This Week We Have Been Mostly Fencing! And News From West Meadows.

Yes, now we don't have to put hay out, our time is taken with moving fences!! With no rain in sight, we have been moving the ponies along the field, opening up new grazing, and closing off old grazing.  In the hope that it will rain, and the grass will grow back for the Autumn.

Along with the sun, we have had oddly cold nights still (3c) and chilly North Winds.  Yes, us English Are obsessed with the weather!! 

We have been given permission by the landowner to graze the 12 acre field, which has been planted with a thousand trees, but left with 20m clearings, in which one day, in about 10 years,will contain Teepees for camping. We are now able to graze the circles.
So Jo and I set off on the tractor to explore.  Wow....It was like being on Safari....without Lions etc.  We actually got lost! Some of the trees are pretty tall.....some are stunted.  The grass is high everywhere.  Having hunted high and low for the clearings, we found 5.  Unfortunately, they have a lot of ragwort in them.  We had hoped to move the Shetlands straight away, but we have a bit of work to do first. And Jo picked up a tick!!!! And so we continue to move the Shetlands around.  Although Sweet Pea seems to be sound, we don't want to risk her running about with Dora yet.  Its times like these I agree with tethers, which would be handy to graze the little 'uns for a few hours while we are there.

Of course we wouldn't leave them tethered overnight.  I don't agree with that at all.  Equines being prey animals, get stressed if they are unable to run away at the first sign of danger, real or imagined.  Which brings me on to a brief update from West Meadows in Ipswich.  The girls from Voice of The Horse Facebook Page, worked long and hard to get the majority of....dare I say it.... The travellers ponies,off tethers last year.  Despite the Admin of the group getting asbos for harassment, the council did indeed fence the wasteland/water meadows in Papermill Lane, Bramford, so that 80ish mares could run free. However, the owner has 40 or so mares on land close to West Meadows Traveller Site, that he rents off the council, so its been hard to monitor these ponies. All through the Winter there have been reports to the RSPCA and Redwings Horse Sanctuary of distressed ponies.  Unable to go and check we have pursued the council about the amount of plastic hay wrappings strewn over the field. I spent a cold Winters afternoon lurking on the A14 embankment, dodging police cars and taking pics. As the council are keen on Ipswich becoming a centre of excellence for re-cycling plastic, this seemed a good place to start!! Anyway, after a council visit 2 weeks ago, this week reports have come in that two Redwings lorries were parked in the entrance of the Site.  The same night, the shelter that houses the Colts waiting for the Meat Truck, was burnt down.  There only seems to be about 15 ponies left on this site.  This can only be good news!

In other news.... We have lots of children coming to ride at the weekend with Eli teaching them.  Its all good fun and we are planning a 'Pony Day' with lessons, stable management, a picnic, Pony Painting and a Gymkhana.  
Charlie joined in today in-hand.  Fully tacked up i led him round. Then Jo took over the leading while I walked alongside, leaning on the saddle.  He was pretty chilled and quickly got over the fact I wasn't by his head.  This is extremely good progress on his behalf.... We will continue.

Daisy and Dora giving lessons

Charlie with Jo...Learning to go without me.

Polly and Scrumpy in our lovely wild flower meadows

Road Closed, New RDA Ponies and a Papermill Update

Finally Bt have connected my internet so its time for a catch up. Quite a lot has been happening. First the Road Closed incident.  Due to a water leak Essex and Suffolk Water had to close the road just up the hill from the yard. It caused quite a kerfuffle I can tell you. Anyway as what is normally a busy road, was closed we took Charlie and Lu out in hand to inspect all the scary roadsigns and men in holes etc. As the road was closed I let Scrumpy follow at a discreet distance. Charlie was a star. He sniffed the drain holes suspiciously, and scared himself by standing on a somewhat bouncy cats eye. But then as we were talking to the workmen, a car appeared.......followed by another 7 !!!!  Seems they didn't believe the road was actually closed. We made our way back down the line of traffic, explaining that the road really did have a huge trench across it and giving helpful directions.  By this time I was slightly worried about Scrumpy who was mooching about among the cars with all the roadsense of a pheasant. The ponies accepted some mints from a very nice car driver and people started turning around. One woman pipped her horn several times for some reason. Charlie didn't bat an eyelid. Turns out the overnight closure was fun.....Someone ignored all the signs, moved the barriers and drove straight into the hole!!  We also heard there was a fight and the police had to be called!!!

Charlie has continued to be brilliant with the long reining so the other day, with Mark the Mechanic and part time horse whisperer, at his head, with carrots, I got on and off a couple of times....just sitting quietly for a bit each time. No drama. This time he was completely relaxed.....Charlie that is.  Not sure about Mark!!

We have had a couple of lucky finds for the Rda.  We acquired Maddie, a 13hh bay New Forest, who I rode in a lesson. Poor little thing. As my feet wouldn't fit in the stirrups, my legs just hung down almost to the ground. She didn't raise an eyebrow as we rode around stands and threw sponge dice around. We also have Molly on loan from an old friend of mine. Another bay mare, but Molly is 15.2hh Cleveland Bay x Shire and is a fantastic stamp of a mare. Having hacked her out with a disabled client, and found her to be very laidback, she has been used in a real lesson now. Over Easter we picked up Stormin' Norman who has settled in nicely.  Just need another driving pony now.

At Papermill Lane things have been happening. Three of us went on a reccy last week up to the other site attached to West Meadows Traveller site. A bit rash to get so close, but someone has to.  We found a foal discarded in the rubbish, unable to get up, and a filly with barbed wire around its hind legs. A young lad appeared and I told him I would help him remove the wire. He went to get his dad, who owns all the ponies, where again I offered to give him a hand. He was more interested in chasing us off "his" land.  Of course we phoned the RSPCA, Redwings and WHW.  Redwings are now cataloging all the ponies. In the meantime, I posted the pictures everywhere and got 17404 views! This seems to have stirred things up, with a lot of horse movement over the last week. We are not entirely sure where they have gone, but Redwings seem to be on it at last, admitting that several horses needed attention.  Not sure the owner is at all happy, as he went after 3 ladies on Friday, before hunting me down somewhere else. We vidioed each other. I posted mine on You Tube, but it was taken down for breaching harassment laws.......Funny that, as he came looking for me!!!

Charlie and Lu inspecting road signs.

Charlie Full of the joys of spring

Hacking out on Molly.

Discarded in the rubbish....Foal at West Meadows

Prepared For Snow and The Plight of the Papermill Ponies

They promised snow.  A whole weekend of snow! It never happened. But at least we were prepared. The bigger ponies were given rugs with fillings. We stuffed all the water pipes with straw and covered them.  We moved the little ponies into a rambling area around the tack room and between the barns so they had loads of shelter, and dragged their hay bin round. It did try and snow. Some of it even layed for about 5 minutes. 

Meanwhile over xmas I joined a facebook group called Save The Papermill Ponies. The group is trying to highlight the plight of the gypsy ponies that are tethered in and around Bramford village near Ipswich, and are attached to the West Meadows Traveller Site. Now I grew up nearby, and all my childhood played with the gypsy children and rode their ponies.  In those days they were well cared for despite being tethered. By the way my biggest gripe about tethering is that it takes away the horses freedom to flee.....as stabling also does. 
Anyway, I thought I would go and check it out for myself. There are about 50 or so ponies on the Water Meadows near the River, but I never got to those.  I started with a field of just 6. They had water, but were just stood on droppings. Two fillies were actually tethered together. One mare had lost an eye. I was slightly shocked when I saw that, as usually the eyelid is stitched over. This was just a gaping socket. One of the double tied fillies had really long feet.  There was one moulding round bale of hay in the field......which none of them could reach.  Having then rashly broadcast a live video stream to Facebook, I dished out some carrots an gave them an armful of hay each.  
I then became very rash, and made my way up the hill towards the Traveller Site. There is a very large enclosure there with maybe 40 ponies in. I wanted to get close enough to get some long lens pictures. Seeing a man in the enclosure I jumped down into a ditch to hide. Imagine my horror apon looking down, to see a hoof sticking out of a pony shaped mound of sand.  Scrabbling about I uncovered a hairy foot. Thankfully I had enough wits about me to take a couple of pictures, before legging it. By this time it was getting dark and I had no desire to come face to face with an irate traveler. I didn't want to lose my camera for a start.
I think I was in shock for about 10 minutes, then I had to stop the car to throw up (Sorry too much info). That knocked my dry January on the head. 

I'm pleased to say I have had about 3000 hits on the video and loads of shares. The dead pony in the ditch has been reported to the authorities. And best of all finally the constant nagging of the Group saw 10 ponies removed on Thursday.
Hopefully now the owners have seen that they WILL lose the ponies and therefore money, they may step up their care of the others a little.  And the girls of the Save The Papermill Ponies group will continue to check on them, as will I.

Polly Ready for The Snow

Yes this was IT

Below is the link to the video i took.  The first few seconds may give you neck ache but it does right itself quickly.
Many thanks for looking and sharing.

https://youtu.be/9GazCOto_b0