Miracle Comes Home

As some of Melissa's readers already know, today was the day that we went down to Sunkissed Acres in North Georgia and trailered Miracle home !

I'm not going to steal Melissa's thunder on this topic....Miracle is her new pet horse and today is Miracle's (and Melissa's) day, but I will say that if it's possible for a horse to smile, Miracle was doing so (and in that respect she was doing an excellent job of matching Melissa) ! But I do have some observations from our trip that I'd like to share with you.

Having met her for the first time earlier this morning, I can't say enough good things about Lori. In addition to rehabbing abused animals at Sunkissed Acres, Lori rehabs abused children as well. She fosters several boys and has adopted two of her former foster children. She is a beacon of hope in a place that desperately needs her and I'm unashamed to admit that several of her stories brought me close to tears when she told them to me today. I couldn't do what she does, even temporarily. I'd quickly wind up hating the world.

The area that Lori lives in is located about an hour straight south of Chattanooga, TN on the GA side of the AL/GA state line, which makes it about a three hour truck ride from either of our farms. We now understand (we didn't before) why Lori stays as busy as she does. The whole area...Lori's place excepted..... seems to be a backwards sort of rural hellhole....emaciated animals of various types living with their human companions in a county sized mountainous, overgrown, weedy junkyard. It wasn't always clear to us whether the unpainted plywood shacks and rusted out trailer houses were dwellings for animals or for human residents. I'm not kidding when I say that many of them would be condemned if they were located in a place where there was some authority figure to do the condemning.

Given her terrible start in life, our new horse Miracle is amazingly quiet and trustful. Really by size she's no more than a foal...I'd guess her at around a year old but nobody really knows. She was playful and fun at Lori's this morning and she followed me willingly onto the trailer when it was time to leave. She rode home with us....a three hour ride with strange people in a strange trailer....with nary a fuss. After a short turnout this afternoon, we put her in a stall in the barn where she is currently resting quietly and comfortably. Soon enough, her new life....in a big green pasture with lots of exercise and lots of new friends....will begin. Thinking about it puts a smile on even my (hard hearted) face !! :)

Hope ya'll are having half as good a Monday as we are !