Hope through Horses

Luna gazes over the valley with a 360-degree view span as she stands near a sandy old pick-up truck. Bo and Skyler run by, hurrying to lay in the shade while Luna watches over the valley. The sun doesn’t seem to bother her. 

Her hooves rise up as she rolls her body back and forth, covering her coat in glimmering sand and golden specks of mica. She kicks up dust. Luna struts on a three-acre ranch nestled between an estuary and the Pacific where a ranch owner helps Luna learn to trust again.  

Izzy, a blind horse, and Luna wait for their breakfast at sunrise at Tina Jo’s Promise, a horse rescue ranch located in Baja California.

Dawn Stephens, a California native, grew up caring for horses on her parents’ ranch. She didn’t realize she’d go 40 years without having them in her life, as she pursued a career in Sport Psychology.  

Now she dedicates her life to helping horses like Luna live a better life on her ranch in Baja California. 

Luna, the tan colored mare with inquisitive eyes, stands at the corner of the wooden fence to watch the sunrise with its purplish hues rising over the edge of the mountain. She seems to watch the sun’s brilliant colors spill into the sky with the same spellbound awareness humans do. 

Life wasn’t always this way for Luna.  

Over a year ago Stephens got a call to rescue Luna from Southern Baja. She was wild, pregnant, and covered in thick dry mud. Luna trusted no one. She was accidentally bred by a beautiful stallion, and deemed worthless by her owner. Luna was fated to be sold for meat after her baby was weaned. 

During her rescue Stephens fed pregnant Luna carrots through a fence to slowly gain her trust. It took hours to get Luna into the trailer to take her to her new home at Tina Jo’s Promise. 

In the Beginning 

Dawn and her wife, Tina Jo Stephens, started their rescue with a horse they named “Lover Boy” who they found tied up on the side of the road. He was skin and bones, and covered in scars.  Together they rescued a few more horses, including a mare they tried to save that would change their lives forever. 

She came from the mountains, and was dying of complications from an old gunshot wound. Tina Jo comforted the horse in her final moments promising her that her life wouldn’t go in vain, that they’d continue to help horses in her memory. They named her Promise, leading to what would become Tina Jo’s Promise. 

The Stephens’ initial goal was to start a horse hospital, but they couldn’t get it off the ground. So they kept it as a horse rescue ranch to bring food, shelter, and love into the lives of traumatized horses.

Dawn Stephens looks over a horse bite wound on Atticus who suffered severe abuse before coming to her ranch at Tina Jo’s Promise. “Atticus has my heart,” she said.

They tried equine therapy for kids with physical and psychological disabilities, and for children from orphanages and impoverished homes. Dawn recalls a moment when Jem, a giant spotted white horse, gently leaned his head down to comfort a child survivor of abuse during a session, as if to say “I’m here to comfort you.”

The children with physical handicaps were able to sit up on the horses, giving life to muscles they otherwise wouldn’t use. Dawn watched one child with a brain injury, who couldn’t walk or sit up-right, be able to do so on his own after only his third session. His parents cried in astonishment at their son’s unexpected achievement.

“One year I thought my mission was to rescue horses, but it turned out my mission was to rescue horses to rescue kids.”

— Dawn Stephens

The opportunity to continue the equine therapy classes came to an end after a year due to funding and location changes, but she didn’t give up hope.  

“It broke my heart though,” she said. “I had fallen in love with these kids and the good that we could do.”

New visions 

Her strong sense of giving keeps her motivated despite dreams that may have eluded her. 

“We looked at what we can do,” Dawn said. 

Nathaniel Stephens, age 8, learns from his mom Dawn Stephens how to properly care for the horses at the rescue ranch.

The Stephens plan to give teens from local orphanages opportunities they may never otherwise have by starting a trade school on her ranch. Kids will be offered workshops to better prepare them for life beyond the orphanage, like welding and repairing, writing, art, sewing, and photography. Locals and expats can volunteer their expertise teaching, in a full-circle effort to give back to their community.  

“It’s gonna be everything you should have learned being in a family, so they’re on equal footing with people who come out of a traditional family setting. They’ll have people believing in them.”

— Dawn Stephens

She envisions each teen graduating with their own equipment, such as welding masks, tool kits, and sewing machines, so they have a better start into the world on their own. Kids from the orphanage can opt to take basic language courses in English or sign-language to enhance their life skills and opportunities if they choose. 

Sometimes she wonders why they still struggle to get financial support, but the horses and her desire to help kids keep her going.  

It’s why singing to the horses and cleaning their corrals in the early morning brings Dawn some of her life’s greatest joys, when the sun and the moon hang in the sky together. 

It’s where Jem, the giant gentle horse, waits for his breakfast under a pink sunrise sky making room for Dawn as she tidies his stall before the buttercream clouds roll in. A place where she has helped horses learn to trust again. “I just have one of those hearts,” she said. “I have dedicated my life to them.” 

How you can help

It costs $7500 per year just to feed the horses. To help Dawn help horses and kids who deserve a better future, please consider donating to Tina Jo’s Promise by sponsoring a horse to help pay for hay, equipment, and other projects on the horse rescue ranch at http://tinajospromise.org/save-a-life/.  Every donation - even a little - helps at Tina Jo’s Promise. Please donate what you can.

CLICK THROUGH THE PHOTO GALLERY DIRECTLY BELOW TO SEE 'A DAY IN THE LIFE AT TINA JO'S PROMISE'.

Dawn cleans Dusty’s corral at Tina Jo’s Promise. Dusty was found underfed and beaten-down-in-spirit when he was released by his drunken owner in Baja.

Izzy, a blind horse, and Luna wait for their breakfast at sunrise at Tina Jo’s Promise, a horse rescue ranch located in Baja California.

Bo, a rescue dog that works on the ranch, helps keep the horses safe.

Dawn Stephens with Tina Jo’s Promise tends to the goats and horses in the early morning her ranch where it costs $650 per month to her 10 horses and over a dozen goats.

Nathaniel Stephens, age 8, learns from his mom Dawn Stephens how to properly care for the horses at the rescue ranch.

Sergio, Dawn’s right-hand man, cares for Valentina, once an Escaramuza dancing horse whose hooves were overgrown and where she was ridden too young causing damage to her spine.

Luna was rescued when she was pregnant by Tina Jo’s Promise from southern Baja before being sold for meat. Now she is learning to trust humans again.

Grayson and Annabelle the mule amongst their herd of 10 horses at Tina Jo’s Promise.

Sergio trains Corona in the round pen at Tina Jo’s Promise.

Sergio works with Dusty in the round pen at Tina Jo’s Promise.

Luna learns to trust humans at her new home at Tina Jo’s Promise.

Dawn Stephens looks over the wounds of one of her rescue horses named Atticus who suffered severe abuse before coming to her ranch at Tina Jo’s Promise. “Atticus has my heart,” she said.

Zorro, Scout, Grayson, and Annabelle wait for breakfast at Tina Jo’s Promise.

Luna watches as Dawn Stephens cleans the corral and sings to the horses at sunrise.

Tina Jo Stephens with Canela, one of their earlier rescue horses at Tina Jo’s Promise.

'Little pilot, big ships': Skill, experience guide harbor pilot as she navigates Tampa Bay

It’s one day after a full moon. The sea sparkles as a harbor pilot boat from Port Tampa Bay takes a 45-minute ride into the Gulf of Mexico at 3 a.m.

The pilot works an immensely important job, guiding huge ships under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, up Tampa Bay, past Davis Islands, and through Seddon Channel -- this day in the dark with only the moon to light the way while most of Tampa sleeps.

It's a job that Pilot Carolyn Kurtz works with grace and a demeanor that perhaps only a woman can, a guardian of international ships coming into Tampa’s downtown.

Kurtz is the first and only female harbor pilot working in Tampa waters; she's an expert at navigating the massive loads of cargo past other marine traffic, lighthouses, tiny islands, and sea creatures -- all dependent on the tide and the weather.

On this clear night in June with an 83 Degrees Media journalist tagging along, the harbor pilot boat pulls right up alongside an 857-foot Chinese shipping container, longer than Tampa’s tallest building by almost 300 feet.

Read more about Carolyn Kurtz, Florida’s first female harbor pilot at 83 Degrees Media.

Carolyn Kurtz is among the first 10 female harbor pilots in the U.S. Only two are working in Florida.

A Chinese container ship guided by Harbor Pilot Carolyn Kurtz glides under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge with a 30-foot clearance.

A view of a portion of the container ship docked by Harbor Pilot Carolyn Kurtz of Tampa.

La Pura Vida

La Pura Vida

I left Costa Rica’s largest capital heading for the countryside, to get a taste for the real ‘La Pura Vida’, a Costa Rican saying for the easy-way-of-life. Costa Rica is the size of West Virginia, with 11 volcanoes, and a coast on either side, the Pacific and Caribbean Sea.

Leaving the city, we drove through long windy roads, encased by tall green mountains. We were greeted by an artist when we arrived in, the off-the-beaten path, less touristy town called Aquas Zarcas, a couple hours north of the countries’ capital, near hot springs.

A day after arriving we hiked into the jungle to a waterfall, passing by exotic flora, and fauna. In our short excursion into Costa Rica’s wilderness, we saw an owl, ants that carry leaves, and just under a dozen large blue morpho butterflies, with their nearly six inch wide iridescent wings. 

I’ve longed to see a sloth, and of course, the sloth was the hardest to see. It took work to find him.

It wasn’t until we arrived back to our quiet tree-house with artwork dangling from the trees, glittered circles and candles, dotting the pathway to our doorway. 

My husband and I spent a long time looking for sloths before heading out to lunch. A surprisingly painful affair, with our neck’s crooked back as we peered upwards. Sloths really blend in with nature, making it hard to find them. 

Then our first sloth appeared, right outside the artist’s house nestled in the very tall trees above us.

The sloth hung there, grasping to the branch ever-seemingly so gently, its fur the same color as the bark. He groomed, and scratched, swaying with the wind. 

I laid down on a towel in a soft patch of grass to get a better view of him, and to relieve my neck pain from watching him on the branches that reached up to the sky. I got a glimpse of the sloths perspective as we both faced up towards the sky. Watching him as he swayed way high up on the branch with a good breeze. Wind chimes echoed nearby, and that moment easily became one of the holiest moments of my life.

With this quiet experience, I was beginning to grasp the true meaning of Costa Rica’s, ‘La Pura Vida’, the pure life. 

Enigmatic Cuba

Enigmatic Cuba fascinated me with its many layers of history. What many Cubans lack in technology and material items, they make up for in with a rich and resilient human connection, perhaps a side-effect of a long and adverse history. 

We mainly hear stories of the Cubans who come over on home-made rafts seeking refuge, but we rarely hear stories of the Cubans who stay on the island, who simply live there. There are 11 million of them. 

"In no other culture that I can think of, is everyone equal and poor, yet lively, and colorful; where people make music in the streets," a fellow traveler said before tucking herself into bed in an old colonial house built in 1893, in downtown Santiago de Cuba down a beautiful cobblestoned street.

If only those walls could speak.

Into the Fog

Jerry: Why can’t I go? They are trying to kill me here.

Joye: Nobody is trying to kill you. The VA says you need to be here. (Something she tells her husband, because explaining the truth is hard for him to comprehend).

Jerry began showing signs of dementia eight years ago, but the symptoms increased. Symptoms like shuffling of the feet, reminiscing memories, and hallucinations, like the time he thought fireworks outside were enemies from the war.

Jerry has Lewy Body Dementia, a disease that shares symptoms of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, effecting cognitive ability, sleep, and behaviors, according to the Lewy Body Dementia Association.

Now he has his own way of understanding dementia, which he calls ‘the hair in the head.’

Joye: Do you know what’s wrong with you honey?

Jerry: Oh the stuff in my head? Yea, they can’t get it out….I mean you could rub my head, and you don’t feel anything, but there’s something going on up there...

Joye: But there’s no known cure for it, is there? 

Joye, a retired Director of Nursing, met Jerry at a poolside party 26 years ago. She recalls a wonderful relationship, and describes him as a warm loving, gentle soul, which hasn't changed other than the disease progressing.

Joye had promised her husband that she’d never put him away in old age, but things changed. He began flailing from dreams, accidentally hurting her in the night. Then he would get up in the night unsupervised. Soon after she had a stroke.

So she checked her husband into the memory care unit at Brookdale Citrus Senior Living Solutions in Lecanto.

“It truly has made a difference for me,” Joye said. “As a caregiver, you need to remember to take time for yourself. The stress is gone. It really has been a help having him here.”

Joye Rush gives her friend a deep hug during an Alzheimer's support group at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church in Inverness, Fla. "The reason I go to the meetings is to help, because they were such a help to me...It’s okay to ask for help,” Rush said.

Jerry: The best thing I’ve got in my life is my wife. 

Joye: You got me and I come all the time.

Jerry: You know I was never was a cry boy. Just sometimes I get something...(he starts to tear up again).

His mind goes back to life on the battle ship, then he's called to dinner. He waves goodbye, as she carries out the dogs that he calls “the kids”. Tomorrow she plans to come back to see him.

Joye Rush sits with her husband Jerry, and their two dogs that he calls the kids during a visit to his room on the Memory Care Unit at Brookdale Citrus Senior Living Solutions. “Over the past few years, I’ve watched my close husband - my partner - dying,” Joye said. “That’s what the disease is. It’s death...You watch your partner leaving you...You don’t lose your spouse when they pass on, you lose them gradually before that, but God love them they don’t realize that.”

Africa's Eden

I had my head buried in a book about a female traveler, lost in her words and her story. I look up, and remember I’m in Africa.

The full moon glows low in the sky the morning of our safari, just above the Ngorongoro rift. Roosters crow, crickets chime, and clouds grew as the moon rests on the edge of the crater’s rift. Birds chirp, and indigenous people’s goats bleat. 

I had faint dreams of visiting Africa for a safari, but never thought it would come true until this summer.

My husband and I chose Ngorongoro Crater – the world’s largest inactive volcanic caldera, nestled between Tanzania’s national parks, only a few hours drive from Mount Kilimanjaro. The wildlife is said to be more calm here than in the nearby Serengeti. Perhaps because no humans are allowed overnight.

We venture into earth’s deep crevice, a sort of eden, where only wildlife live. Zebras, giraffe, elephants, and lions graced us with their beauty. Flamingos, wildebeest, buffalo, baboons, jackal, warthogs, ostrich, hippos, gazelle, and waterbucks appeared too. They were equally mesmerizing – something of a waking dream in natures’ own paradise.

© Amber Sigman Photography