Ridecamp: [RC] Thankful for Ridecamp (long)

Happy Thanksgiving all!

One thing I'm thankful for is Ridecamp.  Why?
  
Knowledge I gain to to better care for my horses.  Where I learned the wonders 
of beetpulp, LSD, and electrolytes.  My horses get two hot prepared meals per 
day which is more than I can usually say for myself and my husband.

Friendship of people, most of whom, I've never met.  Slightly pathetic-but 
less pathetic than people I know who's friends are people on the 'soaps'.  
When you consistently work weekends (except for rides and shows), maintaining 
friendships is difficult.  When all the people you work with are your 
employees-you just can't get too close.  When your spouse and family don't 
share your need to constantly discuss horse care, behaviour, training etc., 
it's best to have others that share your interests.  I also like the diversity 
of thoughts and ideas.  I remember when I was in gradeschool and as a 
teenager, I had a group of friends-some I liked and some I didn't like, but we 
all hung out together and were there for each other because we were in the 
same club (Ukrainian American Youth Assn.), went to camp and Ukrainian school 
together.  I guess I like feeling like I belong somewhere and to something 
other than work related and professional organizations.

Humor of the stories from both Howard and Angie and many others.  I recently 
got an e-mail from a lady who works with a Yorkie Rescue Group about cruelty 
to cats.  It had info about people who were putting kittens in bottles to 
change their shape of their head and restrict the size.  I was horrified and I 
don't even like cats much.  I must of read pages and looked at pictures on 
this website for over 10 minutes before I realized it was just someone trying 
to pull one over.  I couldn't believe that I was reeled in for that long and 
had a good laugh guessing I didn't know the lady had such a sense of humor.  
The next day I got another e-mail from her saying "cat cuelty e-mail not 
true", but there were people trying to get it off the net so people wouldn't 
be given the idea of trying to 'Bonsai' kittens.  Give me a break.

Touching stories of loss make me feel grateful for two healthy horses who I'm 
fortunate enough to have at home with some pasture and hills to keep them 
moving and happy.  The story about the lady with the therapeutic riding horses 
that was hit by the tornado this month, gave me the opportunity to help and 
feel good about others that were helping like Paddi with the auction.  BTW, 
Tuesday's Columbus Dispatch had a big front page story about her loss and that 
the horses were now trying to heal emotionally.  Hope this story gets her more 
financial donations as insurance is only covering a small portion of her barn 
value.

Thanks all for your help and for being there and just being you.

Anna     







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