One hundred sixty or so animals reside at Catskill Animal Sanctuary, and sixty of them--horses, cows, pigs--weigh 1,000 pounds or more. Yes, this makes for a costly hay bill: roughly $6,000 per month from October through April. The cost keeps increasing, too, due both to the southern drought (which increased demand for hay from this region, thereby driving up prices), and the rising cost of fuel.

I wonder: will our members come through as they always do?

The scarier question is how to respond to a situation we've never faced. It seems that the foreclosures facing so many Americans aren't limited to suburban houses, city condos, single homes in rural areas. Nope. Farms are facing foreclosure. We're being inundated by requests from people who are losing their farms, and are desperately looking to place their animals. Eighty animals--draft horses, miniature horses, a dozen mules, sheep, exotic hens, pigs, rabbits, and more--are being auctioned to the highest bidder by Burton's Livestock Auction in Vernon, NY tomorrow, January 5, and the "urgent" phone calls don't stop from others looking for a home for their animals now that the humans are losing theirs...

What does one do in this instance? For seven years, we've taken leaps of faith, trusting that in the event of an emergency, our supporters would respond. And they always have. Thanks to them, we've assisted with a dozen large-scale emergency rescues ranging from 23 starving horses to 300 chickens left in crates in the street to drown.

This time, though, the stakes are higher. We don't know what the cap on hay costs will be; we don't know the implications of what feels like a recession for our members. We don't know whether--if we take that leap of faith yet again--we'll be able to find homes for these needy animals as people feel financially squeezed.

These are the times when, despite the wonderful community that is Catskill Animal Sanctuary, I feel very much alone.

We'll weigh the issues and their implications at tomorrow's board meeting; in the meantime, I invite everyone reading this blog to chip in for as many bales of hay as you can afford--either via our website at http://www.casanctuary.org or by mailing a check, payable to Catskill Animal Sanctuary, to 316 Old Stage Road, Saugerties, NY 12477.

Thank you.