I had a long weekend... I worked 3 long days (left house at 8am and got home at 10pm Friday and Saturday and left house at 8am and got home at 8pm on Sunday,... VERY long days) at The Mane Event Horse Exposition in Chilliwack, BC Canada...

During that time, I was pretty much out of touch with the rest of the world... No TV, No internet, so no idea about how very bad the fires had gotten in Southern California over the weekend.

I lived in Orange County and LA County both for a total of 3 yrs back in the 90's... I have some very good friends still in the area and San Diego County as well.

In the early 90's I stood with my family and watched our business burn to the ground... Luckily, it was only the business and not our home and memories and no one was injured, so in time we were able to recover and rebuild...

Today I read the internet and watch the news and I am driven to do SOMETHING, even if seemingly insignificant, to try to help my friends dealing this this h3llish nightmare...

While this isn't much in the scheme of things, it just MIGHT offer real assistance. Today I asked my boss if we could put something up on our website and/or business blog about how people can assist those people who now need our help. The answer was a resounding YES and I think we'll have something in the editorial section of the magazine for the month of December as well (we have already gone to press and are getting ready to hit the stands for November)...

Now I'm just trying to find legitimate Animal Assistance Groups who are set up to accept donations and will be using them to help animals in need from the fires.

We already have Salvation Army and Red Cross information so people can have a place to donate to humans who need assistance.

I know it's not a lot, but maybe, if even only 100 of our readership (which is over 60,000 people) decide to send in $10.00, that would be $1,000.00 worth of assistance.

Instead of just wondering what to do, it feels good to make an honest attempt to do something realisitc and useful.

I can't show up with a trailer load of hay, but perhaps dollars donated can buy that trailer load of hay.... we need to start somewhere and sooner rather then later...

And we need to keep sending our best thoughts to those dealing with the ravishes of the fires and hope that all of our friends and family and their friends and family and so forth, are all kept safe and out of harms path.