Once again I'd like to plug the event we have coming up July 4th at Horse in Hand Ranch in Blackfalds -http://bearvalleyevents.wix.com/bear-valley-events#!events/c1h6a-  please check it out and share with your friends and family!  We are looking for sponsors for the event along with vendors for a country market we will be running in conjunction with the dinner, dance and silent auction.  It will be a great way to support the Rescue and have a fun evening out at the same time!  We have had a lot of interest and have some great things lined up for the silent auction already along with quite a few vendors for the market.

April has been a much better month than March in just about every way.  The weather has been unusually mild.  Of course everyone is starting to complain about how dry it is.  We haven't had much moisture, snow OR rain, this month, but May and June are usually the wettest so there's lots of time for rain yet (and hopefully not snow!).  We had some wonderful adoptions this month, including Estelle (who went to the same family who adopted Mac the appy a couple of years ago), Plume (who went to the same fellow who has Renegade who was born here a number of years ago), Quentin (who will be joining Rasta) and Smudge and Voodoo, who were adopted together.   Karma went to a new foster home, thank you Heather.  Trixie has also been adopted and will be going to her new home shortly.  A big thank you to Marcie and Christian for fostering Trixie and working with her, and to Peggie and Stephanie for sponsoring Trixie while she was there.

We had 3 horses return to us this month.  Ranger, now 5 years old, was adopted as a weanling.  He came back to us because he injured his shoulder a while ago and didn't come completely sound again but he is broke to ride and would be suitable for light riding.  Yuma was adopted out last year but has soundness issues (he's coming back tomorrow and we'll have our vet look at him).    Tacoma, an older palomino gelding we bought at auction a couple of years ago, was returned due to serious illness on the part of his owner.  He is not in great shape (was boarded somewhere that didn't provide good care) but he's doing much better already on mash and good hay.  We also took in an older Arab/standardbred mare.  She's a strong mare and well broke but not for a beginner.  I will get these horses posted on the website shortly.
Abby has a sponsor, thank you Francesca!  Francesca has been sponsoring horses for a number of years but they keep getting adopted (most recently, Voodoo), so this time she picked one that is a permanent resident!

Bear Valley Rescue is hoping to be verified by Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries and to that end we had a  visit from 2 lovely ladies from International Federation of Animal Welfare a week ago to do an on-site audit for GFAS.  Thank you to all the volunteers who worked so hard over the last couple of weeks getting everything ship-shape after winter.  Fingers crossed we get our verification status!

We had a nice visit from Sheila Isiah, whose horse passed away recently.  Sheila would like to set up a memorial fund in honor of her horse, Mingo.  There was a very generous donation in the mail today to put toward care of the seniors, thank you Leah.  The Rescue received a $1,000 cheque from Kelly Kay and HorsePlay Family Fun Day that was held a few weeks ago - thank you Kelly!   I finally got the year end done and once again our wonderful accountant, Jim Muma, did the year end statement and tax return for us free of charge.  Thank you to Doug Bennett (Prince's owner for 30 years) for the generous donation in memory of Prince who we lost last month.  Calgary Gymnastics Centre is fundraising for the Rescue

As is usual we have been very busy - I started this blog on March 7th, and am just getting back to it today, April 4th!

I'd like to thank everyone for the wonderful support we've had lately: those who donated feed directly through our local feed supplier,  Mountain View Feed Company; Costen Insurance for donating $1330.95 to Bear Valley, their charity of choice for 2014; Johlian for selecting Bear Valley as your charity through Parkland Industries; Pomegranate.com for partnering with Bear Valley over Christmas with your lovely advent calendars;  donations through The Tack Collector which raised $2924.22 in 2014;  sales through Bear Valley used tack, organized by our wonderful volunteer Mary Ellen, which brought in approximately $9,000 in 2014 and an additional $800 through the Balzac 4H tack sale.  Most recently, we'd like to thank: the Calgary Stampede Queens' Alumni;  Val and family for the feed donation after the passing of their old pony; donations through donor's choice/workplace donation programs of The United Way; and for care of donkeys, Hands of Hope Students' Club and Four Feet Companion Foundation. 
A big thank you to everyone who has donated aeroplan miles to the Rescue - so far we have been able to redeem miles for $3,000 in Home Depot gift cards which we can use to purchase materials to finish the seniors' shelter! Here is the link if you'd like to donate miles - https://beyondmiles.aeroplan.com/eng/ There are lots more thanks due, too many to list, but we appreciate you all very much!

I never want to hurry time along as life is too short as it is but I am so glad to see the tail end of March as it was a very tough month.  We've had to say goodbye to a lot of special friends over the last while, including lovely Heathcote in January, Winky the donkey in February, and beautiful Penelope, and Emmy, Twenty and Prince, 3 of our seniors, all in March.  Condolences as well to the families of Ronin, Fonda, and Quill's foal Kit, all 3 of whom passed from colic over the last little while.  Between injury, illness or simply old age catching up, life ends and we are left to carry on.  We are always happy that we are able to provide loving care while they are here with us but letting go is hard.  On top of it all my mom passed away in March.  Although her passing was a relief because of her illness, it was still difficult.  With diseases like alzheimers and dementia you lose the person way before they die but you still grieve for them in the end.  For those friends who made donations to the Rescue in my mom's memory, thank you, that was so very thoughtful.

There is always some good news too.  Boston, Powder, Donovan, Raffles, Blossom, Inky, Pinky, Tucker, Leo and Rasta have all been adopted.  Salsa, Estelle and Tivio are back from Edmonton and still awaiting that special someone to adopt them.  Thank you so much Lara and Trendsetting Stables for your efforts on behalf of the horses, and the adoptions of Boston, Spitfire and Powder attest to that.  Roche, Snickers and Twix came back from 'winter school'.  Roche and Snickers, along with Inky and Pinky were gelded, and Beth, Wanda, Mr.Goat, HIghway, Kokanee, Cash and Missy got their teeth floated.   Mr.Goat has a new foster home, joining 2 other of our adoptees, Story and Odyssey, with Linda and Tim and their menagerie.  We have some new sponsors for some of the horses as well!  Sponsoring is a great way to contribute towards the Rescue and the animals that reside here. 

In the first part of this year we took in the 3 donkeys, Inky, Winky and Pinky, and about 80 red hens and 1 rooster.  We were able to find good homes for most of the hens and even a number of our roosters!  We took in 1 rabbit named Rambo, but when she was fixed she turned out to be a Rambette instead.  Sebastian has gone out for some handling, thank you Katrina for taking him on.  Vita has also gone out for training, thank you Michele for sponsoring that for her.  Mac and Plume both had abscesses but they've cleared up well.  Sasha, who is fostered at Janine's and fortunately close by, had quite the injury in February.  She slashed open her neck right at her throatlatch on the edge of the metal roofing on her shelter.  It was quite the gaping wound (graphic photo, sorry!) but for all that it could have been a lot more serious as she just missed her jugular and her trachea.  It took quite a few stitches to get her put back together again!

We had our annual general meeting in February.  The main focus of the meeting was on fundraising and volunteer development.  We'd like to welcome Baudina Slikker to the fundraising committee for the Calgary/Cochrane area.  She joins Stephanie and Laura Schmidt who are focused on the Red Deer area.  If anyone would be interested it handling fundraising for the Edmonton area (or any other area for that matter!) please email us about it at [email protected].  A number of the volunteers attended a fun clinic in March hosted by Joerg of Flowing Manes Equestrian on equine communication.  I think we all learned a lot!  We hope to have another similar clinic in the near future as space was limited and not everyone was able to attend.

Speaking of fundraising, Mary Ellen just wrapped up an online auction on facebook benefiting the Rescue.  Grand total raised was $2135!  If you have used tack or other items you'd like to donate at any time please email Mary Ellen at [email protected].

We had a really fun fundraising event for Valentine's Day.  Thank you to everyone who bought a valentine for their favourite(s)!

It took six months but finally, since January, Beth has been staying outside with the seniors group!  She still occasionally needs help getting up if she lays down but she has been doing really well.   It is really nice to finally get to sleep through the night again.  Here is a link to a video of Beth doing some gallivanting! - https://www.dropbox.com/s/bjqkdz42wbze1tz/beth%20videos%20002.AVI?dl=0

Coming up, we will have a booth once again at The Mane Event in Red Deer - April 24 - 26.  Stop by and visit! 

Also in the planning stage, we have an event lined up for July 4th at Horse in Hand Ranch in Blackfalds.  There is a website set up for the event -http://bearvalleyevents.wix.com/bear-valley-events#!events/c1h6a-  please check it out and share with your friends and family!  We are looking for sponsors for the event along with vendors for a country market we'd like to run in conjunction with the dinner, dance and silent auction.  It will be a great way to support the Rescue and have a fun evening out at the same time!

Be sure to look at the events and fundraising pages of the website for current news on what is happening or coming up.