Every day, I check out a few sites and blogs that I love to read. This evening, a story showed up on thehorse.com about a man from New Hampshire who decided to take a trek across the country with his horses. He had 2 percherons, bought 2 more for the trip and made his own wagon/trailer that he made to resemble a modern day gypsy wagon. He retired from a nuclear power plant, sold his little farm and has been on the road since July/August. Yesterday, while driving down the road in this camper the horses were hauling, he was hit from behind by an 18 wheeler and 2 of the horses were killed on impact, the other two are fighting for their lives at a local veterinarians office and he is in the hospital. The article said that he does not have life threatening injuries. His blog said that he wanted to see what America had to offer. I'm pretty sure he wasn't expecting this. I was a school bus driver for over 7 years. I had the privilege of knowing the HUGE responsibility that commercial drivers have on our roads. The road that Bob was traveling on was clear and he was not in the middle of it. They don't know why the truck driver hit him but it is definitely the drivers fault. It always is. Sometimes people forget that driving on our roads is a privilege and a huge responsibility. We were taught in our training that it is our job to SEE everything! Period. And everything and anything that happens is our fault. We are trained to know better. What a shame for Bob that this particular truck driver didn't take his job seriously. Here's his blog site if you'd like to see it. For obvious reasons, there are no recent updates. http://www.wagonteamster.com/

Another blog that I read is from a man in Australia or Horsetrailia as his peeps call it. He's also a volunteer firefighter and photographer and has been fighting the fires set in Australia. He's been keeping us updated with pictures and letting us know that he's okay. There was one picture that haunted me all day while I was trying to sleep. It was of a burnt out pasture and fences. Everything in the picture was burnt. Except for a small patch of green grass. And standing in the middle of this patch of grass was a beautiful Clydesdale. All by himself. The picture was not very close up but the horse still had his tail and the wind was blowing his mane. Why? Everything around him was lost. He seemed untouched. It was like God said "No, not him." They don't know if the horses family made it out of the fire as all they found was ashes where the house was but he's still there. They were sending a rescue out to pick him up. Think about it. All the smoke, heat and the sheer terror this animal went through and he's still here. I don't get it.

I found a saying on a blog post that I follow proudly. The Windchill Forum. If anyone wants to laugh and cry all in the same read, I suggest this forum. Just punch it into google and it'll find you. If not, here it is: www.windchillforum.org/ I thought I would post the saying here so that maybe it will help me make sense of the junk that's going on in the world. "Snowflakes are one of natures most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together" Vista M Kelly

We're all in this together!! Let's take care of each other.