This morning I will be feeding the horses early in order to go to court......
This morning is the sentencing for two men who killed an elderly horse by hanging him from an excavator.
I knew the horse..briefly.
He along with two little mares had run away from home and found their way to a farm from where I worked some three years ago.
The owner couldn't catch them and so I was called up from the rear of the farm to see if I could get them for him.
All three horses ran to me....I slipped a halter on the old gelding and handed him to the man and then slipped halters on the mares for him as well.
He jumped on one of the mares bareback and led the other two home. Before he left I asked him about the Appaloosa gelding's age because he was awfully thin.
He said he was in his late twenties and that he was being switched to different feeds so they could put some weight on him....we talked a bit about the possibility of my farrier trimming their feet since all three of the horses had very long feet....and then he rode off.

Some months later I learned about the 'horse hanging'....and so I attended the court hearings primarily to see who had done this...to see what kind of justice would prevail for this old horse.

Today I will attend to hear the sentences.
Today I will try to 'feel' what circumstances in the lives of these two men led them to a place where they could think that this was okay.
What circumstances closed their hearts to this four legged being?

Today I will plan ways to make sure that the boys and girls who walk through my life never get to this closed place..............

Today I will make positive movements toward changes in laws here in Canada and elsewhere that currently list horses as 'equipment'...and not sentient feeling intelligent beings.