A Different Kind Of Buck

Miracle happening before your very eyes. I said I'd post pictures of Dollar's high withers and by golly, I'm doing it!

Yep, he's part camel.

We're thinking fitting a saddle on him should be a lot of fun. (I know--bad pictures. Just go with it.)

Little background--

Like many of the other horses, Dollar Bill was a roping horse. In fact, he was a CHAMPION roping horse. I wasn't told his owner's name, but I was told he was good. Once he could no longer handle the competition, he was retired and found himself living with a very nice lady named Connie. (A story for a different post.)

Now Dollar finds himself surrounding by small children running and giggling all over the place.

Sure hope he loves his new home.

Cross Dollar off the list. Now I only two more new horses to tell you about. Just call me Ms. Productive & Efficient. Yep, that's me.

Return To Me

Sunday's return from our family cattle ranch meant new arrivals to Galloping Grace.

I say new, but these boys have are really old friends rejoining the GG herd. When Max had heart surgery, all the horses were taken to the Wade Ranch for the winter. In March he was only able to fit so many in the trailer for their return to action. Now we have them all back. I always wonder if the horses are excited for the cush life at GG, or if they miss the freedom of roaming the giant pastures over yonder.

For the first couple minutes, all was peaceful. Reunited friends trotting along.

Then things got a little dicey--

And kicky and mean! As of this writing they are two herds divided--
those established and entitled to their choice of feeders and the view of the mountains--

and those putting up with the back troughs.
We'll see what the next few days bring.

Herd dynamics--never a dull moment.

What a Success!!

Max posting:

The month of October was an amazing and exciting time for all of us at Galloping Grace Youth Ranch. As I look back on what is easily our most successful fundraiser to date, I can't help but to think about the anxiety that I felt back in early September. There were so many considerations that went into the pumpkin patch. We had to get the stand built, pick the pumpkins, make signs, decorate, organize volunteers, price pumpkins, man the stand etc. etc. etc. All of this while dealing with impending heart surgery and what seemed like a very dangerous cyst in my head. I secretly doubted that it could all get done successfully without me at full strength. As he always does, God made it clear that it is upon his strength that we must lean. Literally, all I had to do was sketch something on a piece of scratch paper, and an army of amazing people made it all happen!!

There was still one issue that I knew, or at least I thought, could not bet remedied. Knowing that all of our resources were going to be focused on the pumpkin patch, I conceded the notion that we would not be able to take advantage of our last month of great weather to fulfill our mission. Our mission is to Bring Pure Joy To Children which is a result of the interaction between a horse and a child. In my feeble, cyst infested brain, there was no way this could get done while handling the pumpkin patch. I truly wonder why I even bother to make plans and assumptions when ultimately it is God who is in control of it all.

We had made the decision early on to have a couple of horses on the weekends for giving children a chance to ride. In addition to the weekends, we had some field trips, group gatherings, and a community picnic in the park in which the horses participated. As we always do, we required the parents of those children who were riding to fill out a waiver. The waivers quickly began to pile up and it dawned on me that we would be able to accurately account for the number of children that had the experience of riding and connecting with our horses. I had no idea, however, of the shear multitude of children who actually rode. We have added up the number of waivers for a staggering total of 554! But wait, many, if not the majority of these had multiple children listed. We do not have that total yet so we have made a very conservative approximation that over 650 children rode one of our horses! Not only did they ride, they smiled, they giggled but most of all, they expressed PURE JOY!!! Regardless of how much money we made, this was the true success of the pumpkin stand!

In order to apply for our 501c3 nonprofit status, I had to give an approximation of how many children we would serve in each of our first three years. Again I used my feeble mind to come up with around 150 for our first year. Our plan is to use the horses in the same manner at the Christmas tree stand in December. That 150 could easily materialize into 1050 children served in our first year! Like I said, it is God who is in control of it all! Michelle here. I had to add these three absolutely gorgeous pictures Alex Carothers took of his sons while at the pumpkin stand. Love them! Thanks for sending them, Alex!