Vacation

How is it that it’s May 23^rd? It should be May 3^rd! I’m even more behind than before. I think I’m to the point where I’m a year behind (or at least that’s how it feels lately).

I shouldn’t complain. I am just getting back from a quick family vacation. Before kids, I used to work 40-60 hours on the Sanctuary after the paying job. Of course I was more focused on the horses and not on the paperwork like I should have been. But I wasn’t a non-profit at the time and the horses’ comfort was my main goal (as it still is).

But with kids, I’ve had to reduce the number of hours I spend on the Sanctuary. I’d like to say that I’m ok with it, but I’m not. But I’m not willing to give up my time with my kids. They are little and in a blink of an eye, they won’t need me. Well, wont’ want to hang out with me and will be doing their own thing. So I’m taking advantage of this time in my life. But that also means less time on the Sanctuary and more time with family.

So you’ll be seeing a few more family vacations and since this is my blog (and my life), I’ll try to share some of our adventures. Because the beauty of some the places we’ll be going to this summer are too precious not to share.

For the past two years, we would head out to Badlands National Park in April to take advantage of their free park week. This year we weren’t able to coordinate schedules to go out in April but we did make it! It’s either my favorite or my second favorite vacation. It’s a super short vacation but oh-so-worth-it! I hope to keep it a tradition so that my kids will have the same ideas of tradition and love of conservation that I do.

Gorgeous doesn’t describe the Badlands. We are usually out there in the fall or early spring when the green hasn’t appeared yet but this time it was gorgeous and flowers were blooming! We missed the storms but the clouds made a perfect backdrop for contrast!

I need to refocus and get the horses out on pasture but I don’t foresee that happening this week. I need to divide the pasture and get some spraying done. But the weather is supposed to be rainy and drizzly until Thursday. And I don’t expect to get much accomplished Thursday.

I’m dreading Thursday. I haven’t had Rabbit off the place except once or twice since we brought her home in September 2011. There was never any need except when she needed to have her teeth floated. When she came up lame, I didn’t want to haul her in fear that she’d fall or be super uncomfortable in traveling on three legs. And for those wondering, we will be going to the vet. We simply don’t have enough land to provide a proper burial of all the Sanctuary horses. It’s not my preference but it’s the most economical route to go and I do have to think dollars and cents to care for the other Sanctuary horses. I’m simply going to pamper Rabbit for the next couple of days and try my best to forget about the upcoming day.

Until then, I’ll leave you with a few scenery pictures from the Badlands. I took a ton of pictures so maybe I’ll try to share some more of them.

Near Dillon Pass. I think this is my favorite part of the Badlands (at least for scenery)



Can you count the number of Bighorn Sheep? We actually saw wild life this time besides those pesky prairie dogs.

Normally I never see flowers but I saw this one and a few others. This time of year is so splendid for flora.