So, yesterday, I said I thought I would put the Shetland ponies back on the track again, but only giving them a very small section.

I think they heard me and were waiting, all ready to go.

So I opened the gate and off they went.

To start with they thought this was great.

And then they walked the boundaries, the rather tight boundaries.

It didn’t take very long.

They walked backwards and forwards and then they realised. I am sure I heard words like “is this it?”  I replied that indeed this was it and they should count themselves very lucky that I had even thought they could return after what happened last year (they broke out for two days and resulting in tragedy).

Fivla and Vitamin then said they wanted to join the herd too so I let them into the field.  Fivla sensibly walked down to the track while Vitamin galloped off into the old field, losing everyone and then wondering where a) they were and b) where she went wrong!

I led her back to join the herd on the track system so she could enjoy the general mood of being very unimpressed.

And then I left them all to it, possibly so I couldn’t hear the complaints, and went to town for lunch with a friend.

Funnily enough when I got home, I found all the ponies were standing by their container paddock at 14.30 looking fed up and bored, which is exactly what I wanted.

A calm morning (apparently this is known as a “false spring”, but I’ll take it) so I went, armed with my bucket of electric fence stuff along with wee dug down to the track to sort out the electric fence.

It was in quite a mess. I think all those storms did it no good but I straightened, tightened, sorted adding more wire to varous spots.

I also noticed that very little grass had grown back, which is exactly what I want.  I am thinking I might put the Icelandic horses into the middle too to eat down that grass.

While I was working, I saw my first celandine which made me instantly smile.  My favourite flower (one of many) but this was confirmation that Spring was finally arriving after a very long winter.

On the other side of the wire fence, everyone watched me, getting excited at the thought of returning to the track.

Waffle, desperate to be back on the track, pawed the fence, got stuck and I had to unwiggle his hoof/leg back through the wire, cursing that he was destroying a perfectly good fence.  He did this twice, at me.

No one else did this – just Waffle, though to be fair, he never panics, standing there waiting for me to come and sort out the mess only he created.

So tomorrow I am going to drag the energiser down to the track, put it on max zap, and let the Minions have access to a very small top part of the track and we will see.  Please tell me this is not a big mistake but it is between Waffle’s ability to destroy every fence and my sanity.  They will only be there for 6 hours a day too and go back to the container paddock for their weighed and measured soaked hay.

Newt has a bad habit – when I am busy tipping up the bowls to put food in, he sidles up to the other ponies and kicks them to get everyone away from “his” bowls.

So now the others refuse to eat near him and he is ostracised.  His own fault.

I don’t blame them.  Newt can be quite vicious and accurate with his sharp little hooves.

Later, while out poo-picking, I came across Newt enjoying the sunshine and I tried to explain to him that he was making himself very unpopular in the herd.

And this was proven by the fact that the others wouldn’t let him eat from the one hay net I put out when they went into their paddock for the night.

I watched as Newt mooched around, asking if there was a space for him.  Silver said a very firm no, and so Newt dug deep and tried to work his charm on Tiddles, who is a soft touch.

And, after Tiddles said ok, but you’d better be nice, Newt was allowed to join in and eat the hay.

Meanwhile, Vitamin and Fivla told me they wanted to join the others in the field-of-nothing-to-eat, so I let them in and off they galloped (yes, they can shift when they want to).  Then they spent their afternoon shouting at me that there was no food and could they come back, please.

I had to make up for their ridiculous decision by giving them tons of food.  Hence the many buckets.

I title this “you can never have too many buckets (or handbags)”.

New plan – I am trying to leave everyone outside for longer as it saves on mucking out and it doesn’t get dark these days until after 6 p.m.

Thank you for all your kind words of support and advice.  All hugely appreciated and I am feeling much more like myself today. (and I found MyShetland FB page again)

Anywho, onward ever onward and someone else is in the doghouse……

We were out first thing with the breakfast buckets and Pepper took up her usual role of hoover/vacuum snaffling anything that was dropped.  The horses are used to her doing this and are messy eaters.

Today, I was watching Haakon who had finally finished his bucket and was just having a look around to see if there was anything he’d missed on the ground.  I was busy thinking awww, how sweet, look at them together touching noses when I saw Pepper give Haakon a cheeky nip on his nose!  He was very surprised and I was shocked.  I told her so.  She looked very embarrassed and a bit shifty, wagging her tail hopeful I wasn’t cross.

She was sorry I had seen her and sorry she had got caught.

Pepper knows I will be watching her in future.

“Ooh, look a squirrel!”

(only we don’t have any squirrels up here ….)

Wicked girl.

Yesterday some of you may have seen my flounce off Facebook.  I threw teddy (not my Teddy , but a metaphorical one) out of the cot and deactivated my account for precisely 12 hours when this morning I realised that I couldn’t deactivate my account because I am an Admin on two rather important groups/pages.

I am now feeling very raw about Facebook. I need to be there for my Admin duties but really don’t want to be there, to be criticised by folk who don’t know or want to know the whole picture but are more than happy to make judgements instead.

I am not sure really what to do, if I am perfectly honest.  I think, for the time being, I will just put up my daily blog link, perform my Admin duties and try not to get involved with anything else.  I don’t think I want to put my head above the parapet for a while.  Being roasted like that was horrible and very hurtful.

I hope you understand.  I am feeling very threatened and vulnerable because of it.

And in the process, I seem to have lost my My Shetland Facebook page, dammit!