance and beauty. The carriages were superb! There was only one Standardbred in the entire show that weekend, and it was a half Standardbred at that. Maybe us being there will create some interest? We can only hope. My mother was a trooper that whole weekend, going back and forth with me two days in a row. She really enjoyed her chat with Ray!

So now is the time to recoup. It feels good to be back at work and back in the routine. There are horses to ride! Timesareachanging had his first saddling and ponying experience two Sundays ago. We took him on trails, roads, and across fields and creeks. He did about six miles that day and was very well behaved! I almost think I could have ridden him!

I will send pictures.
Updates on horses:
Wawatassi adopted!
Allie in second foster home.

MANY HORSES NEEDING PLACEMENT.
We are only $300 behind on our feed bills at this point after a tough summer. We are praying for enough donations or adoptions to get us paid up on hay and feed and vet bills. Thanks to Laurie for her donation towards Chevie Silverado's vet bill!!

Soon,
Susan

Long Time

I am surprised how quickly time passes in between my posts. I have had a few adventures since August 27. Some have been good and some have been not so positive. It has stretched me in terms of what I can handle as a horse woman, and what is not fair to expect. It has made me questioned my own ability to train horses when I am not spending enough time with each one. Craig keeps telling me that I need to just choose one horse as "mine" and stick with that one. As it is right now, R Colelateral has been "my" horse for three years. However, as I have moved more into riding Cricket and working with Taser Gun and, now, riding Timesareachanging, Cole has become more herd bound, difficult, and harder to manage.

Our two day camping trip to the Kickapoo Reserve found me fearful on the trails on the second day. Cole was insisting on being in the lead, but when he got there was afraid of everything invisible under the sun. Combining his spooking with his attitude when I held him back when he wanted to run (hunching up, crow hopping), I was not having any fun. I cried "whoa", got out of the saddle and stood, holding him, sobbing. I explained to the kids I just was not having any fun. I envisioned Cole as a horse that was harnessed to a two-wheeled cart and could literally fly down the road. He would be so happy. Maybe the problem with me is that I am trying to make him into a pleasure horse but that is not part of his character. Maybe I am just looking for excuses to give up. I am really confused at this point. I have taken him out here at home and worked with him more often. I am teaching him how to flex and bend - he has to be the most stiff-necked horse I have ever worked with, which makes him harder to manage when I am riding him. A gal came over to adopt two horses two nights ago, and picked him out of 19 horses because of his affections towards her and his friendliness. She tacked him up and got on and rode. As long as I was around walking with them or trotting, he was fine. I left to help her get a feel for her without me around. He became quite obstinant and barn sour. She said something that made me think. She said, "You sure can tell he is YOUR horse and you are HIS person". There..............now what does that do for my conscience?
I don't want to give up! The same goes for Cricket and Times and Taser. I just have to focus my energies more and do more of the boring ground stuff and daily work and not expect each horse I get on top of to automatically be wonderful on any trail in America I decide to explore.....

We have had a long run of beautiful weather. We live in a part of the country where we are afraid to know what the next day is going to bring, because we usually never have five days of sunshine in a row. Craig would love to move so we don't have to experience another winter, but the two remaining kids at home don't want to go. Coming from a home where my father never thought twice about pulling me up by the roots twice a year to go from California to Wisconsin and back again, I don't wish that on my worst enemy. I want my kids to feel rooted and stable, safe and happy, with the same friends and the same environment that they know and love. I had that in California, but never felt completely welcome as a peer at schools in Wisconsin. I can even reflect that I had the worst education in terms of teacher sensitivity to student needs I have ever seen. I can say this now, since I am a teacher. I remember a teacher in 7th and 8th grade in the local school close to where we live now that was related to me. I was scared to death of her bi-polar emotions, but knew how to save myself by behaving properly around her. I was smart academically, but I sat next to a boy who was basically a non reader. In those days we did not have special educators or title 1 teachers. He was basically ignored and I helped him complete assignments when I could. Each week we would receive a Weekly Reader and part of our curriculum was reading this aloud together as a class. I will never forget dreading this part of my day, when I knew my friend and fellow class mate who was a non-reader would surely be called upon to stand up next to his desk and read.
He would begin to cry, but the teacher, my relative, would let him stand there, humiliated, until someone would say the word out loud to help him. This boy grew up to have many emotional issues in his life, but I can't help but think the teachers could have helped him become a healthy adult if they would have showed some compassion.

The same goes for how I feel about the horses here. Miss Molly P would rather kill me than look at me, but somehow over the summer she has seen me as a sort of friend. She will seek me out rather than running away, and I can stand and pet her without fear of being trampled or struck with a front hoof (unless I try to push her!). Compassion rules my heart -a horse who has no useful place in society will someday find a horse whisperer or someone who sees the beauty in a one-eyed horse with suspensory problems and a dented skull. Maybe in the meantime, God's love can shine through enough here at the farm to show her it is safe to trust. After all, it happened with a kitten that was brought to us last year. She would cringe when we tried to pet her and cry out as if to say "Leave me alone - please don't torture me". Somehow I believe she had been greatly tortured - she cannot tell us what happened but I know something did. After a year of watching us, and our gentle rewarding her for letting us pet her by giving her a special treat, she has decided to own us. If I open my eyes during the night she is next to me looking at me. She is the first cat I see in the morning when I wake up, and won't leave me alone until I feed her. She has learned that she can trust. She now lets me pick her up and carry her all over the house, and loves to be petted. She hasn't generalized this trust to everyone in our house, but someday I just know it will come. Time and love can heal so many things.

I want to share that a former racing champion who was adopted and loved by a dear friend of mine for so many years I cannot count has passed. Broderick, a famous trotting horse originally from Indiana who made over $500,000, died home on the farm last week. He was well into his 20's. His last public appearance for ASAP was at Night of Champions at Hawthorne in 2007. It will take Adrienne awhile to get over the loss of such a great horse. His many years in 4-h helped earn many medals, ribbons and trophies for Kristin and Kathleen. Our sympathy goes out to the family.

Our next event is this weekend at the Carriage Classic in Prairie du Chien! Then the fair, and Super Night in Chicago. We are pleased to say that Alice and Ray H. of Gratiot will be bringing Pistol Pete N (formerly owned by Bell Valley Farm) to be in the Billy Barn area to greet the crowds. Squire One's adopter and Sportsmaster's adopter will help with the two tables at the track that night. I can just feel the excitement in the air for this huge night of harness racing!

I promise to get pictures up after the classic!
Love
Susan