Arriving at the sanctuary

After a few wrong turns we arrived around 2 pm and I looked down at my phone. I think it almost laughed at me for even bothering to see if service was a possibility. From Lauren’s phone I called the sanctuary director, Barbara. She was over in the alfalfa fields so she told us to just let ourselves in and get me settled in my room in the bunkhouse. We unloaded my gear and stepped into the house that smells intensely of dog – lots of dogs actually, and rightly so as there are 10+ sanctuary dogs that roam, often in and out of the house, at will. I found my room, a two-person one possibly to be occupied by another young 20-something (hope she likes rabbits), and Barbara came and greeted us. She basically said “Welcome, get settled, look around the grounds as much as you like, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Lauren and I hardly knew where to start but we just walked down the hill from the house as the entire place is lined with horses trotting here and there. As neither Lauren nor myself had any real experience with horses I was unsure about this whole “just go mingle” idea, but Barbara said that so long as I made my presence known, I was good to go. So we gave it a shot, and quickly made friends with several of the domestics who either just really love people or thought it was about time for dinner and a meal could be found in either our jackets or shoes and they should try to eat them to find out. Within the first minute of making my acquaintance with a large bay-colored mare I found myself streaked with horse snot and drool. I grinned and knew this was going to be an excellent summer.

We socialized with several of the domestics and then ventured into the pasture of Spanish Mustang mares. Among them were several new foals – 11 to date – and a bunch of young colts that needed to be weaned away from their mothers before they started getting too frisky with the other ladies and started producing more foals than the sanctuary really had the room or resources for. The mustangs were a bit more wary, but a few did come up, and I counted my day an utter triumph after I was approached by one of the new little fuzzy foals. At that point it was getting late and Lauren needed to start back to Reno. We hugged our goodbyes and she left. I leaned against the doorframe of the bunkhouse and just soaked in my newfound solitude. No phone. No internet at my fingertips. Just me, Barbara, the other two married interns Adam and Claudia, and our 200 non-human sanctuary residents. I was content. I finished getting myself organized, chatted up Adam and Claudia for a bit, then settled down with a movie and a book and went to sleep.