Happy New Year to everyone!  Our Christmas fundraiser has been a huge success, thank you to everyone who contributed or shared or sent good wishes!  We still have today to go and we've already raised over $15,000!!

I have quite a few new additions yet to post on the website.  Here are the ones that we've taken in since my last post.

I started my previous blog on December 2nd and only got around to actually posting it today.  Rather than add to it I figured I should start a new blog so here we are 2 weeks later.  It's actually almost 3 in the morning.  For some reason (perhaps because of all the work we do during the day?) the only time I seem to be able to work uninterrupted on the computer is when I can't sleep and am up in the middle of the night.  Not that I am complaining in the least!  After working in an office for almost 35 years, the freedom to be up in the middle of the night and not have to worry about having to get up in the morning and drive to work and then spend the whole day at the office in priceless.

I had mentioned in the previous blog that we had the Red Deer College Theatre Production Program out for a volunteer day to work on the seniors' shelter.  Thank you to our volunteers Kim and Mette for arranging it (as they are in that class), and thanks to their scenic carpentry instructor Ian, shop supervisor Rick, and students Aaric, Trevor, John and Nevin (and Kim and Mette).  The senior's shelter was completed, save for 2 gates that Mike installed the next day.  Thank you also to Mike's brother Brian who was out helping that day as well.  The horses love their new shelter!

We received two nice donations through employee matching programs, namely Cenovus Employee Foundation and Encana Cares.  Thank you!

We received several 'donations in memory' over the last couple of months.  Thank you to those who chose to memorialize their loved ones in this way.

Thank you to our local feed store located in Sundre, Dougan's Farm and Feed Supply, for donating about 40 bags of Nutrena Vitality horse feed!

Michelle Neaves won a draw through Red Deer Mitsubishi, where the winner gets to select a charity of their choice to receive half the prize money.  Thank you Michelle for selecting Bear Valley Rescue as your charity of choice!

In the last 2 weeks we've had several intakes, including the ponies mentioned in the previous blog, save that we ended up with 3 mares and 3 foals, not 4 mares and 2 foals as originally anticipated.  Our sincerely appreciation to Four Feet Companion Foundation for their generous grant to assist us in taking in these cute ponies!

This past weekend, some wonderful friends volunteered to make an all day drive south to pick up an old gelding from an impound lot.  Thank you RJ for contacting us about the horse, Clifton for contacting RJ in the first place, and Stephanie, Laura and Bob (and Stephanie's friend) for making the drive.    Meet 'Thirty'!

Also coming to us this past weekend from a feedlot were 2 thoroughbreds and a filly.  A huge thanks to Alyssa and Emily for hauling them down to us from Lloydminster, another all-day trip, also involving an emergency stop at a vet clinic in Edmonton when the filly went down in the trailer!  Thankfully she was okayed for the remainder of the trip and is recovering nicely in the barn.  We've named the filly 'Flower', and the 2 thoroughbreds are Sir Charles B, 22 years old (the black), and Into the Fire, 18 years old (the bay).  They are all lovely horses, very well mannered, though sadly in poor shape.  We'd also like to thank the ladies of the 'Westlock and Beaverlodge Auction' facebook page, for their efforts to save horses destined for slaughter.  It was through them that we got these 3 horses and their fundraising efforts helped reduce the purchase prices and hauling costs to get these horses safe.

Our Christmas fundraiser is well under way!  Thank you to everyone who has contributed, donating during the month of December or specifically buying a present for their favourite to put under the tree, or as will now be the case, into the sleigh!

I'd like to thank once again Pets for Life Society Alberta for their very generous support in paying our vet bills for October and November. 

Yikes, I didn't realize it has been so long since my last update.  As the saying goes, life is what happens while you are making other plans.  So much has been happening, and thankfully most of it good! 

We've had quite a few adoptions, but of course as usual we have had more incoming than outgoing.  Currently we are expecting to take in 4 young mini/pony mares, pregnant, and 2 of them with foals at side.  We plan to pick them up early next week.  We recently had a few returns, including Hope and Bonny who were adopted out in 2008, Kokanee who was just recently adopted but didn't fit in well at his new home, and Cider who was adopted out in 2007.  This week we are also expecting back Sugar and Disco, as their owners are moving to the Yukon.   Additional intakes include 2 nice Quarter Horses, Fawn and Ziggy; another Quarter Horse, Charger, who came in with Hope and Bonny; Zippity, a mini paint stallion (already adopted!) and 2 cute weanling fillies, Autumn#2 and Zendaya; a donkey, Zebity, at foster with the mini-mules and Eeyore; and 2 more rabbits and some chickens.  Adopted out were Tawny, Django, Twix, Rigby, Chex, Zippity, Juanita, and foster fails Yuma, Zaz and Romeo!

We are so glad that the weather held out and we were able to pasture a lot of the horses until well into October and November.  The last 33 horses were brought home by Mike and one of our wonderful volunteers, Barrie, at the end of November, all looking very fat and happy.  All the horses were so good to load and haul.  Of the 21 we brought home from the one pasture, of the 4 or 5 loads to bring them home, it wasn't until the last 4 horses that any of them even needed to be haltered - and this was loading them loose on a quarter section without even corrals!  I have to say I am glad to have them home, even though it means having to feed LOTS of hay.  It is so nice to be able to see them and interact with them on a daily basis.

There was a great volunteer day in October with thanks to the employees of Deloitte Touche.  Lots of fencing/painting/clean-up got done!  Thank you to Mike's brother Andy for coming out and helping to supervise.

Once again we are so thankful to for all the support we get from the horse community and public in general.

Thank you Bob for the donation of 100 round bales of hay!
Thank you Ken Chapman and Catalyst Changers for the donation of $10,000!!

We had the online auction on facebook in September in 2 parts that raised, drum roll please...  $7,482!!  A huge shout-out to Mary Ellen for all her hard work in organizing and running the auction, and thank you to everyone who donated items!

With Halloween we received LOTS of pumpkins for the pigs.  Thanks to everyone who collected pumpkins and brought them out to the Rescue (special thanks to Amy from Red Deer Humane, that's her in the pic) from Mountain View Dodge, Olds College, AARCS, Red Deer Humane Society, and more !

Thorncliffe Venturer Scouts volunteered a day at the Rescue in November - building a fence, hanging some gates, etc.  Thank you Scouts!

Thank you so much Pets For Life Society for the donation to cover our October and November vet bills.

Today we had another group out, the .... class from Red Deer College, to help finish the seniors' shelter.  It looks fantastic!!

We are very pleased to announce that we have been verified by Global Federation of Animal Sanctuaries.  It was a long process (years!) but we did it!  Bear Valley Rescue is the first equine sanctuary accredited by GFAS in all of Canada.  This is an honour and a commitment, as we strive to meet and exceed the standards required, to do the best for all the horses and other animals in our care.  Thank you to our volunteers who worked hard to help us achieve this, and to all our supporters who make it possible for us to do the work we do for the animals.

It's been a couple of very busy months.  In addition to getting our GFAS verification, we were able to purchase a new truck.  Thank you to everyone who donated to make that possible, and a huge thanks to Mountain View Dodge for their support, and to Olds Sign Shop for the logos for the truck that were supplied free of charge!  We will continue to fundraise for the truck as it does cost money to keep it on the road, for fuel, insurance, etc.  and we did have to finance a portion of the purchase price but we can pay that off sooner if we can put additional money towards it.

We had part 1 of our online auction on facebook at the end of August and part 2 is currently underway and runs until October 7th.  We raised a whopping $4,125 in part 1 - that will buy a lot of hay!  A super big thanks to Mary Ellen for running the auction - in addition to managing it online Mary Ellen also coordinates receiving and sending out all the items.  That's a lot of work and we really appreciate it!
Thank you to everyone who donated items for the auctions, we couldn't do it without you.

We have had quite a lot of movement of horses, both coming and going.  Tri's adoption fell through but she was subsequently adopted by another lovely lady and ardent supporter, and Ravii, Tulsa, Buttercup, Bella#2, Marnie and Mosaic were also adopted out.  Tawny and Romeo were adopted by their respective foster homes.  Twix is still out on foster but is available for adoption.  Cola, Rene and Missy#2 have gone out on foster.  We have 3 recent intakes that include a donkey and 2 very cute mini-mules!  The donkey is very sweet but the mules are VERY fearful.  They'll need a lot of work before they are able to be adopted out I'm afraid, unless there is someone out there with special mule skills who'd like to volunteer some time working with them.  That's a blatant hint for volunteer help!  We took in 5 rabbits from Calgary Humane Society and just yesterday we took in a filly from Precious Pets Animal Rescue that was surrendered to them because she has a huge sarcoid on her eyelid.  Thank you to both these organizations and to Alberta Equine Transport for hauling this filly to us.  Our vet was here yesterday doing geldings (Magnus and one of the mini-mules) and took a look at her eye, we think we can remove the sarcoid fairly easily so we'll have that done next week.  We thought the donkey needed to be gelded but it turns out what we thought were testicles was just fat - he really needs to diet!  With regard to Magnus, thank you Becki of Bold Equine for coming out and working with him so we could get him gelded.  We took in 2 lovely appaloosa yearling geldings from the latest Innisfail auction.  Thank you Mary Ellen for attending on our behalf and saving these two.  

We took in an old mare (Brandy #4) and were very happy to be able to place her straight into one of our great foster homes.  We had a number of returns including Torch, who was adopted out in 2008 and came back with her pasture-mate Wynn (not a Bear Valley horse).  Sad to say they came to us through the Alberta SPCA, though fortunately neither was in very bad shape.  Bullet (the foal of one of our very first rescues, a pregnant PMU mare we called Sky -AQHA My Blue Jodi),  Arizona and Stoney came back due to a change in their owner's circumstances - they were adopted out way back in 2004 not long after we first started rescuing.  Also returned with them was Arizona's 6 yr old foal Trigger.  I know, we have a strict no-breeding policy on our mares but apparently Trigger was an accidental breeding.  Very sad in this case, three of these horses are quite underweight so we are very glad they have come back to us.  Macie, Kahlua, and Wanda came back from their summer foster, thank you Jim and Susan for hauling back down for us.

Thank you toAARCS (Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society) for coming out and volunteering on a team-building day.  We certainly appreciate the work you did.  Thanks go out to everyone who helped us find reasonably priced hay and all those who volunteered picking it up in the field and unloading and stacking.  It was a lot of hay to move by hand!  We got about 250 square bales from the Red Deer area and 700 square bales from Black Diamond.  Thank you Judy for donating 110 square bales today and on top of that hauling it all the way out here for us!  Thank you once again to Spruce Meadows and especially Laura Day for the donation of more lovely feed and another 700 lbs of carrots! 

Thank you Karyn of Penny Lane Farm Sanctuary for including Joe's story in your article for One Green Planet about horses saved from slaughter.  Here is the link to the article if you'd like to read it - http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/horses-that-were-saved-from-slaughter-thanks-to-kind-people/ 

As I mentioned above, we moved a lot of horses over the last 2 months.  Thank you to Kerry for finding us more pasture and to Clive and the Soper families for donating the use of the land.  This pasture is a nice level approx. 10 acre piece and Beth and her group and Ghost and Rosey and their foals are out there.   Thank you to Bob for donating the use of your land.  We moved the whole main herd (27 horses) to Bob's quarter section, giving our main pasture location a much needed rest.  We added another 6 horses to that group for a total of 33, and will add more next week from another pasture that is now grazed down.  Both these properties hadn't been grazed in a while and the grass is at least 2 feet tall.  The biggest plus is that as long as the weather holds the horses can be out on pasture and we don't need to start feeding hay, which is very important with the price of hay being what it is. 

Mike has started hauling home the round bales,  We have about 36 in our yard and another about 625 that he's putting in the bale yard.  We'll have 100 smaller rounds coming after that.  Another thank you that I can't say enough is to everyone who has helped us raise the money to pay for this year's hay.  From donating cash or items we can sell, to finding alternate sources of funding, to fostering and sponsoring, we've been able to cover the huge increase in our hay costs this year.  Our hay suppliers are allowing us to pay for our hay over time as well, which allows us to keep cash available for the other expenses such as vet, farrier, and feed.

Sadly, the appaloosa placement we were trying to help with mentioned in my previous blog didn't go anywhere.  We'd found a home for at least one of the horses and interest in a few of the others but we weren't able to get a commitment from the family so it fell through.

We have been asked to help find homes for 8 appaloosas.  The owner passed away and the family wants to ensure the horses do not go to auction or slaughter.  If you are interested in any of these horses please email us and we can arrange a viewing. 

** Please Note ** - We have almost no history on these horses.  Some of them appear to not even be halterbroke and some are obviously older but generally we have no idea as to age, temperament, or training.  We know the fellow had not ridden for many years so even those that may have been broke to ride would need to be restarted.  The older horses will required dental care and they all have probably not been dewormed, trimmed, or vaccinated in a while, if ever.  Any information noted is anecdotal only.

We also saved 7 lives on Thursday that were on their way to the slaughter plant.  Mike drove 4 hours to the impound lot and arrived there just before they were to ship.    the new additions:

We've had lots of things going on with the nice spring and summer weather.  We just finished several days of farriering and we were able to do over 80 horses.  I was pretty impressed that in the one herd of 22 horses which includes most of the youngsters, 21 of them are able to have their hooves done.   Further to that, thank you Denis Gobet and Ted for coming down and trimming 36 horses and 3 cows with your tipping table in June!  Mike and his brother Brian built a really nice chute system for Denis and it went like clockwork.  We were able to trim many of the horses that are not footbroke.  It's so nice to see them all with nicely trimmed hooves!

Unfortunately we had to cancel the dinner and dance we had planned for July 4th due to lack of interest.  Thank you Stephanie and Laura for all your work in trying to get it off the ground.

We moved most of the horses out to pasture and it seems like we are still moving horses around.  We are fortunate to have lots of pastures available this year though they are scattered around the countryside.  Right now, not including regular foster homes, we have horses at 10 or 11 different pastures.  Fingers crossed that our regular hay suppliers are able to meet our needs this year as everyone has been worried about the hay crop due to lack of moisture in some areas, which is driving the price up as well.  Any donations of cash toward our hay purchase would be greatly appreciated or if you are able to donate hay please let us know.

We are fundraising for a new truck!  The timing isn't best as we normally are working hard (and still are!) at this time of year to get enough funds together to purchase the coming winter's hay, but our old truck is nearing the end of its life and we can't afford to have it break down, that's for sure.  A big shout-out to Mountain View Dodge in Olds, AB.  Thanks to a nice lady who follows our facebook page who works at the dealership we were able to connect with them and they are helping immensely to get us into a new truck, contributing almost $30,000 so far!  If you are looking at buying a new vehicle please consider shopping at Mountain View Dodge as they are also donating an amount (I think it is $250) towards the new truck for each vehicle sold in the months of July and August.  This is the truck they have in their showroom for our fundraiser - pretty nice!

We have a new memorial fund set up by the Isiah family to memorialize their horse, Mingo.  It is located under the "What Can I Do" tab as "Mingo's Memorial Fund".

Special thanks:
Spruce Meadows, first for the 700 pounds of carrots (!) and then for the truckload of feed 
Coleen Gittins -  St.Francis Stables and Haunted Lakes Pony Club Society
Kittyhawk Animal Foundation
Four Feet Companion Foundation towards Atticus' crypt surgery
Grace and Brooke Robson birthday donation
Raiya Ellis birthday donation to sponsor Gemma
In memory of Sidney Castle – from Lynn, Lee, Martha & Tim Lickfold
In memory of Elizabeth Bakuska - from Candace & Brad Charlton and Sheldon Bakuska toward Ghost’s    
   foal, also named in her memory as Spirit of Erzsebet, or Spirit for short
Laura Metrow - bottle drive donation
Laura and Stephanie Schmidt - chocolate sales donation
MVP Promotions
In memory of Whitney Laine Mah and Snow Angel (Snowy)

The winners of The Mane Event raffle – Silvia Thacker - goodie bucket, Sara Munro - hoody & cap, Terry Rogers - Timberline trail ride

We've had a number of horses come in to the Rescue over the last few months - Buzz,  Reba#2 (from the Alberta SPCA), Rosie, Atticus #2, Tri & Juanita , orphan foal Filly, Tulsa, Rene, Ravii, 3 standardbred mares (Refiners Gold, Bingo Fever, and Idle Promises), Bella#2, Tuffy, and Pokey.  Two foals were born this spring, including Ghost's foal Spirit and Rosey's foal Matilde.  We also took in 1 Lady Amherst/Golden cross pheasant from the Calgary Humane Society, which we subsequently found a home for.  A number of Bear Valley adoptees came back including Yuma, Confetti, Panda, Smudge, Abilene, Rigby, Mosaic, and Preston.

Augin and Django went out for training but will be coming back shortly due to shortage of pasture at their foster home.  Tulsa has gone out for training while Sebastian, who was out for training, was adopted.  Yuma, Maggie#2 and Smudge have gone to new foster homes and Hershey came back from his foster home.  Others that have been adopted are Mesa#2 (who has had his hernia surgery, sponsored by his adoptive family!), Reba#2, Kokanee, Ranger, Buzz, Confetti, Abilene, Sebastian, Snickers, Bibi, Fresno, Riley, Tivio, Karma, Tri, Atticus#2, and Zora.  Saffron, Lilly, and Red have been fostered, not sure yet if it will be permanent or just for the summer.  Twobits, Kahlua and Macie have gone out for summer foster.

Highway has had a lump on his leg that we had xrayed.  It is not on the bone, is just a soft tissue thing and doesn't bother him.  Snips had a puncture to his shoulder that required a drain be put in.  He's healed up nicely though he really didn't like the whole procedure.  Reba got some cuts to her chest from barbed wire and they've healed up well.  We heard that Snuffy, who was adopted out last year, developed a lump on his knee which was cancerous.  They had it removed and we hope that he is going to be okay now, he was always one of my favourites.

You can now support Bear Valley through Change It!  ChangeIt® lets you automatically round up your debit, credit, or mobile wallet purchases and donate the difference to causes you care about.  It's the easiest way to give and getting started is simple.  Click on the below link for more info.  You can also donate Air Miles cash rewards to the Rescue!

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 bearvalleyab@aol.com.  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 melick39@hotmail.com.

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.

Our Christmas fundraiser, decorating the tree for the animals, was a great success!  Thank you to everyone who contributed, shared, cared.  We even added a bunch of presents at the end.  Next year we might start out that way right off the bat, having people be able to add decorations or presents for individual animals.  It was a lot of fun decorating the tree.  Perhaps we'll do a valentine fundraiser, buy a heart for a horse!

Had a bit of a fiasco the other night.  I was up at 3 a.m. to get Beth up and let her out of the barn. Couldn't get back to sleep so got up again at about 3:30 and heard some banging outside. Went out to check and found Tyler had somehow fallen into the round bale feeder!  So we're out there trying to get him out, I'm in my housecoat, and it's -30C. Mike had to get the skidsteer out to lift the bale feeder up so Tyler could get up. Poor guy is a little banged up. He's not happy about it but I've put him in the barn in case he goes a bit shocky from the stress. And of course while we're trying to get Tyler up, Tucker decides to leave the paddock (I forgot to close the gate in my panic to help Tyler) so once I've got Tyler in the barn I'm running around trying to find Tucker. He was outside the gate but fortunately I got in front of him and turned him back and got him caught and put away too. Yikes, never a dull moment! So thankful though that I was awake and heard the banging.

Yesterday we were putting out hay for the herds and I noticed Simba is slightly off on his left hind.  Then I saw Mac was completely lame on his right hind.  Seems there is always something going on with someone.  I separated Mac, put him in the smaller paddock with Cola, Torque and Missy, hopefully they are nice to him and he won't have to move around too much until we figure out what's up with him.  Marvin's eye is healing nicely, he'll have a scar but it's at the back lower part of his eyeball so shouldn't interfere too much, if at all, with his vision.  He's learning now to stand reasonably quiet while I put the cream in, or at least get it smeared on his eyelashes or in the vicinity of his eye.   Marvin jumped the fence again, this time the 4 foot round pen panel!  Mr. Goat the woolly mammoth mini is back and I thought I'd put him in with Marvin to keep him company.  As soon as Marvin saw him coming he panicked and jumped right over the fence.  Marvin is only 11 hands high, if that, so it was quite a feat for him to jump that fence, though he certainly didn't seem to give it a second thought.  Mr. Goat is now next to the seniors pen instead.  Mr. Goat does have a possible foster home lined up for January as a companion to a mini-donkey, they'll make a cute pair for sure.

We were contacted the other day by someone who saw a horse listed for sale on a facebook page and recognized her as one of our previous rescues, Ghost.  In checking it out, it seems that the mare, Ghost, had changed hands a number of times and in the end was being used as a broodmare!   It was so disappointing to find this out.  So much for having conditions of adoption.  We realize that the adoption contract is not worth paper it's written on if people don't abide by it and don't care enough to pass them on to future owners but one would hope that people have integrity.  I think this illustrates a lot of what is wrong with horse owners and people in general, why you find 20 or 30 year old horses at auction that don't even have a name, why there ARE so many horses being bought and sold everywhere you look.  As Michele, our neighbour said yesterday, so many people view their horses as just another piece of equipment in their yard. You'd be hard pressed to find a dog even, for example, that has had seven owners in 14 years yet that is what has happened to Ghost.  She had at least that many, as there had to have been 1) the original breeder, 2) the horse dealer we bought her from at 4 years of age, 3) the Rescue, 4) the person we adopted her out to, 5) the person the adopter sold her to, 6) the person who listed her for sale on facebook, 7) the future buyer of her.  There most likely were other owners too, as it's very probable that someone else owned her between her being born and ending up at the horse dealer; also the person currently listing her for sale by my understanding bought Ghost at auction, another no-no from the adoption contract (she said something about saving her from a meat buyer).  I am so thankful that the lady who saw the ad went and bought Ghost, so she's safe again.  The other disturbing aspect of this whole thing is that I found out afterward that the husband of the seller said he wouldn't ever sell the horse back to us, Bear Valley Rescue, because of some perceived slight or issue from years ago to do with him losing some bid on some wildies, or something?  I don't know what the heck the guy could have his nose out of joint about, but it is disconcerting to feel that someone thinks ill of the us.
Well, as it's been said, you can't please everyone.  I'm just glad the Ghost is safe again, she has always been one of my favourite horses that has been through the Rescue.

Happy Birthday Mike!

Hope everyone had a happy and safe Christmas.  We've been dining on chocolate and leftovers the last couple of days.  Takes care of the 'what to cook' dilemma that's for sure.

My horse Bandit got an abscess on the side of his cheek and he's up here at the house so I can hot-compress it until it bursts.  All the horses are doing well.  With the milder weather we've had they've slowed down a bit in the amount of hay they have been going through.  The weather is supposed to get colder over the next couple of days though so we'll be blanketing some of the seniors today.  Still have to finish up deworming as well - we did a lot of them when we did feet last time but there are still lots more to do.  I have a couple of the horses here at the house that I'm not happy with their weight.  They will have their teeth done soon but in the meantime I'm going to deworm them with safe-guard and then eqvalan gold, make sure parasites aren't the problem.

I did some work on the website, moving a lot of the older and long-time resident mares from the adoption page to the foster or permanent resident pages.  Some of them have been here upwards of 8 or 10 years and are no longer good candidates for rehoming, either due to their age or lack of handling, or simply because it would be too stressful to uproot them at this point in their lives.  It would be so wonderful if we had unlimited funds and space to keep all the horses that come to us here permanently.  Unfortunately that's not the case so we do have to rehome when we can in order to make room for more animals needing help.