October 28, 2009 Blizzard

This was the scene early this morning as I walked out the door to begin feeding.
This video starts at the Chicken Coop, you will see a gray blob which is the horse trailer, next to that is the round pen, the collapsed loafing shed that never made the pen, with the horse corrals and pasture in the background and then ending at the red barn. All of this is about 75 yards from where I am standing at the house.

So far it has only gotten worse today. I had bedded animals in heavily and Ray placed large bales in all of the feeders for the horses before this storm hit in an effort to get ready for it.

The only downfall is that the loafing shed we had spent so much time building for the senior horses as shelter for this storm was not welded tightly to the skids so when I tried moving it to their pen, it came apart completely. I guess that is what comes from not having the equipment we need to get the job done the way it is supposed to be done. We had reused materials from an old building for this that now will be firewood instead. Talk about frustrating. We have decided that it is worth trying again to raise the funding for needed loafing shed materials and having it built with steel instead of wood..

You can see somewhat from this video the weather I am dealing with in caring for these animals on a daily basis and why it is so important to have an operational piece of equipment so that I can maneuver over these snow drifts to feed these animals that rely on me daily. I can't stress how important and valuable this is. A skid steer on tracks is definitely going to be the most versatile tool for us at this point. That machine would be able to travel over these snow drifts, dig the animals out, and would ensure that we do not fail these animals because of the winter blizzard conditions in that I can't get to them to feed.

Please consider helping Denkai with this need. I can't express enough the urgent need for this machine. Please visit www.denkaisanctuary.org, e-mail: info@denkaisanctuary.org or call (970) 895-2337 if you are able to help.