Make a Difference Day

The university I go to really got into Make a Difference Day as well, and they encouraged us students to volunteer and stuff today. I ended up spending most of the day doing productive things that didn't really benefit me in any way. This is not very in character for me, I have to confess.

First, I got up very early on a Saturday morning (which I am not in a habit of doing) and worked for someone else at the barn, feeding and cleaning up after the horses. Here is a picture of some of the huge draft horses I fed. Fyi, my head does not reach the top of those fences.

After that, I admit, I did watch a little of the Duck and Vandal football games on TV... :) but after that I went out to my local horse rescue to help out. A few miles out of town is a place called Orphan Acres, where 70+ neglected and abused horses have found a home. I spent several hours there feeding, doing odd jobs, and spending time with the attention-starved horses. There were so many ancient, deformed, and blind horses there, it was both shocking and also amazing that someone still cared enough to take care of those poor animals.

I met another college-aged girl there and her husband who were also volunteering, and she told me that she came there almost every Saturday. I was impressed, because I knew there was no way I was that good and charitable of a person. She had been there for 7 hours that day, doing hard labor that most people would refuse to do even for good pay. It was a very eye-opening experience. Here's a picture of just a few of the horses:

Also, I would like to prove how hard I worked today by the fact that I lost 1.6 lbs. over the course of the day. I most likely gained it all back after eating a very large, and very late dinner. But still. :)

~Princess Ariel