Daily Newsie

Pots of gold and rainbows, and me red balloons!

That’s how it goes, right? The Lucky Charms song? Whatever. The point is, they have new marshmallows now — magical mirrors, or something like that — that SPARKLE. They’re white ovals speckled with shiny bits of what’s probably colored glass, and they taste faintly of blueberries. I haven’t had this much fun with breakfast since I sneezed a mouthful of Cheerios across the dining room table.

Sugar rush aside — Lucky Charms! They’re so good! — I’m having a good week. I had to work all weekend, but even that wasn’t bad, because my assignment on Sunday was to spend some time with a woman who runs an equine rescue facility out in the county, and I was incredibly excited. When I spoke to the woman on her cell phone before I headed out there, I could hear horses nickering in the background, which has to be one of my favorite sounds in the world. It’s been a while since I’ve heard, smelled, and touched horses, and these were some particularly special equines.

See, the rescue specializes in blind horses — 10 of her 38 horses are blind — and gives the poor things a place to live out their final days in comfort and love. To do this, the woman works two jobs from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., then manages to squeeze caring for the horses and sleeping into the remaining nine hours. She hasn’t had a vacation for at least five years, but she doesn’t care. She has a passion for saving animals, and that’s what keeps her swinging her feet onto the floor at 4:30 a.m. every day.

“I really believe that God gives me strength,” she told me. “I believe this is really what I’m supposed to do, so this is what I do.”

Whether or not you believe in an Almighty, you have to be amazed by this woman. We see so many people who just don’t care about other people, about animals, about themselves, and here’s this woman who works through the sweat dripping into her eyes, the flies biting at her arms, the prickly hay clinging to every inch of her — and for what? Horses that someone else gave up on.

I’m going to write the story as soon as I finish this blog entry. I don’t want to overdo it, but I want people to know passion still exists, and that some people still have a reason to wake up smiling at the crack of dawn. What motivates this woman isn’t money, fame, or applause — it’s love. And, as she moved through the stable chatting with each horse in its stall, that couldn’t have been more apparent.

May we all be so lucky.

P.S. Many, many thanks to The Boyfriend for making this page look so pretty. Isn’t it pretty? I think so.