Maria log day 35 October 26, 2017, Thursday

Thursday, October 26, day 35

Today was a day for the horses. First our farrier, Manuel Lopez. came to take care of the horses' hooves. KTJ lost a shoe last week; her hoof was ragged and sore. Manuel did such a great job cleaning up the hoof and re-shoeing her.

Then our vet came to check out all the horses. KTJ and Zip have been breathing really hard. At first we thought it was the heat and lack of shade. That's part of it but they also have "pasture-induced allergies." The hurricane stirred up things in the pasture - dirt, fungus, spores, etc. - which the horses are now breathing. That causes a respiration reaction similar to asthma in humans. Both Zip and KTJ are now being treated with steroids. For some reason, Chocolate doesn't seem to be affected.

The heat also contributes to this problem so the shelter and shade of the run-in is even more important. Today we finished it. It has the extra large tarp (thank you Joyce Tretow!) with lots of room and shade for all three horses.

Evening -

Tonight we met Stan Brock and some of his volunteers from RAM (Remote Area Medical). I'm not even going to try to explain Stan. Search for him online and on YouTube. You'll understand why I'm not going in to his life story.

Among other things Stan has done, he's owned horses. He was part of an operation in British Guyana with 2,000 horses running 5,000 head of cattle on 1 million (1,000,000!) acres. The numbers are staggering. He's working with the American Bureau of Land Management to relocate American mustangs to South America.

In his travels around Puerto Rico scouting locations for medical clinics, he came across a number of lost/abandoned horses in Aguada, two towns south of us.

For reasons that aren't clear, he became fixated on this one three-year-old (we think) Paso Fino stallion. We're not sure how he made it Elaine's mission to rescue that horse. Not on our agenda! But Stan is kind of a force to be dealt with, accustomed to getting things done. Or, more properly, having things done for him.

So, Elaine and I are now semi-committed to rescuing this horse.

Stay tuned.