Dear Friends of First Nature Foundation,

Even though summer doesn’t officially end for almost 2 months, for more practical purposes it’s coming to an end soon, with school resuming in just a couple of weeks here in Florida. And that also makes it feel like the resumption of the business year as lots of folks have been busy vacationing before school is back in session. For those of us whose work is largely outdoors, though, we still have brutal summer heat and humidity for all of August and September, and in recent years, even into and through October. So, we’re only half way through our hot, humid, sweaty, rainy season, and the height of hurricane season is still ahead of us.

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The horses have shade from the sun, but they still become quite sweaty, sticky, and filthy, and need to be rinsed off a couple of times each week unless the rain intervenes, and that we can never be sure of! For a laugh see the photo below of Max and Buster taken 2 minutes after completing their afternoon hose down: they quickly rolled in the dirt immediately after the hosing and were dirtier than before the rinse…but at least the sweat and stickiness had been rinsed off and when they dry the dirt will flake off. While I applaud the meteorologists, their ability to accurately predict thunderstorms is pretty limited at this time of year. It rains when it’s not supposed to, or the reverse! While it’s a slow time for programs this time of the year, work on management of the facility is in high gear as the foliage grows at an accelerated rate due to the daylight and rain levels.