New Beginnings at Century Farms

Chapter 1

I yawned as I woke up to the sound of hungry horses. I looked at my clock and saw that is was 6:00 a.m. It was time for me to get up and feed the horses. My name is Melody Jones, but everybody calls me Mel for short, and I live on Century Farms, a farm that rescues abused horses and helps give them new lives. I quickly got out of bed, put on a long-sleeve shirt, jeans, and a cozy purple fleece. I put my hair in a ponytail and brushed my teeth. I hopped down each stair to make sure my mom would wake up. When I got downstairs, she was at our kitchen table reading the newspaper. "Morning honey," she said. "Good morning," I replied. "We need to go feed the horses, I can hear them whinnying," I said. "Okay, let's go," she said.

We walked outside into the cool, crisp air. We crossed in front of plush, green, grassy fields, that will soon be filled with hopeful horses. We walked into the stable and soon horses were poking their heads over the stall doors, nickering to us for food. "Don't worry guys, we're getting your food," I said to the horses. "You get Pepper, Candy Girl, and Missy's food, and I'll get Tucker, Buddy, and Fiona's food," Mom said. "I'm on it," I said.

Pepper, Candy Girl, and Missy are all rescue horses. Both Pepper and Missy's old owners were starving them and riding them when they didn't have enough food and water, and Candy Girl's old owner would whip her if she did something wrong. She still had scars on her face and back. Candy Girl is a beautiful, shiny bay, Pepper is dappled gray, and Missy is a black and white pinto. They have all been at Century Farms for three years, and have all learned to trust humans again.

I gathered up three flakes of hay, put one one in each horses' hay nets, then put the correct amount and type of feed in their buckets. I then checked their water buckets, and saw they needed to be filled. I filled each of their water buckets, then met up with Mom in the tack room. "How are Buddy, Tucker, and Fiona?" I asked. "They're doing good, except Fiona is still a little spooky when I enter her stall, but she's a lot better than when she first arrived," Mom said. "That's good," I said.

Fiona is a red chestnut quarter horse that only arrived here a few months ago. She doesn't like her face being touched, but otherwise she is a sweetheart. Tucker and Buddy were found together in a small paddock with only little patches of grass and puddles of water. They were abandoned. It took a long time, but eventually with a lot of TLC, we nursed them back to full health, and we are going to start training them to be ridden because they have potential to be great horses to ride. I can't wait to start their training! It's all I've been thinking about for weeks, and we're going to start getting them used to their tack next weekend, which will be in a week cause it's Saturday today.

"We need to finish our chores now," Mom said. So, we cleaned stalls, put fresh stall shavings in all the stalls washed, buckets, and swept the isle. The horses have finished eating, so we put them in the pastures. Buddy and Tucker go together, Pepper, Candy Girl, and Missy go together, and Fiona has her own small pasture. Mom and I went back to the house to start breakfast. We had waffles with strawberries and whipped cream on top.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Okay....okay.....of course we will! Tuesday? Perfect, how about at 4:00? Great. Thank you, have a nice day." Mom set down the phone and wrote something in her planner. "Who was that Mom?" I asked. "Oh, just a call from My boss that she's going to transfer a mistreated horse to our farm on Tuesday," she replied. "Awesome!" I said. "Maybe," she started. "He's been to a bunch of other places, but no one can help him. He's been said to have injured people, and we are his last shot."