We had a new band of wide-eyed scared, bone jutting thin horses arrive last month.  They were seized in another part of the state and sent here to the spring green fields of the sanctuary.  Several are very pregnant, carrying hope filled bellies under winter starved sides.  Their coats are shedding winter dead hair that flies into their white-rimmed eyes.  Walking wounded, they staggered off the truck and huddled like small puppies newly bereft their mother.

At feeding time, they stare at the buckets in my hands and shake.  I have to ease into the paddock, eyes averted, and slowly pour the golden grain into their pans.  Once I vacate the space they slide on over and eat with fearful eye and sharp pricked ears.  There is no danger of this group over-gorging; they can barely stand still long enough to grab a few scant mouthfuls before they scatter into wind blown tangles of hide and seek.  Even though their bodies are filling out, their minds remain vacant and dead eyes stare without hope at the world.  

Three days past one mare gave birth to a sooty colt.  She keeps him penned into the back of the paddock under some trees and fiercely stands guard between him and any human intrusion.  We’ve worked out a truce between us; I can approach half way and leave her food, fill up water buckets, and back out.  The paddock is off limits for all visitors and most of the volunteers, the fear emanating from it is too palpable for safety yet.

Yesterday as dusk started to set, one of the volunteers was looking for her daughter, a tow-headed child named Sarah.  Pushing seven, and barely knee high, Sarah floats among the larger herd unscathed and safe from the fiercest gelding.  I’m not sure what aura surrounds her, but Sarah can hug the tallest with impunity.  One touch of her small white hand has noses bent for strokes and soft, loving sounds flow from normally self-contained horses.  Her diminutive size and soft voice allow her to melt into the herd and we once found her happily asleep in the hay with three mares standing guard over her.  Looking for Sarah at dusk has always provided enchanting sights when we’ve found her.