02/17/08, 6:45pm: Windchill continues to stand

February 17th, 6:45pm: Add another 2 hours to Windchill’s record. He stood for two hours and is now showing his mischievous side, chewing on the stall door (I’m sure he got that from Case, his neighbor at night – GRRRR) and when we slung a net across the door he did his best to unlatch it. When we ‘suggested’ after an hour that he may want to lay down, he refused to lay down, standing another hour and even then he didn’t want to lay down but once we lowered the sling he decided maybe we were right – just maybe… There was space between his chest and sling the whole time standing so it was ALL Windchill.

He was a true ham when WDIO-TV came out to interview him this evening so as of 10pm tonight he will be known as “Windchill – as seen on TV and newspaper!” Probably his biggest ‘problem’ (and I say that jokingly) is the number of people that have come out here to say “hello” and not one person has been able to look at him without kneeling there alongside him, he just has this sweet nature about him. He is truly a fighter. It doesn’t surprise me now that I’ve spent so much time near him – but it still amazes me given the path that got him here. Windchill is proof in the power of hope – hope that something can be different. Maybe I expect him to be like a person and become angry, bitter, disillusioned. Instead there’s this candle in him that seems to have kept burning, even as it began to fade that night a week ago and all the love all of you have shown him – it’s re-kindled this little guy’s amazing spirit. Windchill really is a story about the faith of strangers and the positive energy they can create. I don’t know. Maybe Windchill is living breathing proof that there is definitely hope for all of us in a world that seems so fast-paced, self-focused and sometimes downright jaded. I know that I look at our world completely differently having now seen it through the eyes of a little colt who has gotten to experience the best you all have to offer. Thank you all so much for what you have given him. We are all so humbled by this. I have to go back out in the barn with another pot of coffee and hot water for Windchill’s ‘staff.’