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Palisade woman's horse hobby helps her give back
PALISADE, Neb. -- Because this is what her daughters would want to do, Lori Britton of rural Palisade wants to give to people through her herd of horses.
Lori has a herd of horses, ponies and miniature horses, several of the minis she has taken to visit residents of the nursing home in Wauneta. They enjoyed participating in the parade during Wauneta's Harvest Fest celebration. She wants to start a program for veterans.
She knows there is truth in Winston Churchill's saying, "There is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man." Lori says, "It's so rewarding to see veterans working with the horses. It gives them a natural high."
Lori said that as her daughters grew up, they always had friends over. "They wanted to teach kids about horses, and to love them like they did," Lori said. "The girls wanted to be veterinarians and cowgirls, just like I did as I grew up."
"It gave me such a warm feeling to know they wanted to give to others," Lori said.
Lori lost her daughters in a car accident in Colorado in July 2005. Quelyn (pronounced Kaylyn) was 10 years old; Loryn (pronounced Lauren) was 8. "They're God's angels now," Lori said.
"I can't give to my daughters physically anymore, so I do through my prayers," Lori said. "I give to other people as the girls would do. If they were here, I know this is what they would be doing."
The owners of the place that Lori rented in Colorado sold it, so just before winter last year, she and her horses moved from Colorado to a farmstead south of Palisade.
At first she had help from friends, but when the friends moved, Lori found herself alone with big and little horses and a property that needed a lot of attention.
"I've always had a long row to hoe," Lori said. Just after she moved in last year, a wind storm ripped through the farmstead, destroying two vinyl sheds she had erected for storage.
Through the spring and summer, she worked on the place; the owner put a new roof on the house and installed a new furnace.
Then on Aug. 7, the wind hit again, this time doing much more damage and causing Lori to think this one was probably a tornado. It ripped trees out, it yanked branches out of those left standing. It blew out the south wall of the chicken coop-turned-rabbit hutch and knocked its other walls off the concrete foundation. It tore off part of the granary roof.
The wind moved a car trailer loaded with two big bales of hay, an enclosed trailer full of tools and a four-horse stock trailer across the farmyard. "These are not light trailers," Lori said.
The wind rolled new shingles "into Tootsie Rolls," she said. It damaged siding and broke out windows on the west side of the house.
It snapped fence posts off at the ground or uprooted them, and twisted and tangled the wires. It laid down or curled up fence panels.
It flung water tanks across the corral, bending them into fortune cookie shapes.
Then it rained.
"Sitting inside the house," Lori said, "it scared me to think what the horses and the bunnies were going through."
The farmstead definitely looked like a tornado had roared through, but the storm was the hardest on the horses. "Everything was underwater," Lori said. "The poor minis were up to their hocks in puddles and ponds. I was always doctoring puncture wounds, after they ran into splintered tree branches."
Lori rebuilt her fences temporarily, and she started piling up branches. She soon realized she would need help in her clean-up process. She offered firewood to those who would help trim trees. Parishioners from the Hamlet church came to help reinforce the walls on the rabbit hutch and to help gathering up broken trees.
And, on top of all the storm damage that still needs to be addressed three months later, Lori herself now needs to heal, from injuries she incurred in a pickup roll-over accident this fall caused by a run-in with a herd of deer.
The best part about helping at Lori's is being able to mess around with the horses. "All of the minis are rescues," Lori said. "None of them has a bite-and-kick attitude. They are what keeps me going, and I want to share this amazing feeling with others."
There are several minis that Lori calls "pocket pets," because they are tiny and friendly and follow your back pocket.
She would like to start a "Sponsor-a-Horse" program, what she calls "the next best thing to owning." She invites veterans, " to let the horses do their unique work to help them heal."
Lori would like to involve kids with her horses -- as her daughters were. The minis can't be ridden, but they are halter-broke and could be taught to go through obstacle courses.
Lori said, "My first goal in all of these programs is for someone to bond with the horses." They're magic, she thinks, agreeing with Winston Churchill.