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Volunteers
2010 is looking like the Year of the Volunteer here at TGC. Only a few weeks in, and I've had so many new volunteers I don't know what to do with them! Here are a few pictures showing my volunteers grooming, working and loving on these horses.
Grooming is much needed - usually the last thing I can get to. These ladies are taking care of that!
And it's not all hugs and cuddles, my volunteers almost always help me feed.... To the left Shela handles a feed cart that probably outweighs her by 100 pounds; to the right, Peanut waits patiently while Leslie handles the cart and Shela indicates Peanut's bucket...
Come join us!
2007 Workday
On Sunday, September 30, a workday was scheduled at TGC. At first, we had about 15 people promised to come. But by workday, our actual crew consisted of 8 adults, one teenager and two youngsters, ages 7 and 4.
Huge donations of lumber and building materials were given by Kathryn McDonald (sponsor of Mitey and Sunny), Debra Duncan and Ronn Montoya (part sponsors of Bruhad), and Sarah Bancroft (sponsor of Mary) and her friend Scott. Despite our small work crew, we were able to make a lot of important repairs. We all started with unloading two truckbeds and a long trailer full of lumber and other donated materials - this alone, with four adults on it, took at least 40 minutes! In addition to lumber, Ronn and Debra also brought several buckets, two more winter blankets, salt block holders and feeders as extra donations for the horses.
Scott, BigSarah and Susan made up our heavy construction crew - with Scott's construction expertise making a huge difference on 4 stalls whose whole back walls and roof supports were in precarious condition. Their work consisted of digging out roof support posts, demolishing the entire back wall of the four stalls, which consists of 4 4x8 panels, and reassembling the whole thing with new lumber, and without the roof collapsing on them. And to my great delight, they seemed to be laughing everytime I checked on them!
Ronn and Debra and Mike were our light construction crew - with a variety of duties including the resetting of posts and replacement of crossrails to repair many stalls; fixing of chains and repair of my access gate, tractor work to bring up dirt, and placement and interlocking of stall mats (and these mats weigh 45 pounds apiece, and have to be forced to mesh together with a large hammer).
Finally, we had the LABORERS! Laurie Henkel and her kids LittleSara and Eric, and Susan's daughter MiddleSarah (Yes, we had a plethora of Sara(h)s working!) and I worked with wheelbarrows to move what seemed to be tons of dirt into the stalls, to fill in the holes horses dig, which were then covered with stall mats by Ronn and Debra. Eric and MiddleSarah worked hard on Mary and Debbie's doublewide stall to fill in gaps between the ground and windbreaks, so that when dirt was added to Mary's side, it didn't just drift out of the stall. Laurie and her daughter LittleSara also took the photos you see here.
We had pizza, rootbeer and lemonade, and plenty of time petting horses as well. Jeepers and Queenie had to investigate the construction, and MiddleSarah fell in love with Jeeps; Falcon, Hava and Buck also came back and crowded into the stalls to supervise and inspect.
Despite a very low turnout, I really hope that the 6 hours spent working at TGC was as good a time as it was a huge benefit for the horses, and ME! I hope everyone who reads this and looks at these photos realizes how much effort was put out by these wonderful people for these equally wonderful horses, and appreciates their effort the way I do.
TGC WORKCREWS - YOU ROCK!
 Scott saws, and Susan supervises! Scott has construction experience, and it really showed as he hammered, sawed, and otherwise buzzed through almost complete reconstruction of the back walls and roof supports of four stalls. Susan, and BigSarah (not in this pic) fetched and carried materials and basically followed orders - to great effect. I was most happy to see, when I came to check on this crew, that they often were laughing as they worked....
 Debra Duncan (who was the moving force for this whole work day) and Ronn Montoya spent fully half of their day on their hands and knees in my stalls, placing and interlocking 45 pound rubber stall mats, which help prevent the horses from digging holes in front of their feeders, and which also make some of my older arthritic horses more comfortable as they stand to eat each day. So this photo may seem fairly relaxed, but their jobs were some of the dirtiest, and most difficult. Although who knows, maybe they preferred rooting in the dirt to listening to me blab! Thanks again to Ronn and Deb for their help, and all the donated lumber and other goodies, including their kind gift to me personally of some carpeting and padding for my house!
Here's MiddleSarah and Eric filling wheelbarrows full of dirt intended to fill in the holes in so many stalls! Can you believe Eric is only 7? Ron is making the first of many treks to the materials pile and his tool box, before he got over that and moved his whole tool box and other materials to a table we set up half way.
I guess the big question here is - where is everyone else? I know that I had to take LIttleSara on a trip to the bathroom, which was sidetracked by a visit to the baby chicks, and all the horses on the way back; and Mike was probably cooking our pizza for lunch. I know the heavy construction crew was thundering away because I can't recall them taking a break; so I guess Laurie and Deb were being the more sensible of the group, and taking a short rest!
 Poor Mike was not as much help as he can normally be on a deal like this, because 2 weeks ago he fell off a pine log while attempting to chain saw it. You can see that bending over to pick up a 2x6, with which he repaired the fence between Shawnee and Mary/Deb, was a project all by itself. He also operated the tractor which brought up all the dirt we used to fill in the stall holes, provided many of the power tools used in the construction, and to everyone's delight, he prepared the hot pizza which sustained our afternoon's efforts. Thanks Mike for being part of the crew!
Even LittleSara, all of 4 years old, did her best for us, and is responsible for some of the photos. After a long drive down here, and running all over supervising everyone, she ended the day in the usual tired-baby bawling, but let me tell you, I wanted to join in myself!
This was a hard 6 hours, but with the good will and effort of these kind and willing people, many horses will be more comfortable now and during the upcoming winter, and they certainly made my life so much easier!
For those of you who have followed my complaints about the stalls to date, you'll note that we didn't get any work done on the stall roofs. Although we now have lumber and roofing materials necessary to make those repairs, we simply didn't have the time or manpower to get to it Sunday. If anyone is interested in possibly attending on another day, I'd LOVE to hear from you, because the roofs still need work, not to mention the main paddock fenceline. After 8 years in a difficult climate, the place is still fairly tattered and fragile in appearance - and Sunday showed how much can be done when heavy work is lightened by many hands...
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