Dear Friends,

Hi Everyone,

I apologize for failing to be in touch with you last week. Robin, Rita,
Sally, and I were busy bees with the necessities of spring grounds
preparation. Sally came out to clear the parts of our ditch banks that
needed to be subdued while their vegetation was still thin enough to see
what you were doing. She did an awesome job. We do not clear our entire
front ditch bank because of our concern for the vulnerability of our horses,
goats, pigs, Sapphire cow, and chickens. Drive-buy shootings of cows and
horses have been reported to us enough times to make us cautious. There are
have been resent incidents of mailbox toppling, and garbage can pulls within
a mile of us. Some folks just can't have a good time unless they are being
destructive.

Rita and Robin have been working on clearing and burning tree stumps and old
fencing that we are concerned the horses will get into.

Our friends Robin, Heather, and Clay came out and painted two building for
us - the cattery, and Jan's guest building. Rita and clay aided me in
raising new cat, dog, and rooster flags in the appropriate areas.

Mr. Mims (our building contractor) put a porch roof on Jan's building, and
aided us with a few other details.

Ronnie Houston, of Frontier Fencing put up a new puppy coral for us. Our
puppy area houses now grown adults from previous years. If anyone would
like to aid us, we are begging for 3 more pup enclosures.

Our campaign to see that animals adopted from shelters are spayed/neutered
got a great kick-off, and super response from the media. WTVA has indicated
that they will begin a series, or at least have regular contact with
regional shelters to aid with promoting adoption, and other issues. I will
be giving them our PSA on adoption. If any of you do not know about our
adoption PSA please contact jen@idausa.org to ask for info on how you may
aid.

We are of course working cruelty cases, and keeping up with our other
campaigns.

Preparing our animal friends for the on-slaught of bloodthirsty parasites is
a big part of our care at this time. Ticks are relentless.
Year-before-last I bought Prevent-a-tick collars for our dogs. They worked
great. Last year I was only able to get them for the dogs in Div. I of the
sanctuary, and they, and products you put on their back were not as
effective as traditional dipping. I just bought collars for Div. I and we
are appraising their effectiveness. If they aid, we will be asking for help
to purchase more. We are also getting bids for professional control.

Robin is in the process of stunting the growth of the grass around our
fencing. The fences eat up our weed eater. The lawns already require
twice-a-week mowing. A young neighbors boy asked for a summer job. We
really can't afford to hire anyone. I will probably pay him to hit one of
our lawns a few times. I keep pocket short most of the time.

James Townsend kept our grounds beautifully last year. This year we do not
have the $2,500.00 in our budget to hire him for the grass season. I'll
work on it.

We are preparing to put in a septic tank for our Canine Care Center.

This week we have the pleasure of a visit from Margo. For those of you who
may not know her, she is Dr. Katz's right hand with all of us regional
representatives. She is here to update our computer registries. Yeah! She
will entire in most of our backdated information, take digital pictures of
our animal family, and alas - our web site will be updated from the home
office. This is thrilling. With her project completed the upkeep of
records will be a snap. Heather Ryan has offered to aid with maintaining
our web photos.

WWLA will soon be on us. We will hold a P&G boycott event here.

The 7 Ripley pups I rescued April 2 are recovering from malnutrition, and
mange. They are so cute. We have two other pup families that are almost
ready for adoption as well.
Sunday Ginger got her very own family. She was with us over two years.
Also, Jack, the new Cocker we rescued went home as the darling of two adult
sisters, pretending to have aided their mother with "the dog of her choice".
Truth is, Mom wanted Nicky, a smaller little quite angel.

I am going to get Margo up now, and we will go back to Doc's for pup shots,
and will pick up photos of Project Hope that I promised Jennifer Forrest I
would send. Jennifer works for us from Canada. She is exploring the
possibilities of getting us an Americore crew to come work on a fall
project, and possibly one next spring. This is totally exciting. Best
friends has offered to let us look at their sanctuary blue prints in case
they will help us with our growth.

Life is Grand!

Talk with you next week, Doll