Tag Archives: Shetland ponies

Looking So Much Better

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I went with my usual buckets at breakfast-time and found no one waiting by the gate so I had to shout, hoping I wasn’t in for a long walk looking for everyone.

The horses and ponies duly appeared – I think they had been sheltering in the valley part of their field.  The weather was closing in fast.

While I waited for the horses and ponies to eat up, I walked around thinking to myself that actually everyone looked spot on. Just right.  A good weight now.

Iacs looks lovely. I am very pleased with him.

 

Kolka again looks nice.

Vitamin is perfect.

Fivla might be a wee bit on the fat side, but she gets nothing in her bucket (a scant scoop of soaked beet plus her vitamins).

I think she knows this.

And Haakon at last is looking just right.

The summer grass is working it’s magic.  30 acres of this mixture of plants plus lots of exercise wandering around looking for it.

So they all chose to stand in the paddock and look miserable about the rain.  Fivla and Vitamin made a bee-line for the little shed and quickly took up occupancy.

They refused to let Kolka inside.  Nope, she had to stay outside in the rain.

A little later on, I took this photo when I was trying to take the dogs out for their walk.  I love Kolka’s face.  She is resigned to the knowledge that she will never get in the shed.  And how the rain poured.  The dogs refused to come with me and took themselves straight back to the house so I gave up and went back inside with them.

Different Sheds

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I felt sorry for Fivla this morning.

After her breakfast, I found her queueing outside the closed door of the little shed, along with Vitamin and Kolka.  I opened it up so they could go in and Vitamin nipped in whippet-like, swiftly followed by Fivla.  Good, I thought, they are inside and can get some shelter from today’s windy/rainy day.

And then Kolka barged in, possibly uninvited, and there was pig-like squealing which I knew came from Fivla as she doesn’t do social pressure.

To give her her due, Fivla stayed inside for a little while but, when I came back with my phone to take photos, I found her back outside again looking very disgruntled.  She just hates crowds.

Buckets collected, washed and tidied, I put all the sheep out into their field.  They lasted a couple of hours, until they saw a cyclist coming down our track and all, to a sheep, ran to the gate in pure terror, asking to be let out so they could cower in their shed.  I have no idea who that poor cyclist was as I watched him turn around and leave.  He was obviously not here to see us.

After letting the sheep out of the field, I found Newt alone in his residence.

The other ponies were long gone down the track looking for non-existent grass to eat.

Newt said he wasn’t moving and no one could make him.

So I told him he couldn’t stay there all day, and it was clearing up nicely now.

(I may have not been telling the truth – it’s been a pig of a day).

Sick Dog Day (again)

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I have a headache, so I will keep this short.

Monster “helped” me to fail to complete my morning quiz (NY Times Connections). In my defence, they were very weird words today – I hadn’t a clue and neither had Monster. He was absolutely no use.

Pepper was also having an off-day.  She woke me up at 4 a.m. being sick and I immediately took her outside. I then spent the remainder of the night hugging her in bed, while she shook and her tummy made alarming noises.  Poor little soul was very unhappy but she managed to sleep a bit while I was now wide awake, which probably explains my headache.

I have just about finished my daily chores, which are kept to the bare minimum because it is summer.  The Shetland ponies who live on the track, however, do have two haynets in the afternoon.

They approve of this routine and come racing up.

It is not easy, though.  The haynets are small-holed, double nets so the ponies have to work very hard for every piece of hay they can prise out.

Today Newt said he couldn’t be bothered with the hay and he is fat so there must be something on the track.  I refuse to worry.

And then suddenly Pepper felt better, raced inside the house for her tea and everything was back to normal.  OH says there are many rabbit corpses lying around (thank you Monster), so I have a feeling they might be the problem.

More sighing *** oh, Pepper ***.  Early night for us both, I think, to get rid of my headache.

Farrier Today

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We had Jay, our farrier, coming today so, after their breakfast, I put everyone where they could be easily caught.  The old horses and ponies were grazing the green grass around the outside of the house while the little Shetland ponies were in their paddock with a haynet to stave off the boredom from waiting.

First up was Haakon and Pepper duly got in the way.

Then clutching my same cob-size headcollar, I caught Fivla….

And lastly Vitamoobag.  Again, note Pepper.  I did ask Jay if he wanted me to put her in the house but he said he didn’t mind. Honest.

The old ones all done (those that needed), and we headed to the  Shetland pony paddock avec le petit chien who dutifully got in the way.  It was a full time job for her.

At least I managed to find a smaller headcollar – one that actually fitted.

Pepper “helped”.  She also recruited a friend – Newt.

Looking at this photo of Albie, I have to ask myself how is Pepper still alive?

I mean, seriously?

But no one kicked her, she didn’t get her nose cut off and she remained unscathed.  A ruddy miracle if you ask me.

And once finished with the horses and ponies, Pepper was ready to annoy another victim!  Poor Monster – he was chased into the house but don’t worry he will get his revenge. He always does.

Grubby Little Boys

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Last year I took down part of the Shetland ponies’ track and put all the plastic fence posts into a big tonne bag in case I needed them again.  The bag was left securely tied to the fence post. Since then, every time I walked past the bag, I thought to myself that those fence posts would be better off in the shed.

It was a big task so I split it up into doable bite-size chunks and every day (if I remembered) I would go down the hill and take up a few fence posts to put in the shed until it was empty.  And then today, I went down with a knife and a pair of strong scissors to cut the tonne bag off the fence post, dragging it up the hill to put in the shed.

The ponies spent their morning staring at the vacated spot from the tonne bag.

They knew something was different but they couldn’t quite put their hoof on it…

So far, the track is working well.

Everyone is happy if revolting. Tiddles will not let me brush him so I that’s his choice.

The farrier is coming on Thursday so I might have another go then when Tiddles can’t argue.

Newt is sporting his sleek summer look.

And Albie is also revolting.

Silver is the perfect little white dream pony.

And Waffle optimistically followed me up and down the hill after my tonne bag.

In other news, Little Herself is back on form.

And note-to-self, I must remember to check my brakes!