Neigh Saver

"Born free, as free as the wind blows
As free as the grass grows
Born free to follow your heart"

I know. The song was about lions. But never-the-less it applies.

Imagine. No fences, no saddles, no one on your back, nothing stuck in your mouth to be used as a steering mechanism. Free as the wind blows. Wild horses.

We have a wonderful monument to them in central Washington. They embody the very essence of freedom and grace and spirit. When I read that some 33,000 of them is considered overpopulation and that the old and unadoptable are rounded up and placed in a holding facility more accurately described as a mud patch, my blood ran cold. I knew that their ultimate fate would be at a slaughter house. Euthanized, they say. How do you accomplish that humanely with thousands of animals?

On the bright side, this has the makings of a great Western! Mrs. T. Boone Pickens has galloped to the fore with a promise to adopt them all, have them sterilized and buy them a home on the range large enough, even, to accommodate the extras that are inevitable from those left to romp on the Bureau of Land Management property. No mud patch here. She's shopping for some one million acres!

She even has plans to form a foundation to help with the project. Now that's giving back to those among us who have no voice and cannot help themselves.

I've never met Mrs. T. Boone Pickens and I certainly don't run in her social circles but I know I'd like her. Other than her wealth, you see, she's just like so many Americans. A well educated "mutt" (as Obama once described himself), having been born to a British father and a Lebanese mother and schooled in England and France. Maybe we're finally on to the great equalizer when it comes to bringing people together. Animals. You see, she's always had a love for the West and wild horses. Commenting on the beauty of them she said, "This is our national heritage and it needs to be preserved." Note the word "our".

And indeed it does.