I figured I had better update from when I wrote February's blog to today, just to try and catch up a bit.

The day to day care of the animals is taking all our time, but finally spring is in the air!  Good thing, as one of our automatic waterers that waters 3 different areas decided to freeze up when the melting snow got down into the pipes.  Glad it didn't happen sooner as having to fill troughs with a hose is a lot of extra work!

Thank you Marcel for donating some lovely alfalfa/grass bales, the horses  love them!

We had a bit of a run on intakes despite our best efforts to keep intakes to absolute emergencies.  Dolly the pony and Beau the palomino gelding were surrendered at the end of February, and we took in 10 surrenders (9 Arab/Arab crosses and 1 Morgan mare) at the end of March from another desperate situation.  Dallas and Mirage both were returned from foster and Queenie has come back temporarily as well.  On the plus side, Nyx, Jet and Shalamar (one of the new Arabs) were gelded and Nyx and Jet both have been adopted.  Two of the new intakes, Dolly, Misty (#3) and Raven (#2) have already been adopted and lovely Rose Red was adopted too.   Norma, and Dennis the goat, were dropped off today at their new foster home.  Thank you Jordan (and Charlene!) for hauling Dallas and Queenie back for us.  We delivered Nyx to his new home today.  Thank you Becki from Bold Equine for working with Nyx to get him to where he could be gelded and for preparing him for his new home.   Pinkerton, Lua, and Red will be going out on foster, and PInkerton and Lua to be worked with as well, at the end of April - thank you Erin and Mike for taking them on.   

I have been very remiss in adding the new intakes to the website and my excuse is the sloooowwww speed of our internet.  It is unbelievably tedious having to wait for things to upload at a snail's pace but unfortunately we are located just so that we can't get wireless and have to rely on satellite and there seems to be only the one provider we can access.  Just about the ONLY downside to being located in the boonies!

For the first time, our farrier Pat is here for 4 days to do trimming.  Up til now we were able to fit all the horses into 3 days but with an increase in the number of 'able to pick up and trim' horses we've had to add a day,  doing close to 100 horses in total!  We have Denis and his tipping table booked for the end of April to get the less handle-able horses trimmed before they go out to pasture.

Thank you to more new sponsors, and welcome to the new volunteers - we've had some great people joining us over the years and we appreciate your help very much!

We lost lovely Fly suddenly last week.  Thank you once again to Greg from Just Passing for being so prompt and sympathetic.  Our heartfelt condolences to the adopters of Rouge and Trump who lost their dear horses recently, and tragically as we just heard this evening, on the passing of Esperanza who only yesterday we'd receiving just a nice update and photos of.  They seem to go too quickly, never with us long enough.

It has been months since my last update.  We’ve been so busy!  This winter has been very cold and already way too long.  Thankfully we’ve had a few breaks in the cold but not often enough.  Purchasing all the hay we need for winter, hauling it in, and getting all the horses home from pasture is a HUGE undertaking every year.  It was unfortunately not a good year for hay in our area.  With all the rain many farmers could not get their crops off the fields or had to wait to hay until it was more mature than ideal.   We were able to find very nice hay from farther away, but of course then one has to pay more to get it home.  Also disappointingly we were sold some hay that was not very good, but I guess it is ‘buyer beware’ as with most anything.  We certainly won’t be buying hay from THAT supplier again.

Our Christmas fundraiser was a wonderful success, thank you to everyone who supported us!  We raised about $25,000, which far exceeded our expectations and went a long way to helping cover our winter hay bill.  Our Valentine’s Day fundraiser brought in another $800.   Thanks as well to everyone who volunteered for our AGLC casino which also funds our hay.

We have had quite a few adoptions, with many lovely horses going to new homes, including some who had been here for a long time awaiting their perfect home, and a few others that weren’t here long enough to even name – Tonka, Parson, Pepper, several weanlings, Fury, Alice, Hershey, Trixie, Marco, Hans, Roche, and Highway, and foster-fails Smudge and Simba.  Bailey and Bella, 2 mares that came in this winter, were fostered right away and ended up staying on permanently at their new home.  Several more horses found foster homes, including Dallas (who went with Queenie who was here temporarily while her owner was undergoing cancer treatment), Arizona, Talon, Wanda, Mirage, and Silhouette (who went with Fury when he was adopted). We’d also like to thank and welcome the new sponsors who have joined us – sponsoring is a great way to help the horses!

In addition to horses leaving for new homes, we of course had several intakes.  Topper, who was adopted about 4 years ago, came back, as did Karma who was adopted a couple of years ago, and Plume who was adopted a year ago.  With Karma we also took in 6 sheep, which have since found new homes, with 1 going to one home and the other 5 going to another.  Norma, who was a foster, came back after 4 or 5 years away.  Coincidentally we took in a rabbit from Calgary Humane Society also named Norma. Apparently Norma the rabbit could be grumpy with humans, but we found her a good home right away that actually finds her moods quite endearing.  A group of 5 weanlings, 1 yearling and a Thoroughbred gelding came in, with the Thoroughbred (Hans) and 2 of the weanlings being adopted right away.  Two senior horses, Lola and Luke, came in from a feedlot.  Sadly Luke was only with us for a short time before he had to be euthanized due to illness, but he was such a sweet ‘grandpa’ to the weanlings before he passed.

In the fall we were contacted by someone who was referred to us by Alberta SPCA with regard to 2 donkeys that they had that were in bad shape.  We picked up the donkeys and brought them back to the Rescue.    Miss Kitty and Festus had feet that were in terrible shape.  Miss Kitty also has issues with her back, possibly relating to her feet.  Both have been adopted by a very kind neighbour who is doing everything she can to correct their problems, including regular farrier work, massages, and supplements!

Our most recent intakes are Hondo and Champ, with Hondo being an old rodeo horse, now lame, and Champ being a pony and Hondo’s faithful companion.  Hondo has been receiving joint injections to help with his lameness.  Plume was xrayed to identify the cause of her lameness (an injury to the bones in her foot) and is receiving joint injections for that.  Glory#2, a weanling filly that came to us with a swollen hock, was xrayed and diagnosed with a fracture of her hock.  Unfortunately surgery is not an option for her so instead she also will get regular injections into her hock to help with the injury.

We also just took in 18 chickens that were from a large cull at a chicken farm.  They are settling in and learning to be chickens.  After another week or two of quarantine they will be able to join the other chickens in the coop.

As is inevitable, we lost some dearly loved members of the Bear Valley family over the past few months.  Mugsy, a lovely old pony well into her 30s or possibly even 40s, had to be euthanized due to illness, as did Snips, an old Arab gelding.  Copper passed away suddenly from severe colic.  Two of our fosters had to be euthanized at their foster homes.  Both Pal and Penny had been fostered for many years at their respective homes.  We are so thankful for caring foster homes that are there for the horses right through to the end.  Wonderful Boyd, the tom turkey, passed at 3 ½ years of age.  He is very much missed as he was the ‘greeter’, meeting everyone who came into the yard, and following us everywhere.  Isabel, our lovely old goat, passed away at the incredibly old age of 18 years after a short illness.

Thank you to the following for their much appreciated donations and support over the last few months!
Alberta Equestrian Federation
Fedex
Donner Canadian Foundation
Transfeeder
Catalyst Changers
Dr. Colleen Kramer – Beaver Valley Animal Clinic, Fruitvale, BC
Cochrane Townhall Public
Fountain Tire Sundre – 4 excellent new tires for the truck!
Nickle Family Foundation
Calgary Gymnastics Centre
Tonglen Foundation
Sherling Animal Welfare Foundation
SPCA International