It's always good when something bad can turn into something good. My daughter had to do community service for the Town of Castle Rock courts.

The court supplied a list of locations in the Castle Rock area where community service could be performed. That is how we found out about Epona Project, just five miles south from where we live.

Have you ever been some place peaceful and you felt like you were miles from home, but just down the road? That is Epona Project.

The community service preformed there consists of mucking stalls, filling water bins, grooming horses, walking horses, and riding horses. I decided to do community service along with my daughter.

I was surprised what I found. The stress that I endured during my 8-10 hours of work was gone; the pain in my shoulders and arms was gone every time I went there. Even mucking stalls was relaxing. Though the best benefit of the volunteer work done at Epona Project is the bonding you get to do with the horses.

We found ourselves bonding with an 18 month old colt, Lance that was sick and a 2 year old colt, Calypso that was shy of humans. After the first week Calypso was no longer shy of humans and Lance had gotten worse.

My daughter did research on the internet and posted questions on bulletin boards since the Vet who checked on Lance said if he didn't get better in a week that Lance would have to be put down.

We found out what Lance had and what we needed to do. With the help of the great folks at Epona Project and our daily care for Lance he fully recovered. Little did the horses know that they were also healing us as well.

Epona Project is always looking for volunteers. Their biggest need is always having enough hay and feed for the horses. If only one project can be selected it would be to have Calypso gelded.

When he was purchased at the slaughter auction, his papers indicated that he already was a gelding and it turned out he wasn't.

That might explain why he was shy of humans.