Giving Tuesday 2023 – The Day is Here!

“The heart of Man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” ~ Proverbs 16:9

IT’S GIVING TUESDAY!

We want to thank everyone for following us over the past week as we shared our hearts, our moments of triumph and struggles at the ranch in 2023. We hope that, if nothing else, you will continue to follow our progress, celebrate our successes, and pray for the Lord to keep our hearts sensitive to His leading, so that we may be able to minister to as many hurting children and families as possible in 2024.

In this final post for #GivingTuesday2023, we’d like to share what we hope to be able to accomplish in the upcoming months, and ways you can get involved, if you’re interested!

1. As we mentioned briefly in a previous post, we were recently awarded a grant through the Raymus foundation for the 3rd and 4th phases of our electrical project! When this project is complete, we will have electrical service run to the entire ranch, including for the paddocks, round pen, lane, future tack room, future hay cover, and the arena, which includes lights! In phase 1 and 2 of the project, the electrical service was run from the new panel at the road to lights at the entrance, the garden (for a future greenhouse and flood lights that now illuminate the entire garden area), chicken yard, future O2 compost system and the sub-panel all the electrical will branch off from located centrally in the lane. Because these phases can only be tackled when our session season is closed (open trenches with kids and horses don’t make a safe combination), the clock is now ticking for us to complete our final two phases before the deadline in February. If you, or someone you know, would like to help tackle the trenching, we’ll begin in the next few weeks! (Don’t worry, the trencher does the digging. We just clear the trenches for the electricians to lay conduit.)
2. After three years of hard work and struggle, our hay field is finally producing well! We got 4 cuttings of alfalfa this year and expect to be able to get 5 cuttings in 2024. The grass hay our horses eat could not survive in our sandy soil, so we must sell the alfalfa, then turn around and purchase the grass hay for significantly more. (Alfalfa this year averaged $16 a bale. Our grass hay averaged $26 a bale.) Storing both varieties of hay under cover is essential, as even the smallest amount of moisture makes it mold quickly, making it unsuitable for horses. We currently use one of our horse paddocks to store their hay, which inhibits us from adding to our herd to help more children. For that reason, we need to complete the construction of our hay cover sooner than later. It’s our hope that we will be able to secure grant funding for this project in 2024.
3. If you’ve ever come to one of our plant sales, or driven by the ranch from February thru May, you’ve no doubt seen our portable greenhouses all lined up in the garden. We grow thousands of heirloom vegetable plants to sell as a fundraiser for the ranch every spring and these greenhouses are currently the way we go about it. However, they are anything but efficient for the task. They aren’t insulated, making our heaters work non-stop to keep the temperatures high enough to grow tender seedlings. You may have seen photos of our make-shift blanket covers we use to insulate the greenhouses at night to help alleviate the high electric bills. Besides the hassle of assembling and disassembling the greenhouses every season, the covers only last a few years and constantly need to be replaced to the tune of $200+ ea, and there are 4 greenhouses! Even though heavily anchored in the ground, during last year’s storms, the wind gusts ripped the greenhouses out of the ground and knocked over grow tables multiple times. The solution? We have a commercial greenhouse that was gifted to us over a decade ago, but the modifications to the construction of it will cost us funds we don’t currently have. Once we are able to move forward on this project, not only will we be able to eliminate the obstacles the current scenario creates, but we will be able to expand our ability to grow more food for families and our community!  When the doors for the greenhouse project are finally opened, we will need volunteers to help us assemble our beautiful greenhouse!
4. It’s remarkable what our three current horses accomplish every session season. They love what they do, but sadly, our little herd is growing older and slowing down. Age brings on arthritis, among other health concerns, leading us to limit what our sweet angels in horsehair will be asked to do. Simply put, we need to increase our herd. As the facility continues to come together, we are on the lookout for those precious horses who love and want to connect with children. We also want to get back to our goal of rescuing horses in need, to rehabilitate, and if they are able, pair with the hurting children who come to the ranch. We pray for the funding to make this a reality, for the horses who need help, and the kiddos that will be helped by them.
5. We’ve said it before, everything we do at the ranch relies on prayer, funding, and volunteers. There is a LONG list of projects, many of them that require no extra funding, but can’t happen until we have the volunteers to make them a reality. Like so many things, there is a snowball effect when one thing gets completed that makes another thing possible that was previously hung up waiting for the first thing to be in place! If you’re thinking of getting involved at the ranch as a volunteer, we’d love to invite you to join us. Reach out and let us know your interests and availability, or just show up on one of our open volunteer workdays (Saturdays from 9am-12pm) when we post them on Facebook!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this #givingtuesday adventure as much as we have!  May the Lord continue to lead and guide us into 2024 in whatever ways most glorifies Him and brings His love and hope to the hurting around us. Amen and Amen!!!