Introductions

We live on a small mountain just outside of Little Rock. It was established by local Italians, and 'Little Italy' is just down the road. Wye is well known for it's annual daffodil festival each spring, where a 7-acre field of daffodils is open to visitors for photo ops. Our neighbors are keeping tradition by growing grapes and making wine and jams. (We are lucky beneficiaries of this).

In 2007 we decided to start a wild mustang sanctuary. It's called Wing Spur Wild Horses, Inc. Around 37,000 wild horses and burros are on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) territories throughout ten western states. Their population exceeds land capacity by over 10,000 head. The BLM has a wild horse adoption program that places mustangs on reserves. Excy, my husband, adopted two mustangs in Colorado, and two years later a contact from BLM asked if we could rescue more that were then slated to a killer-buyer. We only have 38 open acres across the road, so we fenced it, put in a pond, and drove to Illinois to adopt two families that are now banded together as one herd. Three babies have been born over the years. The 'wild ones' are curious and a few will come up to visitors to check them out, but are skittish enough that a sharp noise or sudden movement can send them thundering across the hills, which is a beautiful sight to see. We prefer to keep them wild and not tamed -- to just let them 'be.' Watching them running is to witness a vestige of the true American West in action.

The Sanctuary is also home to a family of beaver who have built an awesome lodge on the bank of the pond, geese, heron, and all the attendant wildlife that call this part of the country 'home.' Once or twice a year we hold a picnic to help raise costs for covering feed and vet bills for the horses.