dear friends

i want to thank everyone for all of the wonderful gifts that have crossed my desk this xmas...popcorn, bath stuff, tshirts with funny dogs, very softy sox, books, movies, m&m's and of course the bottles of baileys (there is enough for the volunteers and me to last until spring!) i want to thank folks for the donations to the saints crippled crew that allows us to keep going and do what we do.

winter is difficult here...the cold and the ice make hard work brutal...today i was gasping and coughing just carrying hay and water thru the snow. but at the end of the day...each building is warm, each bed is clean and dry, each food and water bowl is full, each animal has the meds he or she needs to live here comfortably.

i don't even know how many animals we have helped this year, but more than last year and more than the year before that..each year we grow and grow because we have such caring friends.

i can't wait for the snow to go and spring to again make things easier but i am so grateful that we can survive comfortably even being snowed in.

i don't know if i will get to see my family tomorrow, i think with this snow i probably won't...it will be the very first xmas that i may have to spend the day without them alone. i haven't called them yet, i don't want to mess up their day but somehow i hope i can tell them, that it is really ok.

i am so blessed in this place of hard work, worry and challenge, i have my family, i have many, many, caring friends (some i have met and some i have not), and i have the volunteers and the animals surrounding me in this circle of caring and giving and sharing...it is quite a miracle.

merry christmas and thank you.

c