Friday afternoon I abandoned my post as house-sitter and went to the beach. OK, I got my family first, then we went.
Living in Maryland, the usual destination is OC, aka., Ocean City, (not Orange County like on TV). We like the small town feel of Chincoteauge in Virginia. Assateague Island across the channel is where the beach is which is a national seashore/refuge so there are no huge hotels or loitering teenagers. Just beach. And wildlife.
The Chincoteague VFD raises money every year by rounding up the wild ponies on Assateague and swimming them across to Chincoteague on the last Wednesday of July. The new colts and fillies are auctioned off, then later that week the adults are swum back.
These babies can go for a lot, usually $1000 - $1800 each. The foals that are too young to leave their mom are auctioned, then returned to the herd. The whole process is fascinating, and they've made Pony penning week a long standing tradition, I'm just baffled this small town's VFD needs such funding. If such numbers are kept, I'm sure they would be high on the list of dollars collected per residents served.
Anyone know?
4 days ago
1 comment:
Wow, that does seem like a lot of money. I bet they don't get to keep it all, but get a big cut for organizing. I imagine fire departments are more expensive to run than we would guess.
So cool you got to see such a unique event.
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