How It All Began

The CHARM Farm came about from a simple question asked at an online horse forum. Paulette and Greg were at coffee one day and were told by several local folk, of several incidents of animal abandonment. Seems that people had been buying acreages and getting themselves a bunch of livestock - horses, lamas, cattle - then leaving back to the city and letting the animals fend for themselves. Often these animals were basically quarantined to their stalls without access to any food or water.

Paulette asked at Equine Exchange if this was a problem anywhere else and whether the members there thought that a Farm Animal Rescue would be a necessary thing anywhere else.

Next thing you know, there were horses on premises. It was the middle of March. Way too cold to be out digging away the extremely thick cover of frozen, 10 year old manure from the barn, but Paulette, Greg and the kids got that out of the way with only minutes to spare before the arrival of Glider, Harem and Mariah.

Before you know it, Amanda, Lara and Sally showed up.

These gentle giants are a picture of elegant beauty. Their sheer size is somewhat intimidating until you realize that all they want from you is a bit of love, affection and attention. It is a darn good thing they are gentle giants though. A single strand of barbed wire, hastily  stretched around some existing posts was all their first paddock was made of. Since they were getting all the love, attention and feed they needed, "the girls" never left their spot on the farm*. To watch them interact with the children gives the impression that these animals are little more than gigantic puppies with absolutely no hate in their hearts.

* On the first night they spent here, having only a few moments with everyone here, they twice escaped the paddock. The initial paddock gate was held closed by a piece of rope and the darling Sally could untie knots. She did so at just around 11:00pm that first night, when Greg was taking a bath. When he laid in the tub , Greg got the eerie feeling that he was being "watched". Sure enough, the girls were standing outside the bathroom window and peeping!

Within 5 minutes, the three naughty girls were back in their paddock. Unassuming (read naive) Greg did not suspect that a horse had untied the gate, rather, he assumed that one of the children had been mucking. Read about that adventure in our here.