Another reason to be thankful? And a tiny Emergency

Wow,

We just got to Shirley's, as tomorrow is the first day of the Wild Horse & Burro Expo in Nevada.  As you may or may not know, my "reliable" truck has been down for almost 4 years, waiting for new injectors and a few other things.  So today was our first big trip.  It pulled the trailer like silk.  We were smiling and happy and so grateful as arriving at Shirley's it simply felt like we had been out for an afternoon drive.  UNTIL I TRIED TO BACK INTO THE DRIVEWAY.  The idler arm came completely disconnected from the frame and the one wheel would not turn and the other tire kind of caved in.  Hmmmmmm, imagine that pulling our beloved horses and travelling 55+ miles an hour down the freeway.  So, although after spending all of my pennies, (and it was ugly :) ) to finally get the truck fixed, get new tires and make sure everything was safe and secure for travelling, we have another "incident".  I have to say I was disappointed to say the very least, that the truck wasn't "good to go" like we thought, but everyone was very quick to point out how lucky we were that it happened after a 200+ mile trip and not in the middle.  So I guess I am thankful after all!!!

We do have another issue that we need help with though.  I seriously need help raising funds for this.  As I have mentioned, we have a huge mountain lion casually traipsing down our driveway in the middle of the afternoon.  He is very brazen and has been coming around more and more.  The neighbor watched our dogs chase him off, but he keeps coming back.  This morning, as we were pulling out of the driveway, we noticed about a 6 foot area of WIDE OPEN where there used to be tightly stretched and extremely well secured "no climb horse fence".   We heard the cat again last night and the dogs barking and chasing it away.  Well apparently before they chased it away, it had time to go after Honey Bandit and the minis.  They hit the fence and blew it open.  Now if you have ever tried to push down well stretched horse fence, you know it takes an extreme amount of force and fear to do that.  (We had a two year old colt do that one time before at the old place when that other mountain lion was around)  I thank God that the horses came back in after the fact.  The fence that borders the back of the property is fenced with the "no-climb horse fence", and it is only about 150 feet or so (maybe a little bit more) from Highway 44.  (A very fast two lane highway where the speed limit is 65, so you know people are traveling well over that).

So, the only thing we can do to make sure this doesn't happen again is to use strong horse panels.   No type of wire or no climb fence is safe enough on the strip by the highway, and board fences can break and splinter if hit with that much force.  We are looking for a burro, which will help the situation, but the horses may still panic and we simply cannot have them going through the fence and out onto the highway,

IF ANYONE HAS ANY OLD OR USED PANELS THAT THEY ARE NOT USING AND WOULD LIKE A TAX DONATION, PLEASE THINK ABOUT DONATING THEM!  WE ARE BETWEEN A ROCK N A HARD PLACE.  This is home, (which we truly love and are very appreciative of), but we need between 35 and 40 panels for a PERMANENT fence on the highway side.  The rest of the horse area is paneled, except for the back which is fenced with chain link.  We will be beefing up the supports on that as soon as we get home.

Please don't forget we are selling raffle tickets to win the Honey Bandit Chair.  It was going to be for a hay barn, but I kind of think that keeping the horses off the highway is a much better idea.  So now it is a "panels for safety" fund raiser.  We thank all of you for any help you can give us in this situation.  I am also very open to any other ideas as to solving this problem???  The tickets are $5 each or 3 for $10.  We will be having the drawing in December before Christmas.  You can get raffle tickets by mail or through paypal at [email protected] or by going to our website at www.chillypepper.weebly.com.   

Everyone is watching for the cat, but he is nearly invisible,, although very large, except for my neighbor seeing him in the afternoon, and the rest of us spotting him at random times.  Our neighbor said he could place his whole hand inside the cat's paw print.  But he is almost like a ghost.  We are not the only ones worried about this, as our friends down the road from the sanctuary have already lost their goat to a cat.  There are simply too many cats around us as they have been feeding off the wild babies at the nearby sanctuary every year and the new (lion) youngsters get kicked out every year and they hang around the neighborhood, which unfortunately is us.  Fish and Game told me that once they have an unnatural source of "easy" food, it attracts a much higher number of mountain lions to the area.  They are also breeding, and then they produce kittens who also become lazy hunters when they have an abnormal abundance of easy prey, and they stay lazy hunters, more often than not feeding on domestic animals.

So once again, I have to be very thankful that these two occurrences didn't turn out differently.  I know God is watching over us and I am extremely grateful the horses didn't get hit or cause a wreck, and although I am still not truly happy the truck had issues when we got here, how much luckier could we have been.

Stay Safe and God Bless.  Please, please drive extra carefully in light of all the things that have happened recently.  WE HOPE TO SEE YA'LL AT EXPO, TOMORROW, SATURDAY OR SUNDAY!

Again, thanks for everything and let's "git er done"