Truthful Tuesday: the one where you all supply the content

Aww guys... You all hit me right in the feels yesterday! I got home a little late from work because I had to drop Bette (my car) off to have some maintenance done. There was a package waiting for me with the mail, and it had Hillary's return address on it. I was like, huh? What did Hillary send me? Much to my surprise it was from ALL OF YOU! The most wonderful gifts in honor of Jampy.

The Pony for  a Pony version of Jampy is the cutest! It has his little ears and his itty bitty star, and even his itty bitty white on his back leg. And a gift card for a drawing of him too. Jampy often was overlooked in the art department in favor of Rio which is probably unfair, but you know, heart horse and all... So I am really excited to have some Jampy art for the house. I miss him tons. Recently, with all the changes happening around here, I've missed him a little extra. So the timing of this was kind of perfect.
Not only do I have my new mini Jampy, and a drawing to come soon, but a donation was also made to Pug Rescue of New England which is one of my favorite charities.
All of this was so very kind of all of you, and it really means the world to me. I may have shed a few tears reading the card.... I read a lot about how the internet is horrible place, but over here in the horsey blog world, I feel so much camaraderie. When things go bad, you all rally together and help in the best ways. I feel really honored to be a part of that world.
Thank you, truly, from the bottom of my heart.

Truthful Tuesday

I'm going to try not to make too many sad posts about losing Jampy, so hopefully this is the last sad one, and hopefully it's not too sad. I want to write a good long post about him and his life with me, but I need some time to sit down and do that justice. And I'm currently in a fight with Google Drive trying to get photos uploaded to use for that. Geeze blogger, throw me a bone here!

That time he pretended he was a unicorn...

So today, I just want to say that while I'm still really sad, I also feel a lot of love coming from every corner of my life. I have friends that do the sweetest things.

came home to flowers and homemade chocolate chip cookies last night.

 I've received cards and flowers, more texts than I can count, comments on my last blog post, my Facebook post, my Instagram post... I could go on and on. And it all means so very much to me.

Everyone's kind words. BOTH my vets letting me know I did right by him. All those things I really needed to hear, I heard.

Rio seems to be doing just fine on his own which is a huge relief.

Just us two, learning our new normal

 I'm not sure if he has no idea or if he and Jamp had a heart to heart that last day. But whatever the reason, he's doing just fine. Eating, drinking, pooping, peeing. Snuggling. This:

I'm still trying to decide what to do next. Originally, I figured if he was ok alone, I'd just wait until I found my next horse. But that next horse will (hopefully) be a show horse, and that would mean Rio would be alone often. So now I'm thinking maybe I get a low maintenance pony of some sort. Maybe something my nieces could sit on safely. Still going to have to work all that out. Fortunately, Rio is allowing me time for that. Such a good unicorn he is.

And lastly, I wanted to thank all of you for reaching out and supporting me (and Rio) through this sad time. This community of horse bloggers really is something special. And I'm so glad to be a part of it.

Jampy

I wasn't expecting to write this post. Today around 11:30 am I  say goodbye to Jampy. He is in late stage kidney failure, and there's really nothing more that can help him. My vet calls it a silent killer because you don't really see the signs until it's much too late to reverse them. It's possible, likely even, that this is what contributed to his founder last year. There's really no way to know in retrospect. I suppose it doesn't really matter anymore.

The only nice thing in all of this is that today, he gets to eat whatever he wants. A whole bag of carrots? Sure! 467 peppermints? You got it big guy. Whatever you want. I've groomed him about 75 times since getting the blood work results last night. I think he's probably tired of me by now. I came inside to let my helper have some time alone to say good bye. They've been together almost as long as Jampy and I have. I didn't really know what to do with myself this morning, so here I am, typing this post. It seems wrong somehow to start writing this while he's still out in the barn, alive and, well, not quite well. But alive. In a few hours he'll be gone. Just like that.

I'm not sure how Rio will do alone in the barn. We will have to see. He's been ok before when Jamp was away showing, but it was always a short time, a few days, a week max. Maybe Eros will come home for a bit. Maybe I'll find a rescue pony. I don't know. Those boys are best friends, and I'm sure Rio will feel this is as much as I do.

I want to sit down and write a proper send off to my boy. But I can't do that right now. Right now, I need to go stuff him full of whatever he wants and tell him how much I love him.