LIVING JOYOUSLY IN THIS MOMENT

In the Sanctuary setting, we experience young and old surrenders, and sick or well rescues. We know there are things we can’t control - their past. But we can do the best we can with their future. We accept that may not mean a long life ahead for the very sick surrenders.

In our decade of rescue, we have had very elderly sheep, disabled sick birds, very sick calves with no immune system developed, a very old Palomino horse with EPM disease and one particularly notable horse who had been starved. For the starved Arabian Horse, we did not hesitate to help. Starved living beings need to be very carefully reintroduced to the right calories to avoid a dangerous refeeding syndrome. We stabilized our handsome elderly Arabian, but alas, the 'coffin bones' in his front hooves were beginning to come through the bottom of his feet due to long untreated laminitis. When we learned that he had this extreme level of pain, we knew he had to be laid to rest, but we also knew he had a month of love, care, warmth, food, brushing, and pain relief. 

This year we lost two elderly goats to cancer - Eddie and Buddy - both of them were blessed to be loved and well cared for their entire life - what a gift! Their surrender homes and their sanctuary home did everything for them from birth to death. We miss them, but cherish their memory.

And this year, we knew about all our aging and sicker goats at the same moment we did an emergency intake of two newborn goats, Arthur and D.W. As time passed, we felt that we could provide a lifetime of sanctuary for the baby goats because they will not be able to fully join the adult goats for a while yet (they have to be bigger!). We are very careful to not accept more rescues than we can properly care for in time, staff, space and funds. It is the only responsible way.

Our older goats and our younger goats both show us here that life is meant to be lived joyously in the moment - we humans can plan for the future, but we also need to see what this very moment means to us. Arthur and D.W. kick up their heels and they live in this moment with every fiber of their beings.