Therapy farm

I love animals. I've always loved animals, even through intense sneezing from loving on them. That has really transferred over to my kids. As we moved out into the country I noticed how with each animal we got, the kids world seemed to open up more.
A couple of weeks ago an idea sparked. Living on a small farm and being around animals has helped my children so much... why not share the gift? So after much prayer and research we are pursuing a ministry for special needs families. Very small scale, by appointment only and word of mouth.. families with special needs children, geared towards autistic, but not limited to, can come up to experience what it is like to be around "farm" animals. Small and not overwhelming where we don't mind at all if your child has a meltdown or sensory issues... in fact, those are our favorite kids :)
The name of my ministry- Chasing Ducks - a place for special needs families. I came up with it from watching how much joy it gives Daniel to chase the ducks...

So now we come to the horses. I put up a post on craigslist in the farm and garden section about my idea and if anybody had any advice, suggestions, and just anything they would like to share, or any animals they would like to donate or partner with me in anyway. I received a fair number of e-mail from people telling me that i should consider getting miniature horses as they make GREAT therapy animals and they are very non-threatening to small children. *note miniature horses and ponies are not the same thing So after doing research on them i fell in love and in my heart decided that my little special needs farm would have mini horses. A couple of days later i received an e-mail form a woman in a neighboring town. Her and her husband are getting along in years and just had to many animals to handle and had two mini horses that they were looking for a home for. SO... long story short, tomorrow we are going to meet Amy and Dolly and see if they would be a good match for us.. and if all goes well they will start living with us by the weekend!
Whew... it's late and there is lots to do tomorrow. I am going to attempt to get pictures when we visit tomorrow that are not blurry!
And i'll be sure to post more on my therapy farm ideas later :D