Last year at about this time, I was blogging about the blind Appaloosa I’d encountered at a livestock yard in Idaho. When no one bid on her, the consignor/owner abandoned her there. She was subsequently cared for by an employee, Janet, but Janet knew the horse couldn’t stay there forever.
In what I still think of as a miracle, one of my blog readers, “Mikey,” came forward to say that she had found a home for this horse at Shiloh Horse Rescue in Nevada, and that she would see to it that the mare got there. Mikey happens to live in Arizona–not exactly “just down the road” from northern Idaho–but she made the trek anyway, and at her own expense. Read about her journey here.
While Mikey was making her long, solo drive across the remote and sparsely populated interior of the American West, I devoted several blog posts to what it was like to be waiting for her at the other end. If you missed those, you can get in on them by clicking on these links:
When Mikey finally got to the auction yard, I thought it was amazingly fitting that her truck plates are registered with the word FEARLESS. Before she took off with the mare in her trailer, we posed for a quick snapshot with the rescue rig. That’s Mikey on the left, yours truly on the right.
To celebrate the anniversary of the first days of the abandoned mare’s new life, Mikey is taking a trip back to Shiloh to see how “our horse” is doing. Since Mikey has a great blog of her own, dubbed “The Horseshoeing Housewife,” I’m sure she’ll be recording her trip.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking it’s time for me to send another donation to Shiloh, earmarked for the mare’s care. My thanks (Mikey’s, too) to Jill Curtis for taking this horse in and giving her a home for the rest of her days.
As it happens, Jill’s ongoing horse-rescue efforts are aided by support from her equally caring husband, who is none other than the icon of Old Hollywood, actor and painter Tony Curtis. I’m a longtime fan of Tony’s films, and it tickles me to no end that “the horse nobody wanted” is now part of a legend’s horse family!
