After over two years of dating, Ray finally made it "official" last Valentine's Day (2008). He gave me a beautiful Claddagh ring and we became officially engaged. Still it took us nearly another year to set the date. The date is set! Wedding is happening June 20, 2009. Our dreams are coming true in more ways than one. We not only will marry our best friend and spend the rest of our lives together. We will start our dream of saving senior Eskies together. Walnut Hill Farm American Eskimo Dog Sanctuary will become a full time operation.
We already have our share of senior and unadoptable Eskies in tow. Any rescue that comes to us has a forever place here if he/she does not find another forever home. So we do not start out "empty" by any means. Our household if already full of furry white faces in addition to the ones we have up for adoption. Our dogs share our home and our lives, yes, all of them. But having the senior sanctuary up and running will give us more space. We will be able to provide a special place for just the seniors to lounge and relax without having to put up with pesky young whippersnappers intruding in their naps.
And most importantly, we will have the room to expand, to grow, and to take in even more senior and adoptable Eskies in need. Our plan is to continue rescuing/adopting on a smaller scale. We will take in adoptable Eskies with the help of our great foster/volunteer/honorary daughters, Tracy in Illinois, and Marketta in Kentucky. Ray will handle the majority of the "senior" operation, and I will take care of the rescue side. Not that they really can be divided at all. But with my health issues and physical constraints, I need to focus more on mini's and toys and refer the standards elsewhere.
So those are the plans, and the wedding ones are growing and blossoming. I am excited to be a "bride" again at 64. Ray will be a very handsome groom at 65 in his Volunteer Firefighter Captain uniform. (Over 35 years of service at the Moecherville VFD, Aurora, IL) And I'll share more of the wedding plans here with everyone as time goes on.
For now, I'm just hoping I'm getting this blogging thing right. Have to check with Grandson Joel who is my chief consultant in all things cyber posting for now. Thanks Joel!
Okay, I promised the story of how we met next. I started rescuing Eskies around 2000. Ray had been rescuing since 1998 or 99. No wait, that's not right. Anyone who rescues knows the odds are good that you've been rescuing all your life.
And that's true of us too. We just didn't know we were "rescuing". Ray grew up on a small farm outside Cattaraugus, NY. They always had dogs including those that just showed up and stayed. Ray likes to tell how his mom always had a hot meal for anyone in need that came by human or canine. His dad was a local mechanic who could fix anything so he was very well known. Ray is just like him.
I grew up in the city of Chicago back when it was safe to play on the street corner after dark. I wasn't allowed "pets" except a fish or parakeet. But I could have all the neighborhood cats I could feed. So our yard became a sanctuary of it's own for stray kitties looking for a meal. And of course the strays got tamed and stayed to teach me lots of lessons about trust and giving.
Okay, okay, I'm wandering and you want romance. Bear with me a bit longer.
Fast forward to circa 2000.
I have my first Eskie (a rescue and another story for later) and so does Ray. I had just discovered "groups" online. And a few Eskie friends recommended some good groups to join. Ray was already on them.
Over the next five years, we came to know each other as caring Eskie owners through our posts to the group. Occasionally we'd send a private email to each other about some question or topic just as we did to many other cyber friends. Mainly we came to know each other as reliable, friendly, eskie people, and most of all friends.
Not until fall of 2005 did we actually meet in person. I had been watching an Eskie in need in Bowling Green, KY. So had Ray. He knew I was in the general area of Kentucky (Southern Indiana) so he asked if I could do anything for the Eskie girl. I was getting ready to head South for the winter. I was still a real "snowbird" then. Ray asked if I could help pull the Eskie and meet him with her. He would take her in and help her.
Of course I would help, that's what we do. During the course of setting up our meeting, we discovered that we had several mutual rescue connections that each didn't know about the other. That gave us a bit more to chat about.
We finally had the transport all set up and agreed to meet the day after Thanksgiving at a Cracker Barrel halfway between the two of us.
During the course of the emails sent working out the details, Ray asked if I'd like to have lunch with him. Normally, I'd balk at the idea of having lunch with a man, especially a semi-strange online man. (I was divorced over 8 years then, and very happily single and definitely NOT looking.) But, we were friends, and I felt I already knew him. It wasn't a "date", and I knew we had a lot in common. So I said, what the heck, sure, I'd love to have lunch with him at the transfer spot.
Well we met, walked the Eskies (he had old blind Charlie along for company), and let them get to know each other. With the Eskies safely crated in the van (it was a cool autumn day), we headed in to Cracker Barrel and that was all she wrote.
We had so much to talk about we never stopped. For over three hours we monopolized the waitress' table just gabbing and sharing thoughts and ideas. Mostly we talked about Eskies and rescue but a little bit about life and everything else.
Was it love a first sight, not exactly. Love and becoming best friends very quickly at lunch, maybe. But that was the start of a beautiful long distance relationship, or maybe just the advancement of something that was destined to happen all along.
Hello Everyone,
I'm new to "blogging" but certainly not new to gabbing. A lot of you out there already know me as Snowbird/Louise. I'm the other half of the team of Snowbird Louise and Cap'n Ray. We rescue American Eskimo Dogs and are loyal members of Heart Bandits American Eskimo Rescue, Inc. www.heartbandits.com .
We currently have two (sorta three) Heart Bandits chapters covering Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky. We have been saving Eskies as "Illinois Heart Bandits" and "Snowbird Eskie Rescue" for quite some time. But our new "official" name is Walnut Hill Farm American Eskimo Dog Sanctuary. For the last couple of years we have been slowly working on turning our 40 acre farm into a sanctuary for senior Eskies who have been lost, or abandoned because they got old, or left behind by the death/illness of an owner. However they became homeless, their story is a sad one. Without our intervention they would not even be put up for adoption at the shelters. Typically a senior dog is considered "unadoptable" and sent to the short line for euthanasia.
Our seniors come to us to spend their golden years in security and comfort. Eskies are a long-lived breed so that may be many more happy years for them even at 15 or 16 yrs.
Caring for the seniors, annual vet care, monthly flea and heartworm preventatives, special food, vitamins, all add up. All of our work is voluntary, but our funds are limited. That is why the "ChipIn" box is on the blog page. Though we have unlimited love to give them, it takes money to pay the bills. If you can spare just a little, it all adds up. So enough of that for now. See the next post to hear how Ray and I met, fell in love, and are planning a wedding in June. Eskiehugs, SnowbirdLouise
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