Daily Updates

MHWF Supporter and Friends Appreciation Night.

We have been working on something more on the fun side the past few weeks and are getting close to announcing a date.

MHWF is planning on having an MHWF Supporter and Friends Appreciation Night.

Everyone is invited and we will announce the date soon.

Here's what we can tell you.......

It will be on a Saturday afternoon/evening right here at the MHWF farm. There will be a band (classic rock mostly) and between sets there will be kareokee as well. If you play an instrument, you are also welcome to join in an open jam with the band.

There will also be beer and food. Food will be BBQs and hot dogs along with a few side dishes. If we want to bring a dish to pass or your own drinks, your more than welcome to do that as well. We plan on setting up a giant tent with a stage for the band and the food and to invite anyone who wants to come spend a few hours or even the entire night. We are going to make our yard available to anyone who wants to pitch a tent and sleep here also, so they can enjoy a few drinks and not have to worry about hotels or driving. Camping space might be limited, so once you know if you need some camping space, let us know as soon as possible so we can be sure we have anough room for everyone.

There will be a very small fee for the food, beer and music, but the idea isn't to make money, it is to get together and have some fun. We certainly hope a lot of you can make it and come to join us for a night of food, music and refreshments.

If anyone has a connection to someone with a very large tent (60 x 80 or larger) let us know. We are still trying to hunt one down.

Stay tuned for the announcement of a date to hold this event!

Automatic Waterer Fund

MHWF has now been here at this location for about 4 years and plans on staying. It is long past due that we get some automatic waterers purchased and installed. The past 4 years of filling tanks with 150 foot hose, twice a day in summer and in winter has been hell and has caused a lot of problems and inconvenience to say the least, not to mention the problem of the outdoor faucet freezing up on us from time to time in the winter.

Donna and Dave E. got us rolling on this and they are right, we really need to get this done this spring. Filling, cleaning and maintaining 3 or 4 stock tanks with a hose eats up way too much time, especially in winter and costs us a fortune to run tank heaters as well. Adding automatic waterers will not only make our lives a lot easier, but is also healthier for the horses and will save a ton of money on electric costs. In the winter just the tank heaters alone cost around $135.00 per month. Automatic waters will cost around $4.00 a month to run....quite a difference, plus the hour or two minimum in time we will save each day that we could be spending with the horses and our adopters.

So we desperately need to make this a reality in the next few weeks. You folks always come through for us in these voting contests and really come through for us with the hay drives. Raising money for the waterers should seem simple in comparison to the Hay Drive. Our goal is to generate $2400.00 in donations in the next few weeks toward the addition of 2 new automatic waterers and one frostless hydrant that we desperately need.

$2400.00 will cover the cost of the waters, the trenching, backfilling, concrete, waterlines...everything to get this done. We are hoping and praying you all can help us out like you always have and always do.

We are starting a Waterer Fund as of today (5/11/2009). We have a decent start thanks to some of you and we hope we can make our goal in the next couple of weeks. We will keep a running total right here on this thread so you can all see our progress. We have a good start at $209.00 and we are confident that with your help we can fund raise the other $2200.

Please consider making a donation toward this fund. It will be a huge improvement for us as well as the horses for many years to come!

Water Fund Goal: $2400.00

Collected to date: $209.00

Time is very important in this matter as we have already negotiated our prices and need to get these installed in the next few weeks.

Thank you for your help and support!

Donations can be made via any of the PayPal links on our website or can be snail mailed to:

MHWF, Inc.
Waterer Fund
10990 Hwy. 73
Pittsville, WI 54466

Thank you again!

Help Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation, Inc. win a $20,000 grant!

Hello everyone! You all did an absolutely amazing job last year in the on-line voting contest for MHWF and were instrumental in helping MHWF win $1000.00. Here we are at the start of a brand-new contest, and one in which we can cast our votes every single day until the end of the contest! The prize money is much more this time around, the top prize being a $20,000 Grant! MHWF is currently in 7^th place nationally and we desperately need your votes to launch us into the top spot.

The Animal Rescue Site is hosting a special challenge for eligible Petfinder.com member shelter and rescue groups. The grand prize is a $20,000 grant, and they will be awarding many other grants to rescue groups with the most votes — a total of $100,000 in grants for animal welfare organizations.

Think how many equines we could help for $20,000!

Visit:

http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/shelterchallenge.faces?siteId=3

Please help us win! All you have to do is click on the link and type in Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation, WI, to help rescued animals and vote in The Animal Rescue Site $100,000 Shelter⁺ Challenge. Both of these actions are absolutely free! You can vote once a day, every day, from April 13 through July 26, 2009. Every time you vote, or tell a friend to vote, you are making a huge difference for us!!!

Please vote today!

Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation is a nonprofit charity dedicated to helping equines in need. MHWF takes in horses (and donkeys/mules) from anywhere in the United States and helps find them good homes. MHWF also works with local law enforcement, as well as law enforcement from around the whole state, taking in many rescue cases and working to rehabilitate and rehome them. MHWF also takes in horses from people who need a place for their horse to go and have run out of options. MHWF also keeps track of every single equine placed into an adoptive home, requiring adopters to provide vet checks yearly. Every year MHWF takes in approximately 100 equines directly to our facility, and helps many, many more out there through networking and other counseling. With the state of the economy the way it is, horses are suffering the most, being the hardest animals of all to place into new homes and the cost of their care skyrocketing. Please help MHWF win this much needed grant to continue their work for all of the equines out there who so desperately need their help.

The Animal Rescue Site is a "Click to Give" website. You can click on a button to help fund food and care for animals. It's free, and only takes a second of your time. Click every day!

Petfinder.com is an online, searchable database of animals that need homes, and a directory of more than 12,000 animal shelters and adoption organizations across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

Eligible organizations with the most votes could receive a weekly prize and/or one of the other grants below! More than 60 grants will be awarded for a total of $100,000 going to eligible Petfinder.com members by the end of July 2009.

Voting begins on April 13th, 2009, and ends at midnight (PST) on July 26th, 2009. The more friends you can rally to vote for Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation, the better its chances of winning. Get people involved! The horses are counting on you!

We have about 4 weeks before we head down to Madison for the Midwest Horse Fair. It seems every year that the horse fair weekend is the start of our busy season and once we get back from Madison we spent a lot more time outdoors with the horses and a lot less time indoors doing fundraisers etc.

This is always a very tough time of year for programs like ours. Grain, vet and all the other bills seem to pile up at the worst time of year when we can afford it the least. We then spend most of spring and early summer stressed out about where the funding will come from to keep moving along. This year has been tougher than most. The cost of everything has gone way up and donations and adoptions are down. The honest truth is that we are hurting more this year than we have in quite some time and we need to come up with something to help us get a jump start and get our vet and grain bills paid off. Right now we owe the vet $1600.00 and the grain bill is $2400.00. We have been paying these bills off in chunks of $500.00 here and $1000.00 there, but that's not going to happen this month without something big happening.

We are working on a few ideas and assuming Care2 did actually mail the prize check for the contest, that will help, but we still need to come up with something else.

Your help:

That's where all of you come in hopefully. We would like to do one more BIG fun auction. Those always seem to help a great deal and we have time to squeeze one last auction in before Madison and the busy season starts.

So what we need from all of you is your help in collecting items for the next fun auction. If you have items that have some value that you are willing to donate, we could sure use them. They do not have to be horse related. All they have to be is something with enough value to sell on our auction. Your used saddles and tack always do great and many of you have talent in creating unique items of your own, like the leather goods, jewelry and charms, rope halters, a couple of you are fantastic artists. If you can contribute, we can sure use your help.

If you can make a straight monetary donation...great! But if you can't afford that right now, maybe we can harness some of your talents to help the horses. Maybe you have some things laying around that you could donate? Whatever you can muster, we will gladly accept.

So, we will set a tentative cut off date of March 20th to collect all your donated items. That's just over a week and we may need to extend that by a few days, but we will set it at that for now.

To make a monetary donation:

Simply click any one of the PayPal banners on our website to pay via PayPal or credit card. Or, feel free to mail your donation to the addesss below.

To donate items and crafts to the next (possibly the last fun auction of season), Please mail them to:

MHWF, Inc.
10990 Hwy. 73
Pittsville, WI 54466

Thank you and if you have any questions please feel free to email at: scott@equineadoption.com

You have always been there for us before and we know you will be there for us once again. Thank you for your support!

The Central Wisconsin Horse Expo 2008 is now over. The few days following the Expo are still very much Expo work days for us as we return items, do the bookwork and put our lives back together in some sort of fashion. We are slowly healing from the lack of sleep and the hustle and bustle, and life is getting closer to normal now. By the end of the week everything should be complete and we should be back to our old selves again.

Even though attendance was not as good as we had hoped and expected this year, we still very much consider the Expo a big success. We had great supporters and workers and the clinicians this year were excellent. Everything went about as smoothly as it gets and we are very proud of the way MHWF, its workers, clinicians and adopters presented themselves. We owe all of you a huge thank you for making the Expo work and for making the Expo what it was this year. You are all our heroes and we do not have words to express our gratitude to each and every one of you. Excellent work and what a wonderful weekend it was!

We truly hope to talk to, email, call and meet as many of you as possible in the coming days and weeks to say thank you in as personal a way as possible. In the meantime, we want to mention each of you by name to say thank you as well.

We have to start with the wonderful clinicians who made the Expo what it was. Thank you to Ryan Rose, Derrick Dupler, Carlo Tuzio, Lalo Govea, Mark Rashid and Richard Shrake. You were all a joy to work with and to watch and learn from. We also want to give a very special thank you to Kathy and Kelly G., our barn and arena managers who work as volunteers and work hard to make sure the Expo runs smoothly. Without them, there is no Expo and we want to give them a special thanks for their hard work. We must also thank our announcer, Bob Meyer, who did a superb job this past weekend. Deb and Barry Parsons who are not only hard working, but without their help we would be lost. Thank you to Richard and Nancy Merkel of Berryland Farm, not only Sponsors but a big part of the Expo as well. Thank you to the rest of our Sponsors, Clay and Sharon and Midwest Trailer Sales, the good people at Ana-Tech, Cherokee Garage, Dahl Graphics, and a huge thank you to Roger at American Wood Fibers!!

Dave and Donna Eckes did a fantastic job with the chili feed on Saturday, thank you! Laura Pichler and her family did a wonderful job decorating the MHWF stalls for the Expo. We have to say, the stalls looked better this year than any other…..beautiful work and thank you! How great to all get together on Saturday night to chat, eat and relax!

A huge thank you to all the MHWF people who joined us in our demos this weekend. You all looked wonderful and we are very proud of each and every one of you. Thank you to: Holly, Feleicia and Ralph Treffert, Sophie, Candy and Richard M., Karin Harris, Whitney and Georgi Sartain, Nancy Powell, Wendy Wooden, Leslie Vandre, Laura Pichler, Donna and Dave Eckes, Allie and Beth Schwartzhuber, Amy Pranger, and Jade Graebel and the rest of her family. You all looked beautiful and represented MHWF with pride. Thank you!

Thank you to Autumn Skye who sang the National Anthem so beautifully and Kathy and Dick for being there and bringing Autumn to the Expo. A very special thank you to Amy Pranger and Dakota and Dave Kraus with his Haflingers for the opening ceremonies. Thank you to John and Mike Totzke for an excellent job in the main ticket booth. Thank you toRandy Temanson, Kathy Scheibe, Joanie and Brian Simonds, Seth Bayerl, Robbie Gates, Terry Carol, Sherry R. and Sandra Kimpfbeck for their time in the ticket booths as well. Thank you to our Mom, Jane Bayerl, sister Erin White, niece Deanna, and sister Vicki Totzke for running the kitchen for us….a thankless and difficult job. Thank you to Carol and Kristi for their kitchen help as well. Thank you to Deb Parsons, Mary Harris,Jerry Lynn, Anna and Reta Newmann for running the silent auction so well, and for Angie Petschow and her friends who did a wonderful job with the tack swap.

A huge thank you to Chris Frenzel for working and hauling things to and from the Expo all weekend. We also want to thank Scott Stephens for being there to make sure the round pen demos went well also. Thank you to Dr. Richard Miller and his family, Dr. Nikki Johnson, Dr. Sabine Hartmann and the Mare Masseuse for their demonstrations, as well as Nancy Powell and Nancy Kinney for the Humane Officer Q&A. A very special thank you to Mel Dawber and Carol Sheets for sticking around to help with clean up on Sunday night. Carol came all the way from California to see the Expo this year! Thank you for coming.

Thank you to PK Electronics for getting the PA system set up, Premier Printing for T-shirts and sweatshirts,Vital Communications for the radios, BG Expo for setting up the draperies in the Expo buildings, Pat Fellenz for setting up the grounds for us, Jim Bauer and the Central Wisconsin Co-op for their support, booth and use of round pens for the weekend, Wenzel Farm, Maul’s Dairy, Gold Medal Trailers, JSI Innovations, Lazy L Trailers, Northwoods Trailers, C & C Consessions, Just Java, Goodrich Trailers, BK Leatherworks, Stall Fresh, Ron at Chaffhaye, Hoof-It, Nag’s Tack, A to Z Tack, ODC, Walters Buildings, Tipperary, R & S Horse Supply and Meyer Buildings.

Thank you to Chip from the local golf course for the use of the golf carts for the weekend, thank you to each and every vendor, the good people up in the fair office and everyone who entered our gates this past weekend. We had a wonderful group of people this year and it really felt like more of a family reunion than a horse expo. What a wonderful thing.

There are many, many more of you and from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for your help, support, friendship and of course, for being a part of the 2008 Central Wisconsin Horse Expo.

With all the hustle and bustle and craziness that comes with running the Expo, we are more often than not so busy that we do not get to spend the time we would like to spend with the people there who make it all happen. We do get brief moments to look around and say hello now and then though. Karen and I wanted to make clear to everyone who was there that seeing everyone together, getting along like family and sharing stories, food, common interests and just having fun together is one of the most rewarding things we have ever done or witnessed. We are deeply proud of each and every one of you and you all not only show MHWF in a wonderful light and make us proud, but make all the work worth it for us. Somehow, the work we do here at MHWF brought all of us together for one weekend. I do not think that anyone other than Karen and myself can explain the feeling that comes with making something like this happen. In our loves for animals, each other, this program, our common interests, funny stories, and all that comes with it, people from all walks of life and once scattered across the country, came together and were family. To see all of you and your horses sharing and enjoying each other’s company is a feeling we will not soon forget and a feeling very few people get the chance to feel in their lifetimes. It was truly an overwhelming and inspiring thing to witness and be a part of and we owe all of that to each and every one of you. Thank you for the bottom of our hearts!

Central Wisconsin Horse Expo: pt. 2

We have been putting off writing this for a few days now and what we have to say is not easy for us to say, but we must say it.

As much as we love the CWHE and all that comes with it, MHWF, Inc. will not be holding a Central Wisconsin Horse Expo 2009. Please read to the end before quitting reading.

We would like to take the time to explain why so that everyone understands why we have opted not to take on this task another year. We want to make clear that we have enjoyed the two expos we have run and you all have made us very proud to be a part of those expos. We will always have the fond memories of what we all managed to put together for those two years.

The most obvious reason is financial. Let's face it, we have had a decent turn out but not a great one. Almost all of the people who have come out for the expo have been from out of the area or are supporters of this program. For the most part, the horse people of our immediate area have not supported the expo or even come to see the expo. With the exception of our wonderful local adopters and supporters, the huge horse community we have here in the Marshfield area has been a no show. We have no idea why this is, other than to say we are not surprised and to be honest are a little upset over this fact. Businesses here do not support each other very well and the people don't want to pay the $7.00 to get in the gate to see the clinicians. We find this fact to be sad, but very true. Without the support of our own community we simply cannot turn the expo around.

Another financial reason is that in the two years we have run the expo, it has lost money both years. When it was run by the Fair Association the results were the same, without the support of the local community it simply cannot grow or survive.

It is a ton of work. That's an understatement. Most people only see us running around flustered for the two days of the expo. The truth is that we look like that for the 3 or 4 weeks before the expo and for another week after the expo. The two years that we have run the expo it has caused this program to suffer in one of its most busy months. The expo was meant to be a fundraiser and a way to promote MHWF. As much as we love the expo, it has not been a fundraiser and has caused us to go into winter unprepared the past two years. This does not only apply to the work we do, but also all the hard work you all have done to make it a success as well. If you read part one of this letter about the expo then you certainly saw all the names of people who put forward time, money and energy to make the expo a reality. A great deal of those same people worked very very hard to do their part. It would be terribly irresponsible for us to continue the expo while it loses money and so many people work themselves so hard to make it happen. The one thing we cannot allow is MHWF or its supporters to suffer. The expo is held in the fall, just before we enter into winter. To stretch ourselves so thin at this time of year again would be very irresponsible.

This also may sound a bit selfish, but even though we have truly enjoyed the expos we have run and will cherish those for years to come, the honest truth is that Karen and I are already incredibly busy people with very little time to relax or do the things that we enjoy. Fall is our favorite time of year, but it is a short season and most years it is the only time we have to hop on our horses and enjoy them. The past two years we have not been able to ride at all. Last year we squeezed in 2 short trail rides and so far this year we have not been able to find the time to go on our first trail ride. With the responsibilities of taking care of the horses here and running this program, adding the expo to our busy fall really makes it impossible to enjoy the horses we work so hard to care for the rest of the year. To us this is as important as any other reason, and it has taken its toll on both of us the past two years.

We want to make clear that this announcement does not mean there won't be a Central Wisconsin Horse expo 2009. It simply means that MHWF will not be running one in 2009. We still have high hopes that someone will step forward and take the reins. Whoever that may be, they can expect our full support. We will be happy to give them whatever information they need to get rolling. If someone does pick it up, we will still be happy to be a sponsor, as well as a vendor there, and we are confident that our great adopters and supporters will still join us for the MHWF demos there and help fill the horse barns with the adopters and adopted horses we are so proud of. If anyone feels they are up to the task of taking over the expo, please get in contact with us and we will be happy to help and support it in any way possible with our booth, MHWF horses, sponsorship and maintaining the website if needed or wanted.

We truly hope all of you read through to this part of the letter because our choice not to continue the CWHE opens new doors to other ideas and functions that we are very much looking forward to running next year and in the years to follow. In looking around at who has been at the expo and who has supported it, we have been deeply inspired by our adopters and supporters. Had you all not been there to support the expo, it would have been a disaster, both financially and in regard to attendance. We looked around at the expo and feel proud of the people who we call our friends and supporters. As soon as we realized we no longer could continue the expo, we knew we needed to do something special for all of you. What we came up with is best described as an expo for the people who truly support this organization...a party/clinic/expo for us, all of you and MHWF. A lot of ideas are being thrown around right now, but basically it will probably be something along the lines of a good clinician, a handful of vendors, some fun activities, clinics, camping and maybe even a large group trail ride. Since it is our adopters and supporters who kept the expo alive the past two years, why not turn the expo into something a little more fun and enjoyable for everyone who has worked so hard. And that is exactly what we are going to do. We have tons of ideas and will be working on them over the winter. So please do not fret. As hard as it is for us to say goodbye to something as special as the expo, we really do feel as though what lies ahead will be even better and we are counting on all of you to join us in this new venture and chapter in the growth of your and our organization.....the Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation.

Thank you.

You can send your donation through Paypal with a credit card. PayPal is very safe and easy to use, and your payment shows up immediately. Just click the PayPal link on the Hay Drive page to donate through Paypal. Please do not forget to put "Hay Drive" in the description.

You can also send your donation to the Hay Drive by check or money order. Please send those donations to:

Well, it's the day after our trip to Trempealeau County to assess the situation there with the 27 badly neglected horses, and I am certain I can speak for everyone when I say that we are all pretty tired and the stress of yesterday was a lot to bear. I will say that there were no truck or trailer problems on the road for anyone yesterday and as far as we know, none of the horses got hurt.

Let's start by thanking the people who worked so hard yesterday and still have a huge task ahead of them. Thank you to Lalo Govia and his 2 friends, Mary and Julie from St. Francis, Sandy M. and her friend from Refuge Farm, Deputy Ronie from the Trempealeau County Sheriff's Department and her parents. Thank you to Nancy, our county Humane Officer who came with us yesterday as well. Let's also not forget Nancy M. who dropped what she was doing and brought us all enough hay to get us through the next few days. Everybody worked hard and we got a lot of work done.

We started out at 10 am Tuesday morning and headed for Arcadia. We all met at the Kwik Trip there and Deputy Ronie led us out to the location where the horses were kept. When we got there it was a pretty horrific scene. Lots of h0rses and no food, water, shelter or green grass to be found. I did not know that a field could be so barren. Not so much as a single weed growing in the pasture, just dirt and some trees. Lots of horses and not one of them looked good. Some were in better shape than others, but they all looked pretty bad and they clearly had no human contact and were going to give us a challenge in being caught. That first few minutes was pretty quiet and there were quite a few people who were a little overwhelmed by what they saw and they broke down to tears. Everyone got it together quickly though and within minutes we were right to work. Just getting back into the property took a few hours. Deputy Ronie was good enough to call her parents who came with a big tractor and created a lane for us to get trailers back to where the horses were.

So we now had a rough path back there, but we needed a way to catch horses and none of them wanted anything to do with us scary intruders. We spent another hour or so creating a make-shift catch pen out of whatever we could find laying around on the property. Luckily there was enough old rusty gates and bent up metal pipes to come up with a pen, and it worked pretty well. Our next project was to herd the horses into that catch pen. We tried and Lalo even brought his roping stallion out to help herd them up. We tried to do it quietly without getting them too worked up, but they still ran. Within a few minutes the smallest and weakest horse went down from exhaustion. She got up and ran back into the trees where she managed to wedge herself between two trees. It was a scary moment, but she is ok and is the first horse we were able to catch. She is the little one we brought here to MHWF.

Ok, one loaded, back to work. After about 1/2 hour of trying to get them into the catch pen, we got them. They were pretty jumpy and scared and within a few minutes we had another horse go down. This one went down and stayed down. That gave us the opportunity to get her haltered and into the trailer........with some rest she was back up and moving ok again. That makes 2 loaded into our trailer and they are the two we brought back here to our place. They are easily the 2 thinnest and in the worst condition. That does not by any means mean that the horses other people took with them were not in bad shape. They all were and everyone has their work cut out for them, no doubt about it. Hard to call any of them anything but in terrible condition. The two in our trailer were so small and broken down that we made room for a 3rd horse and got that one loaded as well. That horse went directly to the home of Nancy P, our Humane Officer who will be working with us to rehab the 3rd horse. She is in pretty bad shape as well and although she is almost certainly a 2 or 3 year old, all 3 of these horses look like small yearlings.

Ok, next trailer........after an hour or so of some pretty scary work, we had Mary from St. Francis loaded up with the next 3 horses. We were all already starting to show signs of being worn out.

Next trailer, Sandy. Sandy had the biggest trailer and she got 11 in her's. They were in there pretty tight, but they were in there. I think Sandy may have already found homes for a lot of the horses that went with her.

Next up Lalo.....Lalo took the last 4 that were in the big pasture. They must have been the 4 smartest because it took us forever to get them into his trailer. All in all that made 21 horses caught and out of there. There are still 5 studs there and one mare. Two of those horses were in a pasture with some green grass and we made sure the 4 in the other pasture hay hay and water. They will be ok for now. At least we got the worst looking horses out and there are 21 less horses there to compete for food and water. Those last 6 will not be left behind for long and will be coming out of there as well.

Everyone loaded up and back on the road. It was just after 6pm and nobody had a rest or eaten. Some people had a 5 hour drive ahead of them yet. Our drive was only 90 minutes, but we are glad. We were tired, dehydrated and hungry and still had to deal with the 3 in our trailer, plus do our chores once we got home. We got home around dark, did chores, got the horses unloaded and into our paddock with food and water. I have never seen horses unload like these horses did. They walked off the trailer, wobbly and weak, not a peep out of them, no looking around, no snorting, just walked straight to where the hay was and started eating. They still have no so much as even looked around to see where they are. They just want to eat.

We are going to do this a little different than we normally do. We are going to make these 2 fillies available for adoption immediately. There will be no adoption fees on either and they will stay here for their rehab until we feel that they are ready to go, which will probably be a few months. In the meantime they are available to anyone with an approved application that would like to adopt one or both of them. We will keep them here, feed them, rehab them, get their vet work, vaccinations, wormings, and everything else done while they are here. They will not leave until we can show you all photos of healthy happy horses. But, when they are ready, they will go to their new adoptive home/homes and the adopters will not have to worry about fees or health problems, just time to give these poor tortured little gals the new home they deserve. If you feel like one or both of these little sweeties belong in your pasture, speak for them right away and if you can provide a good home for them, you will be their adopter(s).

Of course in the meantime, we are going to take on quite a task of getting them back into shape. It's going to take some time, a lot of hard work, and your help and support.....no doubt about it. You all know I "preach" once in a while and I feel I have to here. We got these two, are willing to do whatever it takes to save them, but we need you all to help. There's no way to sugar coat it. For starters we need some supplies and we need someone to step forward and say that once they are healthy, there is a home for these two who have been through so much. These two have never seen or tasted green grass, they have never been in a shelter and they certainly see people as nothing more than monsters who starve and neglect. We will see to it that they get shelter, learn what green grass tastes like and what it's like to feel healthy and strong. We will see to it that they know what love and affection is and that they feel safe enough with people to let us all handle them, trim their feet, worm them and get them healthy and happy. You all have to do the rest and we are absolutely counting on you like we know we can.

The good people at Ana-Tech are right on top of things like always and have very kindly donated all the supplement these horses will need as well.

These two little fillies are in as bad of shape as we have ever seen and it's going to take a lot of very careful work to turn them into anything we all recognize as a horse. Wish them all luck, they are going to need whatever luck we can give them.

As a side note, we have to say how we feel about this situation. We are glad everyone could pitch in and save these poor horses, but to be honest, along with shock and anger that this happened, there is a part of everyone who gets involved with these kinds of things that says enough. Anyone who let's animals in their care get into this kind of a situation belongs behind bars....plain and simple. And although we feel the need and responsibility to help these animals, it should not be the responsibility of the public to clean up a criminal's mess. We are glad we got involved, but have a lot of resentment toward people who have it n them to torture and neglect any animal like these poor horses have been tortured and neglected. To just be happy we got them out and in safe places is not enough. We have every right to say "an eye for an eye" and I personally think that anger can be a good thing as long as it is channeled in the right direction. There is no doubt that yesterday was a good thing, but also little doubt that we are sickened and angry that anyone could do this to another living creature. To those few people out there who have done these kinds of things to animals in your care, do not come looking to us for your sympathy and don't waste our time with your excuses. We don't want to hear it. Just be thankful that there are always people out there willing to spend their time, their money, sweat and bleed to clean up your mess. Be thankful for that, then step away with some humility and save your excuses for the afterlife. Your going to need all the humility you can muster up.

Thank you everyone for your concern, your support and your prayers. We, and everyone involved in this truly appreciate each and every one of you.

Ok, you guys got to get on me about keeping this page a little more up to date. I honestly forget this page is part of our site and then it doesn't get updated. For those of you who like to read day to day what is going on with the program, make sure to visit our discussion forum. There's always a lot going on with the forum and it's a great place to keep up with what's new and what's going on.

2008 Health Reports are due in a matter of days! If you have not gotten your paperwork turned in yet, please get that turned in very soon. We try to be fair to everyone and try to be understanding of each adopter's situations, but the Health Reports are the one thing we can give little lenience to. They need to be complete and in our office on time. If your paperwork is going to be a few days late, please get in touch with us to let us know. Failure to send in your paperwork on time is grounds for removal of the adopted horse, and we hate doing that, but every year there seems to be some joker who takes the contract as a dare. When it comes to these forms, our Board of Directors takes them very seriously. We ask that all adopters take it equally as serious.

So what is new.....plenty. Pastures are greened up now and we are at the end of our hay feeding season, thank God. The big back pastures are still closed off while they have a little time to dry out and grow a little bit more yet. We are actually looking for about 40-60 small squares of hay and between 4 and 8 large round bales of hay yet to buy those pastures a little more time yet. If you have some small squares or a few large rounds for sale, and are semi-local to MHWF, please email or give us a call. We only need a little more and hopefully someone in the area has a little they can spare.

Yep, one more fun auction before the long busy summer. The fact of the matter is we racked up some pretty big hay, grain and vet bills this winter and are a little behind what we have been in past years on getting those paid off. If you have items you can spare and would be willing to donate them to our next fun auction, please send them our way. They always seem to generate much needed funding for the horses in a big way.....one more good fun auction and we have a shot at getting most of these bills paid off. Please consider donating your unused or unwanted items and mail them ASAP to MHWF!!

MHWF is looking for a good trainer. Whether you are an established trainer or a backyard person with some talent, we want to hear from you. Maybe we can help each other out and get a horse or two trained along the way. We have a lot of ideas and of course are willing to pay for good service as well. If you think this person might be you or someone you know, please get in touch with us and let's see what we can do.

Just when we thought our MHWF Sponsorship Program was about to die off, some of you came to the rescue and gave it new life. Thank you to not only all our new Sponsors, but our old reliable ones too! The Sponsorship Program has the potential to be one of the most important programs we have ever done. With enough people joining in, it has the power to turn MHWF into the program we someday hoped it would be. While we have grown quite a bit in recent years, we have bigger and better dreams for this program and it is all of you that make the difference. If you are already an official MHWF Sponsor, thank you! If you are not yet one of our Sponsors or are not familiar with the Sponsorship Program, please check out the Sponsorship page right here on our website and see if it's for you. You can donate as little or as much as you want and every penny counts.

There are quite a few people who have been patiently waiting and have been waiting for a while to bring their horses here to our program. Please be patient with us as we get at least 8 or 10 donation inquiries a day. We do the best we can and we usually get to most of them eventually, but the honest truth is that we cannot bring in more than we can properly care for at any given time. We bring in new horses as space is made available in the pasture. Please don't stop calling and inquiring about donating your horses, but please also be patient if we have to put you on hold for a while as well.

Wow, it's been way too long since this page was updated. To be honest, this page hasn't been as relevant the past year or so since our discussion forum has grown to the size it has. It seems that the forum is the best place to get updates and keep up with everything that goes on. If you are not a forum person, we recommend you at least check it out and see what it's all about. It's grown quite large, is always interesting and informative and is very family and kid friendly.

Well, we have the Midwest Horse Fair coming up in a couple of weeks. We have been busy getting ready for that once again. We even put some ideas and work into making our booth very different and unique this year. Let's hope it works and we will see you all there in a couple weeks.

We are also just getting started on the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo for 2008 as well. Yes, we are crazy and are doing it again! We have some great talent and entertainment scheduled for this year. We feel honored to have Mark Rashid as our feature clinician. If you know that name you know how special it is to have him come to the Expo. Mark does not do Expos and to be able to bring him here is truly going to be something wonderful. If you are not familiar with the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo, we strongly encourage you to stop by the website and have a look at the website which keeps being added to and growing at:: http://www.centralwisconsinhorseexpo.com

Tell you all what, we will keep it short here for today and will promise to update again in the next week or two. Until then, take care and support your local charities!

We want to thank everyone who was part of the CWHE 2007, whether as an exhibitor, vender or volunteer, it took all of you to make the Expo what it was and we thank each and every one of you for being a part of that special weekend.

As we are sure you are aware, this was the first year that the Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation ran the CWHE and while we pulled it off, there were a lot of loose ends and things that we could have done better. We also wanted to thank everyone who may have ran into one of those loose ends and for doing so with a smile and understanding. We do know where most of our mistakes came from and can assure everyone that those mistakes will not be repeated. Running an Expo like this is a monumental task and we have learned from this year and will take those lessons forward and ensure that the CWHE becomes what we envision it to be and to take it to the next level.

We hope that everyone who came to the Expo enjoyed their time. The weather was beautiful and everyone was wonderful to work with. Yes, there were a few bumps in the road, but we will move on and work toward a bigger and better Expo.

We would like to take a moment to thank a few people who worked hard at the Expo this year and for whom we owe a great deal. Thank you to all of you!!!

Charles and Anne Wilhelm, Ken McNabb, Asia Voight, Derrick Dupler, Randy Temanson, Kathy Scheibe, Sandra Kimpfbeck, Vicki Totzke, Erin and Jane Bayerl, Seth Bayerl, Robbie Gates, Joan and Brianne Simmonds, Terry Carroll, Deb and Barry Parsons, Kellie, Cathy and Nowell Gablein, LeRoy Bayerl, Ben Bayerl, Delahney Charobonneau, Nancy Merkel, the entire Pichler family, Chris Frenzel, Leslie Vandre, Sam Yonker, Midwest Trailer Sales, Ana-Tech, Berryland Farm, Dahl Graphics, Roger at American Wood Fibers, McMillan Mavericks 4H, The Treffert Family, the Bristol family, the Eckes family, Amy Curtiss, Lea Danielson, Karin Harris, Rita Neumann, Wendy Wooden, Nikki Getzloff, Amber Crawford, Scott and Kellie Magsamen, Marisa, Sophie Hanson, Dave Kraus, Marshfield FFA, DG Expo, Central Wisconsin State Fair, PK Electronics, Jim Bauer and the Pet Pantry, the Peruvian folks, the Morgan people, everyone who brought their horses, anyone who set up as a vender, Barth Trailer Sales, Northwoods Trailers, Gold Medal Trailers, V & H Ford, Pat Fellenz and his crew, Marshfield Country Club, and a ton of other people that I know we are failing to mention. Thank you to each and every one of you!!!

You all worked hard and got it done with a smile.......thank you for the CWHE 2007!!!

Daily life: I ad a few extra minutes after the day wound down a bit today and thought we had better post a little info on what's new and what's new around the farm. Yesterday was a back breaker for a bunch of us and we all got some of the not so fun tasks done around here on Saturday....manure clean up, painting & staining and just a lot of general farm work that has needed to get done. Thank you to Cathy, Karin and Mary for helping us out with all of that. Today was de-worming day and the entire herd got wormed. This week also includes a series of farrier visits until we get everyone done.

Busy as usual, we have had appointments almost every night. Get done with work, check the answering machine and email, then right out the door to do chores. Finish chores and usually we have an appointment or two in the evening. Sometimes those appointments go well into the night and a lot of times we are not getting back into the house to eat supper or return phone calls until 8, 9 and many times even later. So if you have been trying to reach us and are having a hard time getting us, please just be persistent. We always eventually catch up and always do our best to get to as many people as we can. Some days we fall behind, but that's to be expected. We do our best.

Lots of people on our waiting list who want to donate horses....that's pretty normal. We get offered an average of 5 horses each day. We obviously cannot take all of them, but we do our best to keep a good variety here in our pasture. If you look at what we have available now you will see a wide mix of everything. We always have plenty of pasture buddies of course, horses like Checkers, Mary, Dakota, Manny, Nellie and a few others. We have a few rescues here of course as well. Janie being one of them. She is doing very well and no longer looks anything like the scared and beat up little filly that came to us just a few short months ago. Of course Mista, another rescue is here, doing well. In some ways we also feel like Cain and Sophie are rescues as well. Cain, at his age is at least in his semi-retirement. Sophie is doing well and moving around normal again, but her hard riding days are probably over and she will be a light riding horse. Caramel of course.........starting to lose a few pounds and looking good. Kentucky is certainly a rescue. Wow, did she turn out to be a beauty huh?

Always some really nice horses available as well. How about that Diablo? What a nice horse all around. Both Cleo and Figaro are very nice horses as well. We can't forget Ben Parker either. He is sound and healthy and a very well broke horse. We are actually a little surprised this gem is still here looking for a home.

We have had more than a few adoptions the past week or two and expect a couple more to be final in the next day or so yet. We also have a few new horses coming in. The last 2 we accepted into the program are straight rescues, one will be coming from southern WI and the other from Minnesota. We aren't ready to share any details of these 2 yet, but they are both need a safe place to go. They should be here any day now and we will get them up on the website as soon as they do. We also have a few other horses coming in, so it looks like it is going to be another couple of busy weeks.

The Central Wisconsin Horse Expo is still rolling right along and we are starting to get that jittery feeling in our stomachs about this huge upcoming event. Gonna be a lot of fun, but a lot of work. We really hope this turns out to be a super event for everyone who attends. If you haven't yet checked out the website for the Expo, here ya go. Have a look around the site: http://www.centralwisconsinhorseexpo.com

If you are considering bringing your adopted horse to the Expo to join us in our demo, we would love to have you there, but would also ask that you reserve your stall as soon as possible so we can start to put our demo together.

Something fun here as well. Karen and I took a few hours off on Friday night and went into Marshfield to see Styx and Head East. They put on a good show and we wanted to share a photo or two from Friday night with all of you here as well. Karen and I have always been huge music fans and have always wanted MHWF to put on a concert in our area as a fundraiser for the program. Who knows, maybe we will do that soon. Anyway, here is a couple of pictures of Styx from Friday night.

The Central Wisconsin Horse Expo, presented by the Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation is still looking for a few people for 2007 Expo in September. If you feel you are the right person for one of these needs, please contact us ASAP to discuss your involvement with the Expo. If you are not familiar with the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo, please follow this link to the Expo website at:

http://www.centralwisconsinhorseexpo.com

1: We are still looking for a handful of people to wish to speak at the Expo in the speakers tent. We are looking for an equine chiropractor and a saddle fitter yet. We are also open to other ideas as well, so if you have these talents or have another talent you wish to speak about, please contact us. We would love to see you at the 2007 Expo.

2: An announcer with some experience as well as horse knowledge. We thought we had this all lined up and set to go. It turns out that there was a schedule conflict and we are now beginning our search for someone who has this talent. This is a paid position, but will require some experience and involves a couple of long days.

3: MHWF adopters who would like to join us in our daily demo at the horse Expo this year. We do have a handful of great adopters signed up for this, but are still hoping for a few more. This is done in the main arena and is a lot of fun, so don't stress or worry over all the people watching. We guarantee it to be fun for you and your horse. If you have adopted a horse from MHWF and want to join in, please contact us ASAP to get signed up.

4: Trustworthy laborers. We are also looking for 6 or 8 people to work at the CWHE this year. We will need a couple people for garbage duty, which isn't as nasty as it sounds, 2 people for daytime security, Expo set up on Friday and clean up on Sunday. We will also need a handful of people who can man the ticket booths at each gate. The CWHE will offer an hourly rate of pay along with free weekend passes to anyone who works for the Expo. These would be half days, giving you the rest of the day to enjoy the Expo as well as a few dollars in your pocket. If you are over 18 and trustworthy and interested in one of these positions, let us know as well.

5: Breed demo folks......we also need a few people who want to show off their specific breed of horse for the Expo. If your into paints, gypsy Vanners, Arabs, any breed at all and want to show them off in the main arena at the Expo, let us know. There are still several spots available for breed demos. Horse clubs that are into vaulting or driving and other horse related activities are also welcome to be involved.

6: The Central Wisconsin Horse Expo is also still looking for one or two more corporate sponsors. If you want your company associated with the 2007 Expo and want us to include you in all our advertising, we still have a couple of these sponsorships available. Our advertising is going out soon though, so if you want to get in that advertising, please call us for details at: 715-884-2215.

The Expo is taking off and doing far better than we even imagined with stalls and venders booths filling up every day. All we need is a few more finishing touches and we have it all set to go.

Thank you for supporting the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo and the Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation, Inc.

The following people have still not sent in their 2007 health reports to MHWF and legal action will begin next week if not already filed. If your name is on this list, get in contact with us immediately to remedy this before the next step is taken. You are in breach of contract and MHWF will not let any horse slip through the cracks!

Anyone knowing the whereabouts of Maria Bausch is encouraged to contact MHWF.

Just had to mention that we have quite a few really wonderful horses here for adoption yet.

Jazzy
The one that pops into my head right off the bat is little Jazz, the mini mare. Healthy, sound and in great shape. She's easy to catch and handle and loves people. No special needs, safe for the kids, mindful of fences and no issues with being turned out on pastures. Surely someone must be looking for a cute little mini mare!!!

Cleo and Figaro
This one really surprises us as well. You don't see Bashkir Curlies available every day. They are super sound and healthy and really laid back and easy to deal with. They adore attention and are always very mindful and respectful to their handlers. Current on everything they need, young and good looking. Super horses, both of them.

Tara
How about a big, strong sound and healthy Appendix with tons of training? She has been ridden just about everywhere and by everyone, super easy to ride and respectful on the ground and under saddle. A big strong mare with endless potential. She is current on everything she needs as well including just having her teeth floated.

Mr. Ben Parker
You can't ask for a nicer looking QH gelding. He has no soundness issues at all and isa veteran under saddle. Ben loves people and is easy going and a generally happy guy who is playful and fun to be around. He is current on everything and although he is 19 years old, he looks and moves like a horse 1/2 his age. This one is a real gem!!!

Kentucky
Where are all our saddlebred people? You all have seen this horse right? Oh my, what an impressive horse to say the least. She has the personality to match. Excellent confirmation and in exceptional condition....need we say more?

Daisy
A young, sound, healthy little pony. People go out and spend a fortune on these 4H ponies that don't have half the brains of this little girl. Smart and rides like a pro with the little saddle time she has had. Loves people, always respectful and easy to catch and handle. This is one of those rare ponies that don't act like a pony...more like a full sized horse, safe for the kids and a real smart gal who learns fast and retains what she has learned.

Caramel
The most laid back and easy going pony on the planet...unflappable and as safe as they come for the kids. Sure, Caramel needs to lose a few pounds, but don't a lot of us....hehehe. he's sound and healthy and a real people lover. Great for the vet and farrer and has even ponied the kids around the yard. Look at his color......this is a very nice little pony!!!

Let's not forget Checkers
The most low maintenance horse in the world and the very first horse ever donated to MHWF......still here all these years later looking for a new home.

Mary
Has her issues, but loves people and is about as low maintenance as they come. Mary has been with us for 3 years, still looking for that forever home.

Manny
Big and beautiful and super easy to get along with.

Stormy
Rescued from a bad situation. 5 years old, sound and healthy, just needs someone to teach her the things other horses we taught.

Cain
The kindly old gentleman. He needs a little more food than a 5 year old, but he will do anything for you willingly and with enthusiasm. Cain still has good energy and is experienced enough for anyone to ride or drive.....just not hard anymore at his age.

We know it's early summer and everyone has a lot going on, but we also know that horses like some of these are very special and don't come around every day. Don't let the horse that's right for you slip away because you called too late. All these horses are everything they are described to be and more.

Whew, we survived another month, especially the past week. Good old Wisconsin, we have about 4 months of good weather to get a year's worth of work done. I'm sure you all know how that goes.

So needless to say, we have been busy, even busier than we normally are. This past week I don't think I had more than a few minutes a day to be on the computer and the same for the telephone with potential adopters. With a few projects behind us, or at least part way behind us, we are looking forward to a "normal" couple of days around here. There's lots to share, so here goes.

When we moved in, we were in desperate need for some good stalls. With the arrival of Caramel, Stormy and Jane Doe, that need became even more crucial. So we got started on building 4 new stalls and it turned out to be a bigger task than we thought. We started with load ofter load of new gravel for the back parking lot.....much needed. Some new post and rail fencing and new metal gates came next. Much more practical and nicer looking for sure. The next project was to empty the barn so we could put down a lot more fill and make room to work and room for new stalls. Thanks to everyone who helped us clean the barn out!!

We got it cleaned out and even got all the new fill spread out in the barn, 56 yards of fill!! Got the big holes dug for the posts, put the posts in, put up the headers and got to work. We aren't done with them, but 2 stalls are complete and the other 2 new stalls are only a few days work away from being done. They are each 10 x 12 and are super heavy duty and made to last. We think they turned out pretty nice. Anyway, those have been taking up pretty much every waking moment we have had and there were even some nights when we were out working on them until after 10 pm and not getting supper going until after 10 pm. Needless to say, that was tiring, but we are glad to have them and are already putting them to use. Here is a picture of them while still very much under construction with our helper, Shamrock (Rocky) thinking she has some construction skills.

The past week has also been a busy one for the horses in MHWF as well. We want to start off by sending out a huge thank you to Debra Fountaine of Michigan for coming down and living with us for a week while working 12 hour days with some of the MHWF horses. Those are long days and Deb's training and handling of them was both a lesson in what a long day can be and HOW TO handle and teach an unhandled and untrained horse.

Deb put in long days, in the heat, the cold and the rain working with a few of these horses and helped us make some huge strides with a few of them.....all while putting up with us....hehehe. We would like to share some updates of the work Deb accomplished this past week.

You all know the story by now about the little yearling filly running loose in Portage County, on the news, running loose down roads and through back yards, and how she was tranquilized and brought here to us. We won't go over all that again, but will say that although Jane Doe is as sweet as they come, her ordeal left her with some major issues. besides the injuries she got in her travels, she was terrified of people, impossible to catch and handle and once caught would panic and get away. We worked a lot with little Jane the past few weeks and made major progress with her. We could catch her and touch about 1/2 of her body. We even taught her to lead and to smile on cue. That still left us with a few issues to deal with. One of those issues being that every time we took a couple steps forward with her, she would regress and take one step backward. So progress was being made, but slowly. We could not take her out of her enclosure for fear that we would be the next ones on the news chasing a horse down the highway. That's where a lot of Deb Fountaine's time came in. Deb made it possible for us to lead Jane out of her enclosure and even take her for short walks around the property without too much fear of her going into a panic and escaping. Jane now looks to people for her comfort and that's a good thing. She still is a little leary from time to time, but that is getting better with each passing day. She now welcomes us into her stall and loves to be doted over. Loves being scratched and brushed and the best part, Jane nickers at us when we come anywhere near her stall. She want attention.....a great start on a new life for this poor scared little gal.

Stormy has been a real challenge for us since her arrival here for one simple reason, until she got here she had never so much as been touched by human hands or had a halter on. You all know Stormy's story already as well, so we won't go into that. Needless to say, she was uncatchable, didn't know how to lead even if caught and to be honest, was dangerous to anyone who tried to catch her.

Stormy's progress is going to be much more time consuming than Jane Doe or most other horses, but the strides her and Deb took this past week are something worth recognition.

There were a series of problems we ran into just in being able to catch and work with Stormy. What we ended up doing was putting up some temporary fencing that led from her paddock to the round pen. That gave Deb the chance to work with Stormy with less fear of her escaping, hurting herself or someone else. Deb put in a good 7 hours with Stormy that first day and was pretty frustrated by the end of the day. On day two some progress was being made, and by the last day we saw major progress from Stormy. Without going on and one about every little detail, we can tell you that by the end of her last session Stormy was now easy to catch, could lead very well, let you touch her anywhere and was picking up all 4 feet when asked.....pretty good progress for a horse that only days ago was completely wild and untouched. Thanks Deb!!

Of course, Stormy will need a lot more continued work, but she is getting there and we are excited that the day will soon come that we can turn her out with the rest of the herd and watch her live a life she never had before with large pastures, tons of herd mates and friends. That day is coming soon for her and we can't wait. With all the learning Stormy has been doing we almost forgot to mention how nice looking of a horse she has become. You wouldn't recognize her as the skinny and wormy little wild mare we met 2 months ago. She has really blossomed into a beautiful horse.

Daisy is our surprise of the week. She's always been pretty well behaved and well adjusted, but we had no idea how well she was going to take to the saddle. We always try to represent the horses in MHWF as openly and honest as we can. We will almost always give a worst case scenario as well. We want these horses to go to good homes and a big part of that is making sure the adopter knows exactly what to expect. I have to say that after this week of working a little time in here and there with Daisy, I would trust a kid on her back, as long as the kid knows how to ride. That's how well her training went this past week. She's still green of course, but it has been years since we saw a horse learn that quickly and be that cooperative so early on in their training. Not once did daisy buck, balk, toss her head.., anything other than be a little angel. We even had her out and about riding around the property with people, dogs, lawnmowers and trucks and trailers around.....not so much as a spook or a sassy moment. Good job Deb....and Daisy! Put a few more hours on this little girl and she'll make some kid a spectacular 4H pony.

For the stories about Jane Doe and Stormy as well as video of some of the horses we talked about here, please visit the "adoption horses" page at: http://www.equineadoption.com/order.htm

We'll keep it to that for now.....don't forget to buy your Central Wisconsin Horse Expo tickets, booth spaces or stalls through the Expo website!! We have Ken McNabb, Charles Wilhelm and a Knight to Remember coming this year with much much more to come. Stop by the website and have a look and reserve your booths, stalls or tickets!!

We spent a lot of time away from the booth on Sunday at the Midwest Horse Fair as we had a lot of work to do for the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo. We passed out info on the Expo and went to each and every vender and invited them to come up this fall for the expo. We also spent quite a bit of time talking with Tommy and Karen Turvey as well as Ken McNabb and Charles Wilhelm. Oops, almost forgot. We also spent a few minutes talking with Asia Voight as well. Hopefully we will be able to bring some of these names into the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo this year or next. I can tell you that we are off to a great start and are hoping to announce a clinician or two later this week. There is even the possibility of some big surprises there as well. Keeping our fingers crossed.

We want to thank all of you for coming to our booth to say hello and for coming to our speech in the Winkler building as well. It was good to see so many friendly faces in the audience and it made it worth it for us. Sorry for putting all of you on the spot and on the mike as well. That's a testament to the great adopters MHWF has. You all were wonderful with your testimonials and stories. Thank you!!!

We got home pretty late Sunday night, got stuck in a bad traffic jam after a fatal accident on the freeway. Apparently there was an 8 car pile up involving a motorcycle. We were told the person on the motorcycle was killed in that accident. We hope none of you were in that pile up and all made it home OK.

We would also like to send our best wishes and get well soon to the person we met this weekend that got into a horrible accident at the expo. We hope you feel better soon. To that person, thanks for coming to our booth and we hope we hear from you again soon letting us know your feeling better.

So by now you have guessed we are back. We are back and are back open Tuesday after 4 pm! Hopefully by then life is back to almost normal and we will be bright eyed and bushy tailed again!

Thanks for all your support everyone! It was good to see you all this weekend!

The Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation, Inc. is proud to make a major announcement today, which may turn out to be a monumental day for this program.

MHWF, Inc. has been awarded the honor of putting on the 2007 Central Wisconsin Horse Expo this year and hopefully for many years to come!

As some of you may already know, the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo was funded and ran by the Central Wisconsin State Fair for the past three years. This past winter the Fair Board voted not to continue to hold the expo anymore. There were many reasons, but we were very disappointed, as we have always enjoyed the Expo here in Marshfield in the fall. What a wonderful opportunity for MHWF and it's adopters to spend the weekend with other local horse people, and people from neighboring states. For us, it was much like the Madison or Minnesota Horse Expos, but close to home and with a more personal feel. We were hoping someone would step in and keep the Expo going, but that simply wasn't going to happen. We had two choices, no Expo, or take on this monumental task on ourselves. After many sleepless nights going over the alternatives, crunching the numbers, added workload and responsibility, we decided, with our Board of Directors, that this was too good of an opportunity to pass up. We are mixed with a combination of excitement and anxiety. To put together an expo of this size is a massive job. We feel we are up to it and want to thank Debbie and Nancy for all their hard work these past three years in getting the expo started and on the map, as well as for their valuable input and cooperation for this upcoming year.

To all the friends and supporters of the Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation, we proudly present the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo- 2007!!!!

There's a pile of work to do.......contracts, website, venders, clinicians, breed demos, advertising, and a mountain of other various tasks, but we will get there. In the meantime, please check out the website for the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo, presented by the Midwest Horse Welfare Foundation, Inc. Right now it is filled with last year's information, but we will be adding and changing it daily from here on.

The dates of this years Expo are moved up a bit in the hope for warmer and better weather. This year the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo will be held Saturday and Sunday, September 22-23rd. We will begin booking our clinicians, venders, demonstrators and corporate sponsors right away. If you are interested in being a part of the Expo, please contact us. We are already working on getting some good clinicians and are seeking people interested in breed demos to promote their breed or farm. We are also seeking venders who might want to set up a booth at this year's expo. If you have a business that is horse related that you would like to promote, we are still looking for a few corporate sponsors for the 2007 Expo as well. Give us a call and we will be happy to show you how the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo can help promote your equine related business.

If your simply a horse person or supporter of MHWF, then we hope to see you all there this fall at the Expo. Simply attending the Expo is a great way to support MHWF and the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo for the years to come.

We will eventually need a few volunteers and there will probably even be a few paying jobs available the week of the Expo. We will be setting up the ability to pre-sell tickets through the website at a discounted rate as well in the next few days.

MHWF and it's Board of Directors feel that this is an opportunity that we cannot afford to miss. What a wonderful way to promote not only this program, but also good horsemanship, the benefits of horse adoption and a fun horse and horse people kind of weekend.

Thank you all for making this possible for us and we hope to see you all there this year at the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo!!!

Today has been a day full of mixed emotions here at the MHWF farm. It's always better to think positive, so we should start with the good news. The slaughtering of horses is now illegal in the U.S. as of today! There have been a lot of people who have put a lot of work into getting this done and for their efforts today is a monumental day. It is now official, the United States of America no longer allows the slaughter of horses in our country. I won't get into the details of this as there is a lot of legal talk and still the hurdle of making it illegal to cross into Canada with horses headed for slaughter, but what a major event that happened today!

As good as that news is for so many people who have put so much into getting horse slaughter banned, we, the volunteers of MHWF are having a hard time celebrating as it has been not only a hard week for this program, but a particularly hard day. We are very sad to say that MHWF has lost 2 good friends today, Rose and Liberty.

We have known this day was coming for a while now and with this hard decision lying in front of us, we just didn't have it in us to share it with everyone. Sometimes it's easier to bury yourself in your work and shut out the things that really haunt you. We knew we could not drag it on any longer and both Rosie and Libby were euthanized today. Both horses played an important part in the work of MHWF and we feel as though we should say something about each of them as a part of our goodbye.

Rosie: Rosie has been a fixture in the MHWF pasture for about 3 years now. She was one of the horses rescued in the large auction rescue we did with your help back in the fall of 2004. Rose was shy and didn't seem to have had a good life when we met her. She had lameness issues along with trust issues. We knew we could get Rose through her trust issues, but we always knew the day would come when her lameness issues would catch up with her. Rose was sweet and did not have a mean bone in her body. She had many friends in the MHWF pasture and they all knew she was special and protected her. I am sure that her pasture mates will miss her as much as we will.

Libby: Libby was my horse, one of my first horses. I first met Libby 7 years ago in a feedlot in Minnesota. She was lame, but was very sweet and had only a few hours left before she was to be shipped off for slaughter. Needless to say, Libby came home with me that day and has been a part of MHWF even before there was an MHWF. With many hours of working on her feet and endless trials and tests, we managed to get 6 good sound years for Libby. During those years she gave endless kids and adults their first horseback rides. She taught me how to ride and gave me the confidence to go on my very first trail rides. Libby and I were great friends and have been all over together. When Karen joined our family, she fell in love with Libby as well and Karen and Libby did some trail rides together as well. Libby never once kicked, bit, reared, complained or did anything except show her gratitude for the good years we could give her. She was one of the few core horses that were always part of the scenery here at MHWF. Libby's condition simply caught up with her and we could not bear to watch her suffer one more day. Although a very hard decision, it was the right one and the most unselfish one. Everyone here, including her herd family will miss Libby more than we can say. Goodbye Lib.....you will always be here with us and a part of us.

Oh my, we used to be so good about updating this page. With the popularity of our discussion forum, it seems that lately it has been too easy to overlook or forget this page. There's a lot that has happened and a lot planned, so I will try to do a better job updating this page. For those of you not familiar with our discussion forum, it's a hugely popular place, more like a giant extended family, good people, safe for the kids to read.....If you have not been to our forum, click the forum link at the top of any of our pages and join in. It's a least worth a look even if your not into discussion forums. Ours is very unique.

So what's new here at the MHWF farm right? I'll try to get in as much of this as I can today and will add more over the next few days and weeks.

MHWF finally, after almost 7 years, started our Sponsorship Program. The Sponsorship Program is a way for our supporters to pledge a set amount each month to MHWF and to the horses. It's off to a slow start, but we are hopeful and excited about what this could mean to a program like ours. If you are not yet familiar with our Sponsorship Program, just click the link on the left side of this page and have a look. You can become an MHWF Sponsor for as little as $20.00 a month.

We have been here at the new farm for just over a year now. It's been a long hard road, but we feel as though we are finally getting somewhere. It was only a few short months ago that we were still pounding hundreds of fence posts in to add more pasture. Since getting the entire pastures fenced, we have added some new gates, added a lot of gravel to low spots where water and mud collected, and even got a parking lot done in the rear of the yard for the bigger trucks and trailers. We also started adding beautiful post and rail fencing around the areas that we spend the most time. It's starting to look pretty good.

Our next project is our favorite. We finally get to gut the barn out and put in all new fill for the floors and get our new stalls built! As soon as the ground thaws just a little bit more we will start that project and will get it done pretty quickly. We are pretty excited about this one. We need the new stalls badly.

We also put in new footing in our paddock area and will be working on 2 new post and rail paddocks as soon as the frost is gone from the ground.

Once we have all this done we are hoping we can still afford automatic waterers this year......and maybe an indoor arena....hehehe. Wishful thinking on that last one.

We are all set to go for the Midwest Horse Fair in Madison this year again!! Love that week! Our booth is in the main coliseum, booth NP9. Don't forget to stop by, say hello and check out our new booth!! It's the 3rd weekend in April, Madison, WI. This year we get a short demo on Friday and Saturday in the Winkler Canvass tent. This is a new thing for the Midwest Horse Fair, so we won't be bringing horses this first year, but we are still looking forward to speaking and answering questions for all the horse people who attend.

I'll be back to add more over the next few days and weeks...promise. There's a lot more to share and a lot going on with MHWF this year!

MHWF, Inc. would like to send out a very big thank you to some special people and a great organization.

We recently received a very sizable donation from the Liberty Classic Group. These are the same folks who put on the local AQHA shows here in Central Wisconsin. We are very thankful to this organization for their very generous donation and for helping the horses of MHWF this winter.

We would like to name the people responsible for this contribution as well. A very special thank you to Mel Sann, Dick Lang, Dawn Beihoffer, Kathy Ciula, Doyle and Beth Zimmermann, Sue and Mike Schmidt and last but certainly not least, the wonderful person who made this happen for MHWF, Kay Wilcott!

The hard work of these people at the Liberty Classic Group not only helped the people who showed in the AQHA shows they put on, but now has gone on to help the horses at MHWF as well. We cannot thank these people and this organization enough for their hard work and for having a program like ours on their minds. Their contribution will give MHWF a big step in the right direction over these long cold winter months.

Thank you to Kay and everyone at the Liberty Classic Group! Please come on by sometime soon and see how your donation is going on to help a few horses who needed someone.

Do you all remember the last fun auction where we designated the funds generated from it would go toward one more pasture shelter for the horses? Well, we did exactly that and ordered the shelter back in late October. It finally arrived this past Friday. The crew that delivered it set it up, but it still needed a lot of work before we could call it a horse shelter. We got it done over the weekend though and now it's finished and ready for winter. Our apologies if we have been a little more tired and hard to get a hold of than usual. With the fun auction and the shelter coming at the same time we have been stretched pretty far lately and will eventually bounce back from our lack of sleep.

December has been a pretty good month for MHWF this year. Normally along with December and winter comes the creeping feeling of here we go again. Everything seems to take longer in the cold, money is in short supply for programs like ours this time of year, horses are much more expensive to care for, the days are short, Coggins testing is coming again soon along with the big bill that comes with that. This year we are happy to say MHWF is not doing too bad and that is because of all of you and we have not and will not forget that. This past year has been full of snags and the normal difficulties, but through all of that, it has also probably been one of this program's best years. Karen and I got this place, got married in May, and the program rolls right along as strong as ever, probably even stronger. MHWF got a wonderful production video done this year by Linda and LW Video Productions, the demo at this years Horse Expo in Marshfield was a success and a first for us. We finally got the brochures done that we have always wanted to get done, and lots of good horses got adopted by good people this year. Now going into Christmas MHWF is delighted to say that we were able to put a little money to the side for something we have needed since we got here.....stalls in the barn and wood for both paddocks! The Board of Directors approved the improvements on Tuesday night and we could not be more excited. The back yard has been turned into a parking lot for trucks and trailers, we will be getting a couple new and much needed gates, the new pasture shelter is done, and now we can start on getting the paddocks and stalls done. That project will probably take a good chunk of the winter, but it will finally get this place up to what we would consider closer to what we had envisioned. That's all thanks to all of you. The Hay Drive has been a big success and took a huge burden off this program which in turn allowed us to plan for these much needed upgrades. Thank you to everyone who contributed in some way this past year. We can't wait for next year.

MHWF has decided to add something new this year, something we should have thought of a long time ago. Every year MHWF will name a new volunteer of the year. There has been a lot of people who played major roles in this program, but the choice was still a pretty easy one for our first year. This year's Volunteer of the Year is Karin Harris. We have known Karin for almost 5 years now. She has been volunteering here and putting up with us (mainly me) since she was 16 years old. Over the years we have watched Karin grow from a kid into horses to a young woman who knows horses and can really ride. She shows up to work every time we call, regardless of the task or the weather. She never asks for anything in return and she's not afraid to take on the hard or muddy projects most people avoid like the plague. Probably Karin's biggest contribution to MHWF for past couple of years is her ability to ride and ride well. Karin has a nickname around here. It's guinea pig because she will test ride just about any horse we want to evaluate. Not only that, but she can get more out of a rusty or disobedient horse than most of us. Over the past two years we estimate Karin has test ridden 100 horses for this program.....priceless. Not only that, but she has yet to hurt doing it, even though she has had a few spills. Because of Karin Harris' help, MHWF wanted to recognize her here and name her Volunteer of the Year. Our very own Karen Bayerl is also doing a free photo shoot and portrait for Karin H. as well. Thank you Karen Harris! It has been our pleasure.

As most of you know Karen and I have a few horses of our own. Almost all of them are pasture buddies who ended up as permanent residents here because each of them "got us" in their own special way. Every one of them has been a part of our family and not just a horse. This year is a little different than most because both Karen and I have come to realize that a few of the horses we call our own are now in their golden years and probably won't be with us for many more sunny summer nights or snowy Christmases. Everyone faces these facts when they have animals, but few people will face most of their horses probably passing on within a very short time. Karen and I are faced with exactly that and it's been one of those things you try to pretend isn't going to happen, but we both know it will eventually. When it does start to happen it is certainly going to be hard on both of us as it is always hard to say goodbye to an old friend and things won't seem the same with any one of them gone. When this does happen we have to pick ourselves back up and push on. With every end comes a new beginning.

That leads me to a little guy who hopefully will be a big part of our lives in the upcoming years.

We got a call from a good friend last Friday night and she wanted to tell us about a little horse she had some dilemma about and wanted to know what we thought. Two days later he arrived as a gift to both Karen and I from a friend we believe we share a common thinking on most subjects related to horses, their care and treatment. We would like you to meet the newest member of our extended family and hopefully a big part of our future together......Danny. Danny is a 16 month old Friesian/Morgan cross. He comes from wonderful bloodlines and has a wonderful laid back disposition. Because of his conformation Danny will most likely only ever be able to serve as a pasture buddy. He is jet black and cute as a button. He is still very much a baby and we are looking forward to growing older with him. He has settled in very nicely and fell into a routine here right away. It looks like little Danny will be here for years to come to meet and greet the new visitors to our program. What an ambassador he will make.

It's been a really long time since we put anything new here on this page and it's about time. There has been a lot going on and that's probably the explanation as to why we haven't updated this page in over a month. I'll try to fill you in on some of it here.

Where do we start? Well, the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo in Marshfield, WI just ended. Of course, MHWF was there with our normal booth and a little added bonus. This year we got to show off our new promotional video done by Linda Walker at LW Video Productions. We are very proud of the video and want to pass on that Linda and her family are going through some hard times right now and we ask that you all have them in your thoughts as they fight through it. They are good people who went above and beyond to help this program and we send our best wished out to them and their family.

This year we did something different...a demo....horses and all! We had 11 adoption horses at the expo this year and we got a 20 minute demo in the main arena. It went very well and we want to thank everyone who was in the demo and pitched in to help with the demo. We feel it was a great success and couldn't have gone much better. We also apologize to Nancy, CJ and Kermit for the little "goof" in the demo as well. Other than that, everyone's horses looked great and behaved very well. Stalls looked great and everyone pitched in through the cold weather to get it done. Bravo everyone. We couldn't be more proud. So a special thanks to Eli and Sammy, Kelsey and Mercy, Jenna and Bigshot, Juleen and Cisco, Corey and Achilles, Donna and Beauty, Karin and Patches, Nancy, CJ and Kermit, Amy who rode Josh for Karen while she took pictures, and certainly last but not least, Whitney and Dawn, who blew everyone away with her liberty presentation with Dawn's Event! Oh yeah, I was in the demo as well with my horse JNE Festivo. Good job Festivo! Absolutely wonderful everyone.....thank you all, including all the people on the sidelines who helped out, like Jim P, Randy T, Dave E, Mary H, Sandy K, Kathy S, Scott and Kelly M, and good friends as well as the folks who run the Expo, Deb and Barry P, and Rick and Nancy M.

Despite the icy weather, the Expo was again a great success and we can't wait until next year. If you have never been, put it on your schedules for next fall and we'll see you all there! Check out the Expo's website for pics of the expo and our demo at: http://www.centralwisconsinhorseexpo.com

Drop them an email and let them know you were there and had fun, or tell them what a great website they have...hehe.

As you all probably already know, Karen has a good camera and a lot of talent for using it, as well as the complicated software that she uses to "tweak" some her work. She has wanted to get the ball rolling for quite some time now on getting her idea (Equine Eye Photography) up and running. It's kind of up to me to get her website going. So watch soon for her new site. I promise I'll get it going. If any of you out there would like to have some portraits done, her site may not be ready to go, but she is available to take those portraits. Just drop her an email or give her a call.

In the process of putting together MHWF's new website as well as the site built for the Horse Expo, I finally got a decent grasp on how to build a good website and do some of the more subtle things that make a website successful. I have now started my own side business creating websites and I will begin with my own new site as well as Karen's to add to the other sites I have built. Midwest Creative Webs is the new concept and if any of you need a website built, I'll give you a heck of a price for doing it.

Unless it's your first time to our website you have probably been bombarded with pleas for the Hay Drive we have going on. Our hay bill is at $7000.00. and the Hay Drive has a great start. As of today we are just under $2500.00. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this fund. It is essential to this program and you are the ones who keep us plugging on. Thank you to each and every one of you!

This last entry on today's update is brand new only today. We were contacted by Officer Weil at the Clark County Sheriff's Department and asked if we could provide a place for a couple of horses (Precious and Stoney) that needed somewhere to go. While we cannot share the details of this case with you, we can tell you that the horses are here, safe and sound, and were in good condition when we picked them up. We want to extend a big thank you to Officer Weil for his cooperation with this. Many of you may remember the beating he took on our discussion forum last year over the neglect case in Clark County which sparked the Presage Project. We are glad that Officer Weil extended an invitation to MHWF to help and were glad we could be of some help. He may have gotten a bad rap last year, but after spending time with him, he seems to be a genuine guy who truly cares for the animals and we are glad we could put all that behind us and work together today. Thank you to Mary and Karin H. for their help and to Officer Weil for making it as pleasant as it could be considering the circumstances.

To say that the month of August was hectic and busy for MHWF would be an understatement. August was probably the most crazy and the most trying month we have had in a long long time. We won't get into all the details of who, what and why here, but do want to take a moment to apologize for being somewhat difficult to get in touch with the past few weeks and for have very busy schedules lately. Another week or so and we are hoping the hustle and bustle goes a little more back to what we would call normal. Although, September has always been one of our busiest months.

So if you have been trying to reach us, only to get an answering machine, we apologize. The truth of the matter is that we have been very busy with the business side of MHWF and the added chores that come with having a larger group of horses here than normal. We have been doing our best to keep up with the phone calls, but I think we lost that battle a while ago. So please be patient when calling and keep in mind we will do our best to answer your call, but still have appointments to show horses, chores to do, and regular jobs.

Something that comes along with being very busy is that it shows that MHWF has a lot of followers and supporters. We haven't forgotten that and won't forget it. Sure, it seems overwhelming sometimes, but we keep on marching forward. Our new website is one of those "new and exciting" things for us. Hope you all like it. We are still working a few small bugs out of it, but for the most part, it works well and looks good and we hope you all like the new look.

We have the Central Wisconsin Horse Expo coming up in October. If you can make it there, we would love to see you there. Click on the link to the right of this page and check out their site and all the things they have going on. It's really quite a fantastic expo and if your into horses, something you won't want to miss. If you want to do a demo with your MHWF adopted horse at the expo, give us a call. We would love to have you there with us.

Our first round of the Vet Appreciation is now complete and we are looking for all of you to nominate a vet to honor for the month of September. The vet honored in September will get the letters all of you submit, plus a gift certificate to a nice supper club. So come on folks, nominate your vet today. All you have to do to nominate your vet is to go to our discussion form and go to the thread titled " Vet Appreciation". Put in a post nominating your vet and why. The vet with the most nominations is our Vet of the Month. Please stop by the discussion forum and have a look. It is a great thing to show the people who help us that we appreciate them. So don't be shy.

We know a lot of you are wondering when we are going to do another fun auction. We are ready for another one and will get it up and going in the next week or so. There will be some great items listed on this upcoming one, so don't forget to take a look once it's started!

We will also be putting together a Winter Hay Drive. This year we estimate our hay bill will be somewhere around $8000.00. Wow, we know. It's a big number. We plan to start a hay drive to help us feed these guys over the cold winter months. So keep an eye out for that as well and consider pitching in a few bucks to help feed horses like Marcy, Checkers, Ranger, Mista, Mary, and all the other horses that are still here looking for new homes.

I could go on and on here and bore all of you to death, but I will spare you all of that. We just want to let all of you know that we are still here, continuing to grow and evolve, and will always be here for the horses, donors and adopters we have met through MHWF over the years.