The NagTivity Play, And a Happy New Tier!

 Hope you all had a Happy Xmas, and Wishing you a Happy New Tier. I mean Year! Yes as we rush headlong into 2021, we here in Suffolk are in virtual Lockdown again, having been placed in Tier 4 on Boxing Day. For anyone reading this outside of Britain, here is a brief explanation!?!  To combat the plague our government has put us into a Tier system, depending on how bad the plague is locally. At the moment Tier 4 is the worst place to live!!! Essentially it means pubs, restaurants, non essential shops, gyms, cinemas etc are shut. We must not mix with other households indoors. We must not travel out of Tier 4 into other Tiers. We must not stay away from home.  However this does not seem to apply to the 10,000 Londoners who have flocked to The East Coast to spend Xmas in their Holiday Homes! We are sharpening our Pitchforks and preparing flaming torches!!!!!

Somewhat lacking Xmas spirit, I only decided at the last minute to recreate The Nativity Play with our ponies. None of them are trick trained, except Charlie, and he is only beginning his journey into the world of tricks.  What could possibly go wrong?? I had a title....The NAGtivity play. And the cast.....Charlie as Joseph, Daisy as the Virgin Mare-ry (although as she is the only one to have had foals, is the least Virgin like), Lulu in her golden magnificence as The Angel (and the Bar Keeper), the 3 Minis as The Wise Ponies (Mini also had a part as the Town Cryer), and of course The Maligator as a lone Dutch Shepherd. Ok so she is a Mali, but had Dutch Shepherd blood.  Prudence the Bull-Dog desperately wanted a part, so I made her the Director and The Elf and Safety Officer.

Now to film the scenes with a bunch of ponies not trained to perform certain actions (like standing where they are put, holding things, ringing bells etc). I started with Lulu as she at least ground ties. However I was unsure is she would like being dressed up, especially the Angel wings attached to her ears!!! But she was a superstar!

Charlie and Daisy were a challenge!!  Although they live together, they have a strange relationship. They nag each other like an old married couple, but in their field they have Lulu to sort out any squabbles.  Without Lu as a referee, I just kept filming and got some good bits!!  Daisy decided she must be a film star, and acted like a Diva, with more dressing room Riders than Christina Aguilera!

The mini herd were as good as.....almost!! Mini was a star, ringing the Bell briefly as The Town Cryer.  Unfortunately she thought she had done her bit, and as a Wise Pony, ate her gift of Burrs.  Lily has never been dressed up before, and was a little wary of her clothing.....and her gift of Frankies Mints! Coco happily accepted the Costume and was happy to hold (and eat) her gift of Golden Hay. The main problem was stopping them wandering off!!

Both dogs played their parts well, and with the use of a voice changer and a LOT of editing THE NAGTIVITY was made........

https://youtu.be/OvTbrPbw1Yk

And so as we free fall into 2021, we are ready for the snow and The Top Barn Challenge. Happy New Year. x

Life As We Know It!!! And 25 Things

So, nearly the end of April.....and life is still weird!! In fact with 6 ponies to look after every day, life is actually pretty normal for Jo and I.  Except it isn't! 
Everything seems in slow motion.  Its blissfully quiet at the Farm, with a lot less traffic going past on the road. April has given us warm weather, vast blue skies and nature in abundance.  Its almost like everything is in HD.  And we seem to have slowed down too. Not in the sense of getting the basic work done.  In that respect we have got it down quick. But it almost seems we get done and go home.....as if being outdoors for too long is dangerous, or illegal! 

With me being one of these boring people that are supposed to be shielded, everyone is avoiding us.  Its OK to come up.  We are missing you all.  Just treat me as if I have the plague....and don't be offended if I stay 12ft away from you at all times, wearing a bandanna.  We have soap, hand-sanitizer, buckets of bleach and a system for scolding the cups every day.  I have my own towel and will not touch anything anyone may have accidentally picked up.  The ponies would love to see someone else!! As would we!

The Ponies are of course unaware that the World As We Know It has changed. Although they may be missing certain people.  Mini has asked me where Nancy is!!  They could all do with baths!! Any volunteers???

Daisy is in self isolation...of a fashion.  Although fit and well, we are so scared she may get into trouble with the Spring grass, that we have confined her to a Pen within the Hill Field.  The Minis surround her, and she spends a couple of hours each day out with them having a bit of grass, before returning to her pen with a feed full of EMS fighting supplements and 3 soaked hay-nets.

Its a Catch 22 really.  She could do with the exercise right now, and its a brilliant time with the roads so quiet to hack out.  Just fighting with the guilt of What If?  Its ridiculous. I have never even come close to coming off Daisy, and of all the falls I have had, over a lifetime of competing and working with horses, the last time I ended up in A&E was when I was 17! 35 years ago!!!  Ridiculous but there's always Sods Law!!!  Jo had never fallen off Lu, ever, until last week, when a sudden spook n spin unseated her.  Shes Ok, but had a huge bruise and now has protesting back muscles.  Not to mention the fact that before the pesky chest infection in Jan/Feb that floored me, I had high hopes of riding The Gypsy Cobs by now!! 

But anyway....Worst Things Happen At Sea and all that!!  So I have been steadily working on a series of short videos called 25 Things to do With Your Horse on The Ground.  I have just posted Number 9 entitled 'SMILE'.  If you missed them (shame on you 😊), I have covered #1 Hang Out, #2 Lunch Date,
#3 Lunging, #4 Follow Me, #5 Begin Clicker Training, #6 Correct Leading, #7 Ground Tie, and #8 Long Reining.  Still to come is Parking At the Mounting Block, Pole work, Backing, Teaching Pick-Up and more (12 more if my math is correct, which is highly doubtful).  

So check out YouTube UCLYQBYhWqo_WPVdz9MFkCtA.  Please hit the subscribe button. 🙏 I only have 12 subscribers 😩.  It doesn't cost anything to subscribe. But once i get a 1000 subscribers I can monetize the videos and that could pay for next years hay!!!

Yours beggingly
xx

https://youtu.be/nnhrn4XVQOE

Why Does Your Pony Dig A Hole? Because He Is An Archaeologist...Or A Pig

Well there are lots of theories....mostly to do with vitamin needs. Maybe they are digging up the root of the grass.....maybe they need vitamins from the soil?
Charlie has dug small holes before.  I started giving him pink powder in his feeds, in case he was deficient in some important mineral. Not so in his case.
Sorry to dwell on the weather ( I Am British), but this week has been cold.  We have had a strong North Wind and showers. The ponies are all fat and have grass, but we succumbed to rugging Polly as she is old and as close to a TB as possible for a pony.  Then we rugged Daisy (she was tucked up and shivering pathetically).  Lu and Charlie have shown no signs of being cold.
And yet.....he has done something new to Jo and I in all our years of being pony girls.  Over the years I have looked after at least a 100 ponies, and I have never seen a pony dig like Charlie......
He has made a hole a foot deep and spread the dirt over about 6ft x 4ft. And he used it for a dust bath! Every inch of him is black....his feathers, his mane, tail, his face.  He looks like a coal-miner fresh from the pit!  And he seems to have dug up what looks like a stone age flint knife!  What he doesn't realise is when summer arrives he is having a bath!!!

A Truce At Last and Riders for The Small Things

Charlie and I have at last got a truce. I spent a good week feeding him and gradually getting a rope round his neck.....and eventually round his face. Without the rope, he has been happy to come over and have a scratch, kiss, hug. Its been all on his terms. On Friday we had fenced the 1 acre, so were ready to move them.  Off Lulu went with Jo to pastures new. Headcollar? Charlie? Not a chance.  I was quite prepared to leave him, and keep coming back and making the fence smaller.  But we thought it was worth Jo trying....after all she hadn't tried to sunblock him.  It Worked.  First Jo curled up in a ball on the ground......That got his attention.  Once he had sniffed her all over, she walked off.  He followed.  Next thing she had put the rope around his neck, then face.  I put the leather head-collar on him.  They break under pressure.
The next day we arrived and they were fat and happy, knee deep in grass.  Lulu had taken off her grazing muzzle, and Charlie had lost his head-collar.  The whole field is surrounded with electric fence, so it must have been a mutual removal. Having punched in more holes, I thought it might take another week to get it back on.....but it took ten minutes.  I sat down with a feed between my legs, and was able to quietly slip the rope, and head-collar back on. I hate leaving horses out with head-collars on, but sometimes it has to be done. Its no fun chasing a horse down.  As long as the field is safe and theres nothing for them to get caught on, it should be ok. Leather head-collars should break quicker than nylon ones, so bear that in mind.  All weekend he has been coming over for affection......and at least I can catch him if I need to. He has also discovered the pleasures of having his back scratched with the poo picker rake. Back to work soon.
Talking of work....we have found small and efficient riders for the little ponies. On Saturday, we now have Lauren, who rides Polly really well and her brother Samuel who has taken on Sweet-Pea. Despite falling off her 4 times, the first time, he thinks she good fun. To be fair he was bareback.  And he handled her really well.
On Sunday we have twins......Molly and Daisy, who also ride Polly well.  They haven't tried Sweet-Pea yet.  All these kids are really young, all are cantering round alone, and they have all been to a riding school at Iken.  So fair play to the teacher there.  They have been taught well.
Chanice who helps on saturdays has been coming on in leaps and bounds as well......Daisy can be very pig-headed.  BHS peeps look away now.....The other week, er, barefoot and er, hatless (sorry) I ended up demonstrating how to cope with her excitability without really doing anything.  She is too lazy to keep jogging, pulling, cantering if you just sit quietly.  In my defence I did tell Chanice to never ride hatless and barefoot.  Not until she reaches nearly 50 anyway.

The Great Escape And The Mobile Phone Episode

So the warm weather continues (and the rain and wind today).  Xmas day itself was warm and sunny... Yup t-shirt weather.  All the ponies had a xmas day feed as a treat.  Not sure they knew why though.
So on Boxing Day we decided to move the minis right to the far end of the 4 acre,  fence off the whole way along giving them a fairly narrow strip, and move the shorter cross fence back daily to strip graze them.  That's the sort of thing horse owners do on Boxing Day, as opposed to getting up late and munch leftovers while watching naff xmas movies!  We let them run free while we did this, much to the disgust off the biggies!
After 5 hours of fighting the self tangling fence wire, and the hose pipe connections that refused to connect, we caught them up and went home to enjoy eating leftovers and watching naff xmas movies.

And so to yesterday...the fence needed moving back.  Jo does the moving, while Prudence and I fend off the circling sharks (I mean ponies).  Scrumpy usually shouts instructions from the other side of the fence.  We had a longer strip to defend than normal, but armed with a poo picker, for about 20 minutes I held all the ponies in an obedient row.....Hey I said, Olympia here we come next year.  Liberty ponies!!  The ponies meanwhile were making plans. First they sent in Jasmine, the smallest and cutest miniature Shetland. My favourite as it happens.  And I had a pocketful of polos.  While she fleeced me of polos, pretending she didn't understand that I wanted her to lift a hoof and say please, the others watched obediently from distance, lulling me into a false sense of security and dreaming of my Olympia Liberty Ponies.  They waited until only the middle strand of fence was left,then Jasmine legged it to the right. Being nearer the fence line, I lunged right, flailing like a beaten goal-keeper, as Sweet Pea and B, made the run for it on the left, clearing the wire (god knows how they even saw it).  Polly, who probably couldn't see it stopped, while dear little Jasmin simply ran through it.

Well you have to laugh.....me and a Bulldog, beaten by Shetlands, a mini tb and a welsh pony!  Jo and I convinced ourselves that they would stop eating when they were full and the ground wouldn't get so poached.  We commented on how the bigger ponies were not as sharp!!!  So far Sweet Pea hasn't come up for air.

Today I was at work till 12-ish, and Jo was finishing off the minis field when I arrived.  "That bloody Piebald", she greeted me with.  Oh no, whats the boy done.  Apparently Jo got warm and left her fleece in the trailer, which Charlie is obsessed with.  After a while she looked up to see him cavorting around holding something fluorescent. Yup it was her mobile phone, which he had removed from the fleece pocket.  Apparently Jo had a bit of a tussle to remove it from Charlies teeth.  Needless to say the screen is broken, and Jo can't see who is calling.  Oh dear....it wasn't that long ago Scrumpy stood on Jo's bag, squashing an ice cream carton, which caused her bag and the said phone to be filled with cappuccino flavoured goo.  I think I owe her a new phone!!! 

enjoying the sun

xmas lunch

Self Tangling Fence Wire (Top Tip may be included)

So on Monday it finally stopped raining, and we moved the ponies.  But not after a good hour moving electric fencing and water tubs, while the ponies constantly patrolled up and down the Hill Field trying to see what was going down.  We use rolls of self tangling wire rather than the white tape.  It carries the current better.  Now we very carefully remove the posts, and wind up the wire onto one of those things you roll hosepipe onto. (Top Tip Alert)

So HOW does the wire create such special knots, which are in no knot book i've ever seen, within 5 minutes of it reaching the ground?  So after a long time had passed, and a good practise of old English, we finally had a strip of grass fenced off in the 4 acre. Time to move the ponies.

Charlie in one hand, Daisy in the other.  And yes it was Daisy who barged through the gate and tried to drag us off to pastures new. Her manners are sometimes rather lacking.  Or indeed missing, presumed dead. Anyway, they are now as happy as the proverbial pigs.  And the grass must contain a love potion.  Charlie in particular is overly affectionate right now. Maybe its due to all of them now being in the 4 acre, albeit in different corners.  Poor boy, the only male with 6 mares!!

In the meantime, B is going for the muddiest pony award......

Batten down the hatches

Holy hell.  Saturday was one of those days when I wondered whatever had possessed me to take up horses again.
40mph winds accompanied by rain.  Oh, did I mention the temperature, at its best, was about 3 degrees c.

Poo picking was actual torture in those conditions, and putting out hay nearly impossible.  I managed to swallow everything that didn't go in my eyes! Luckily we have feeders in the fields, so once we had wrestled it in, it did at least stay put.  
Then it was upgrading rugs, and fighting the tornado to secure neck covers on the actual ponies necks.  Charlie is still only in a lightweight rug, as he has never worn them before, and has a very thick coat of his own.  Besides which, his flight mode was fully on alert, and there was a lot of snorting and spooking from him. If I had attempted a rug change, I suspect there would have been a naked black and white pony seen charging around all over the County.

We then spent way too long uncoupling all the water pipes and packing the taps with straw. I was almost grateful when it actually snowed at 10pm that night.
Of course they all survived and its warming up again (well up to 6c)

much more peaceful today

Todays Ponies

So, history lesson over, and on to the ponies in my life today.
The Shetlands:

This is Sweet Pea, who Jo found at Watton Horse sales.  She was starving and covered in lice.  She also had pneumonia, and it was touch and go.....But here she is, as cute as a button.  Unless you want to bath or muzzle her.  Then she becomes the ginger bitch from hell. I've never seen something so small rear so high as this one.

And this is Jasmin.  She has had a much better life, spending most of it with Jo.  She is the most loving pony ever, and daily comes over for a chin scratch and a kiss. 

This beautiful creature is Lulu, a 9 year old Halfinger of very good breeding. And doesn't she know it!  She is very much aware that she is the Queen Bee, the number one. She has been with Jo since she was a yearling, and is the most well mannered, yet playful pony ever.  Her intelligence is quite scary!

Daisy-May.  I adore Daisy. She is sweet and gentle, and so laid back she is almost horizontal.  Except for bath time, or fly spray time, or chin trimming time.  Then she simply uses her size and leaves the vicinity at high speed.
Jo got her a year ago, mostly because she couldn,t bear to leave her in a home where she lived alone, with a terrified owner.
And god only knows what happened to her before that. We know she has had several foals, and has several fears.

This is Bee, a welsh sec A, (and judging by those knees and her high actioned fast trot, maybe part Hackney!!).
Bee has only been with us about 3 weeks and is owned by Roz.  Poor Roz bought her as a non-rideable companion for her Icelandic Pony, but sadly lost him.  We are not sure why she is un-ridable.  Any brave children out there???? Or extremely small adults?

This is Polly....Princess Polly.  She was simply abandoned on the yard, when she became lame.  Jo took her on, and nursed her better.  She went out on loan and was returned when she became lame again.  After months of care, and money and walking around on memory foam pads in her boots, she is sound again and enjoying life.

And finally Charlie....my new boy.  He is 3 years old, and was bottle fed as a baby, then turned away in a herd of other colts, to be, well, horses.
He is very funny, very clever and very cheeky.  He is also quite coltish still and is pushing the boundaries a little when it comes to being handled.
The mares are fairly sorting him out, the poor little sod is always is trouble with one or the other.

The History of Ponygirl

Ok, hello guys.  I am hoping this blog may be of some use to somebody.  It may just be a journal for me to look back on when I,m older and greyer!
Anyway to give you some background information about myself, a life filled with horses compressed into a few words.
I started riding at the age of 3, and until i reached 44, i owned numerous ponies, worked all my best years with horses, in riding centres, driving yards and spent 12 years managing an RDA centre.  
I spent a good deal of time riding for other people, schooling, sorting out problems and competing in showing, dressage, show-jumping, x country, and endurance.
And lets not forget a short dabble with Horseball.

This is Skittles.  I owned her for 10 years.  She taught me so much about competing. She had been there,done that.
We show-jumped, showed and did dressage.  She could be very hormonal but we had a very understanding relationship as long as I did what I was told!
Sadly she was put to sleep after a bout of colic which would just not stop, at the age of 24

This is Harry.  Harry came from a stunt yard.  He was only 5 when I got him, but had already had a chequered career, and several owners. Apparently he was dangerous, but as you can see here, he was actually a real sweetheart and I loved him to bits. 
Eventually I got to the bottom of his bad behaviour, a broken vertebrae in his spine, right under where the saddle (or rider) would sit.  No wonder he bucked for England!! After 2 years, he had deteriorated to the point where i felt it was kinder to have him put to sleep at the tender age of 7.

And this is Paddy, the love of my life. I first got him as 4 year old.  A wild little thing.  A real character!!  Full of intelligence and cheekiness.  We shared 12 years together.  In that time, we attempted showing (but his sense of humour mostly got the better of him). We did better at x-country, show-jumping and endurance though.
Our greatest adventure was driving down to Wiltshire, and riding 120 miles back up the Ridgeway, With my friend Tess and my arab Ryscheyed.  Tess and I wore silly ball dresses....just in case people didn't notice us, and raised £2000 for the Rda. But that's another blog. Seriously check out http://ridgewayromp.blogspot.co.uk/

Then I got ill and struggled to look after Paddy. So he went out on loan to a lovely family in Norfolk, and had 2 fantastic years, before he got a twisted gut. The only time in his life he was ever ill!!!   And how!  He was put to sleep at the age of 18.

Anyway to touch on that illness, without dwelling on it, I have something called Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension.  As I put it .....dodgy lungs and a dicky ticker.  At first I was really ill, and thought my life with horses was over.  I felt like my right arm was missing.  The condition isn't curable, but i am better than I was on a cocktail of drugs.
And then......
I met a lady called Jo who has a glut of rescued ponies, and started helping her. And then.......
4 weeks ago I got Charlie from a rescue centre. Very sensibly I have got a 3 year old !!!  As you do at the age of 49 with dodgy lungs and a dicky ticker.
So this blog is about my life with horses Part Two.
Happy reading.....