What a great weekend!

That was one of the most tiresome yet best weekends ever. I started my day early on Saturday with getting snacks for our big volunteer day at the Sanctuary. We had 52 people helping out with chores and the weather couldn't have been any better. It was great to meet so many new and interesting people and to also hang out with my volunteer friends that I don't get so see that much as they volunteer on other days than I do. We had seven huge projects to accomplish in four hours, but with so many eager people to help we got almost everything accomplished. The chores are all chores that take more than a few people to accomplish and we usually don't have time to get them done during the year. I was helping out with cleaning up the upper barn. With new barn floor/ ceiling, depending in what part of the barn you are, it was time to get ready for Donkey Day and move the hay from one area to the new area. OMG I know I helped out once in hay season and swore to myself never again, but here I was again with 5 other people moving 50 lbs hay bales and stacking them to the ceiling. This is back breaking work and after two hours it was hard to even lift the bales higher than your waist, they just seemed to get heavier with time.Then it was on to moving old equipment out to the dumpster and that was no easy task either. Sweeping and sorting things and just general clean up and organization of the old stalls, that are used for storage, was in order as the last part of our cleanup of the upper barn. The couple that was in our group was amazing, once we finished our task I took them around a tour of the farm and introduced them to their sponsored donkey, thank God Sunshine cooperated and it was like a big reward for them. But instead of heading home, these people decided to do some more back breaking work while moving dirt around our new Welcome Centre. Oh the changes around the DSC are amazing, and visitors will be amazed by all the work we have done and  how we have spent their donations. I arrived home around 6 o'clock and never moved until the next morning, I sure slept well that nights and every bone in my body was aching. Sunday was our first Open Day of the Season. The weather was great and we had many visitors out, some familiar faces, like my two little girls, who came again to look for a donkey to sponsor, I couldn't get over how tall they have gotten over the last year. We will have a great volunteer team for Sundays, as I have recruited three of our newest volunteers to help out on Open Day and they were great. I was stationed around the lane
way for a while and then up at the new barn, and the donkeys seemed to be happy about all the attention they got from visitors.
Note for Joan: Cocoa had a special visitor. A little girl from a school north of Toronto, whose class is sponsoring Cocoa came to visit him and one of the staff member brought Cocoa down to visit with her and she was all excited and got lots of pictures taken with him. She also brushed him and collected his fur for show and tell the next day. She was so happy and amazed how big he was. :)
The primary classes in the school sponsor about seven of our donkeys and the number is growing each year.