Horse

Okay guys, for those that know JoAnn Paul you know how hard she’s worked to become a good rider – working for hours on end with Axel out in the pasture and now spending hours riding him up and down the driveway or out in the pen. I keep telling her she should talk about her experience. Her dedication has been amazing – cold winter days spent out in the pasture, harsh wind blowing – and there’s JoAnn leading Axel around. Rain, snow, winds, sun – it hasn’t mattered. So my hat’s tipped to the cowgirl named JoAnn. I’m going to see if I have some pix to post along with this – email her and tell her you’d love to read about her experience learning and training at the same time!

Jeff

Axel is an avid iPhone fan - JoAnn and Axel checking Facebook

Kathi and newborn foal in a gaited horse magazine

February 19th, 4:45am: Wind Chill has been on his feet now since last night. That’s right, he slept on his feet, refusing to lay back down. I think he’s been planning this one for awhile so these past couple of trial runs were like Rocky running up and down those stairs in training for his big fight. Overnight Case had pulled his halter off thinking he could get away with it and not thinking through that he really has no pockets and nowhere to hide it in his stall….but sometimes you can over plan these things. This is living, breathing hope in the power of prayer. Thank you for that folks.

Raindance Farms & The WindChill Legacy, Ltd. are about to welcome their newest arrival – Jazz! Jazz is a miniature horse who has been under training at L&L Ranch (Ann & Jody) so that she can join Magic the mini on outreach visits. Jazz should be arriving shortly! You can see her on the cams. *(cams links are on the Raindance Farms homepage)

For four weeks she’s worked vigilantly to understand it. She’s watched. She’s studied. For endless hours she’s attempted. She’s practiced. A week ago she figured out part of how to do it, the rest she figured out a couple of nights ago: Sunday has mastered the stall door latch and door opening.

The first part was fairly easy – lift the latch up and slide to the right. Soon each of the doors was found with the latches open but still closed because due to barn settling, you have to pull the stall doors open. Well…couple the latch opening with a head placed over the stall door and a step backwards and Sunday is now master of her domain. Looking out the next morning where only one baby should be free wandering the aisle of the barn and in the pen, all the young’uns and their ‘babysitter’ – an older horse rotated through to keep them assured all is well – are out wandering the aisle putting their collective intelligence towards the next big heist: how to unwrap the chains from the pen gate and get into the trailer where the good square bales are kept in reserve for sick or stalled horses.

March 24th, 5:54m: Hello friends, I’m back. I took some time to try and recovery and recuperate. I’m sorry if that left a void, that wasn’t intentional. I’ve missed you too. I’m doing better – I can breathe easier now. I found myself writing similar things to folks who wrote out of concern, so I posted what I’ve been up to on the forum. I know that not everyone checks the forum yet, so I’ll copy and paste my post here so we’re all up to speed, okay? Here it is:

I received some emails from worried folks wondering if I’m okay so I wanted to post a quick note to let you know that I am okay. I was responding to some of those emails and figured since they were asking what you may be asking, maybe I should just cut and paste a response here to let you know what all I’ve been up to.

The reality is I tried all the hot toddy recipes you emailed or posted and have been in rehab for my now chronic alcoholism. I kept forgetting how many steps were in my program and so had to keep repeating it and then had to take anger counseling because of all of you cowgirls who led me awry… I’m of course kidding, after that first attempt with the hot toddy mix, I now use the ingredients for removing rust from my horse trailer.

I am doing better – can breathe much easier now. I find the lingering effects of the pneumonia have my energy reserves majorly tapped which has made it tough because unfortunately life doesn’t really slow down much just because I have. I also found in trying to help people with their grief over Windchill’s loss, I didn’t really deal with my own and so separating out the effects of the pneumonia from the probable depression or grief over his loss has been difficult and frustrating for me. So I took a step back to try and recover some from all the posting, and answering people’s heartfelt grief-filled emails to try and rest my own system.

I’m also doing more of the behind the scenes stuff to assist in getting Windchill’s non-profit up and running – working on the legal side of things as well as designing a new website that will give us a platform to build all of the things onto that we hope to have – educational things, legislative and my own personal goal of having a national online network connected to the site to connect people in the middle of equine rescues in with those that can help the way they did with us and Windchill. The world was a lifesaver and the support was so invaluable.

I appreciate your concerns and worry. I’m alive and recovering. I’ll slowly start catching up here on the forum, I see in the time I’ve been away there’s hundreds of posts so it’ll be a long time before I can catch up I’m guessing. I’ll post as I can, and I’ll blog on my site as well. It will be awhile before I’m back at the pace I was, I have unfortunately discovered I am apparently mortal – a frustrating discovery. In time I’ll regain the denial of that fact as it gets in the way of riding the scarier horses when you know you’re breakable. Denial can go a long way sometimes…

And we’ll start taking you up on the offers to help with the non-profit. After we’re through the formation part we can start focusing on the important part – implementing its mission. That’s going to take all of you – not me because I’m management so I plan to lead by issuing memos and taking long lunches (kidding – see, I am feeling better).

Thanks for being here guys – you mean a lot to me and all of us.

Your friend,

Jeff

March 19th, 11:19am: Okay guys, I apparently have no clue how to make “hot toddies” as recommended on Windchill’s Forum. I think somebody needs to give me far more precise measurements, the one I made could’ve cleaned rust off old pipes. I could only take a sip. I should clarify – I made that last night, not this morning.

March 17th, 5:40pm: Hey, if you haven’t seen snowfall in awhile – click on the Raindance North cam (http://raindance.ww.com). It’s coming down in big white fluffy flakes. The cats have lined the window sill to watch it and bat at it as it falls gently downward, oblivious of the feline mayhem that awaits it on this side of the window if any of it makes a wrong turn and ends up inside the house. Apparently we’re supposed to get a couple of inches.
Merlin kitty watches the snow fall this eveningI’m doing okay guys. I appreciate the concern. It’s taking me a little longer than I thought it would to get back fully on my feet. I don’t really like it, it removes some of my immortality and invulnerability I’m finding. Unfortunately neither life at the farm, nor life at work have slowed down even though I have for the moment and that isn’t helping. I’ve given up even trying to answer emails or work on organizing this site or even blog, just too hard to breathe right now and I figure a couple of days slacking won’t be the end of the world, right? I miss our morning coffee time together though- for that I’m sorry. But…if I can’t have coffee right now neither should you, why should I be the only one suffering at the moment (kidding – keep having coffee, I don’t wish this on anyone and there’s no need for you to face life going unleaded). I will let you in on a little secret for recovering from the flu, a bad cold or walking pneumonia (aside from Patty’s amazing pork chops and gravy that she dropped off out here along with the fixins to make a hot toddy which I hope to try tonight – thank you Patty!) – don’t let this out, I work in healthcare and we don’t want to lose the business but since you’re all friends and you’ve gone out of your way to help me, us and Windchill – I’m going to reveal the secret here, right now – it’s Doritos. Also orange juice but if you don’t have orange juice just ignore that part, the Doritos is the secret. You never saw me sick before this did you? I suppose you’re thinking you had never seen me before this but that’s irrelevant. I suggest Spicy Cheese Doritos but the correct Rx is based on your level of illness. Just email me if you get sick and I can prescribe the right type of Doritos according to your symptoms. Anyway, I stopped on the way home to get some tonight so I’m pretty sure I’ll be cured soon and in my weakened state you managed to get the secret out of me. Anyway, thanks for bearing with me here while I fight this crud, unfortunately it all caught up with me at once and mix that with the feelings – I suppose even the depression – of losing Windchill and I guess it takes a little more time to recover. We haven’t been resting much though – we have the non-profit’s name, articles of incorporation and mission statement done. I guess I just hate not doing anything and that’s stuff that can be done in the house. Anyway, mostly wanted to let you know I’m doing okay, down but definitely not out.

March 15th, 10:00pm: I’m sorry I haven’t had the chance to start working on the videos and other photos on here. This pneumonia crap has really taken it out of me so I’ve been trying to rest a bit. I did get outside today and move some round bales out to the pastures with Excalibur so we should be good out there for awhile. It was a pretty day – Paula from Duluth came over and gave a few of the horses a good brushing. I forgot to warn her how hot the hot cocoa was so I’m hoping she’s not spending the evening in an ER as a result… I’ll try to post more in a day or two. I need to start organizing this as well, I never designed my site to be a blogging site yet I know quite a few of you use this for your news so I’m hesitant to make any dramatic changes but I’ll see what I can do to organize it at least. Sorry for the short report – but I know you’ve been worried so thought I’d better log in and let you know I’m still breathing, albeit a little slower and harsher.

I see Windchill’s Forum is very active – I’m very proud of you guys for helping each other through the grief and pain. You’ve been great support to me as well and we appreciate all the ideas and information you’ve been sharing. The forum will also be your best place for the trial news. I’ve decided I’m not going to blog on the trial for the owners of the farm he was at. Honestly you guys do a better job tracking it all online anyway and I just think it’s better if I’m not the one posting about it.

Chaos densensitizes himself with a bag