Glamour shots

You know, my Mom, Tudi moved in with the Red mare and her ponies last year after she had my baby sister.  The lady hasn't even named that filly yet and just calls her Tif, which is short for "Tudi's Filly."  So the filly is chunky and taller now and Tudi was thinking she was pretty hot stuff out there with those young ponies and she got really insufferable.  She was pushing the ponies around and she would bite little Mat when he went to eat his special breakfast, so sometimes he was scared to even come over to the Bistro with Tudi lurking around the corner and ready to lunge out at him.  So the lady got fed up with her and she put my mom back out with us.  Well, you know, for the past year, Tudi has been living a pretty comfy life bossing those ponies around and having the most choice eating spots.  So she had become, shall we say, somewhat complacent about her appearance. She was perhaps a bit rotund, and you know, the rest of us ponies have been out here on the winter-slow-feeder, hated-boxes diet so we didn't appreciate her strolling in here looking all portly and pleased with herself.   So mostly the boys took it upon themselves to encourage her to exercise by chasing her around the field and of course, we put her on a strict "one strand of hay a day" diet.  The lady tried to circumvent her imposed diet program by feeding her in the shed, but we figured that out after a couple of days, so we would watch for her to sneak off into the shed and then we would all run down there really fast and take that hay away from her.  Of course, there is only so much you can do for someone else, so most everyone got really tired of helping her slim down and were mostly just ignoring her.  Except for Krissy.   Man, that Krissy took the whole thing really seriously.  I don't know if it's because she's a Vermonter or what, but she has made it her mission in life to ensure that Tudi gets her exercise and sticks to her diet. So now Tudi is looking really svelte and all us elegant daughters are really proud of our mom.   She is definitely part of our glamorous family. 

Taca's new colt

Peaches

Well, you know, the lady was asking those chubby mares when they were going to foal and they were just not being very forthcoming at all.   Aunt Taca is not exactly a ray of sunshine under the best of circumstances, so you can imagine, being very pregnant and dealing with the mud and snow didn't have her in the best humor.  Even tho my dad Bob thinks she is like, super gorgeous, regardless of her girth, and goes prancing up to her telling her so at the drop of a piece of hay, she was just not feeling the love and mostly walked around with her ears back and kind of snarling at everyone. Her filly from last year, Peaches, is kind of goofy and outgoing, but Taca didn't want anything to do with her and her frivolity.  So anyway, the morning before yesterday, the lady showed up to feed and there was a new baby with Taca.  Two hours earlier when she checked, Taca said nothing about having a baby and here he was, up and running all around.  As soon as he saw the lady he ran over to her and asked if she was his mother, so of course, that pissed Taca off, since she had done a great deal of work to get him out and she didn't need that lady showing up and taking the credit.  But the lady just walked over to Taca so the colt followed and then he got something to drink.  He looks just like Peaches, the foal Taca had last year when she was a baby, except of course, he is a boy.

Taca's new colt

So I am posting a pic of what Peaches looks like now and one of the new colt.     Now my dad Bob had to move up to the barn.  He likes foals and is good with them, but he likes mares even more and the lady says she is not coming out in the snow next year to be checking on foaling mares. 
   

Grass?

So every morning, us ponies go down to the gate at the end of our pasture and wait there for the lady to come and open that gate.  The lady goes by us all the time, either with that bossy dog leading her on a lead rope or else in the little green truck thing.  She goes to look at those fat grumpy mares that live with my dad Bob.  Sometimes she goes when it is dark out and she has a shiny light on top of her head.  She looks at the fat mares and asks when they are going to have babies.  Then she looks under their bellies.   The mares don't say anything.  At any rate, she doesn't stop and open the gate for us.  It is obvious we want to have her open the gate so we can go out into that field and eat nice grass.  Every time she opened that gate in the past, there has been nice green grass in that field, so we are sure there would be nice grass now too.  We don't see any nice grass over there, but that doesn't mean it won't be green when we get there.  So we don't know why the lady is being mean to us and not opening the gate. Yesterday she brought us carrots and had the shiny thing that sounds like a bee.  She tickled us under our heads with the shiny thing and then our faces looked skinnier.  We are all very fuzzy and have wonderful thick coats that are good for when the white cold stuff falls on our backs.  After she did that, she went over to those younger ponies that live with the big red mare. They wanted the carrots but they did not like to have the buzzy thing under their faces.  So they still have long hairs on their heads.  We are much more glamorous ponies than they are with our skinnier faces.        

Bob amok

We had some excitement this morning!  After we got our hay, the lady drove the little green truck thing back to my dad Bob and his mares. She put some grain in for them and then while she was getting their hay, Bob opened the gate and strolled out.  He was pretty happy about being out of his pasture and paid no attention at all to the lady who tried to get him to come over to her to eat grain out of a little bucket.  He started to trot around and then he took off galloping and came to see us up here by our hay boxes.   The lady tried to run a little bit, but she is terrible at it because there is really deep mud.  So she got back in the little green truck thing and went sliding and bouncing through the mud after Bob.  We all ran down the hill to talk to him over the pasture fence and then we all galloped back up the hill. Bob was making those loud squealing noises and lunging at the boy ponies over the fence.  The lady caught up to him, but Bob turned and ran off toward the big mares.  I think he is fed up with living with those two fat grumpy mares in his pasture and he was looking for mares who might like him better. He ran to the field with that big Red mare in it and all those ponies.  Little Mat was in his pen where he eats breakfast and Bob jumped at him and knocked the gate off its hinges.  Then he ran over to talk to my Mom Tudi who lives in that pasture.  The Red mare tried to bite him, so then he ran to the bay bunch of big mares that live in the front pasture.  Those mares thought Bob was the cutest thing they had ever seen in their lives.  They all huddled by the fence and some of them were making advances toward him and telling him that he was handsome.  Bob was beside himself and never even noticed when the lady walked up to him and put a rope over his head. So then she took him to the small paddock in front of the barn and gave him hay.  He doesn't even have fat grumpy mares for company now.    So I am not sure that worked out how he had planned.  The lady was saying that she was going to move Bob out of the pasture as soon as one of his fat mares had her baby anyway.  She said she doesn't want anyone having foals in the middle of winter next year like they are this year.  But it is almost not winter here -- kind of.  There is only a little bit of white stuff lying around and if you squint your eyes, you can almost see the nice grass turning green.  Almost.        

Sad news

    So after the lady put Rita and the colt in the barn, there were a lot of ladies coming to the barn all the time.  Then a man and a different lady came in the middle of the night and they didn't leave until the sun was almost up.  Our lady was in the barn so much that we got our breakfast late, even tho she had other ladies helping her with our nice hay.  She spent almost all night in the barn that next night too.  But then tonight, she brought Rita out of the barn and put her out with her friends and Mom.  Rita was happy to be back with her friends and they all gathered around her to ask her where she had been.  Rita said the colt stopped moving and talking to her and got cold.  So it didn't need her any more.
    Now we have white stuff all over the ground that is higher than our knees.   It filled up the boxes and is everywhere except in our shed.   There is probably even white stuff inside the White Hill.  We are ready for green grass out here in our pony pasture.   

colt

I know, I haven't blogged for a long time.  I was waiting for something exciting to happen.  But all we have is weather and everyone has weather, so I didn't know if you wanted to read about our weather or not.  Our weather is cold and wet and sometimes the ground is hard and white and sometimes it is soft and mucky.  It is kind of hard to walk on either way.  The stupid geese are back on our pond and honking.  So then yesterday that horse mare Rita had a baby.  Rita was a little fat, but not real fat like Taca or that white horse mare that both live with Bob.  It was like a year since she had seen Bob so the lady used to think she was going to have a baby, but after a while she figured Rita was just a little chubby and not pregnant.  But obviously she was wrong about that.  So you know, foals have a lot of trouble walking at first and they fall down.  This new foal was not even able to get up because his back feet were curled up.  So the lady called another lady to help her move him.  That lady has really pretty hair that is almost as glamorous as my tail.   And then they called another lady, but it turns out that this other lady was a man, which apparently you can tell by the hair on its face. So the man picked up the colt and carried him across the frozen bumpy ground and they put Rita and the colt in the barn.  The ladies helped the colt stand up so that he could eat breakfast and then he would fall back down again.  But by the end of the day, he was getting up by himself and his feet weren't so curled any  more.  He is almost exactly the same color as I was when I was foaled, but he has long horse-like legs, probably because his mother is a horse.  So finally something interesting happened around here. Now we are all hoping the lady will be taking us to the White Hill and giving us carrots.  She says she will do that when the carrots thaw out.          

blizzard

So you know, there is a lot of that cold white stuff and the wind is blowing it all around.  There was a little bit of it falling from the skies yesterday and then last night, a whole lot of it started to fall down.  The lady took little Mat and Tux and put them in the pony barn and then she brought us our hay, but she just threw it in the boxes and didn't put the nets on top of it.  This was good because we wanted to eat that hay quick and then go back to our nice shed so we were not standing in the wind.  When she was done feeding everyone else, she took some halters out to Artie and Fusion and put one on Artie's head.  When she put the other one on "the Fuse", the halter got stuck on his forelock and only went over one ear.  He had too much white stuff on his head and his fancy black and white mane was all sticking up and in the way.  He doesn't like too much to have his one ear messed with anyway, so he didn't want the lady to put the halter all the way on his head.  So she just told him to come along and opened the gate so that she and Artie and the Fuse could go in the barn. They don't have a nice shed in their paddock like we do.  So the lady turned around to close the gate and the Fuse put his head down and shook it and the halter fell right off his head!   He was a little surprised and he jumped  in the air and then he spun around and bucked and ran off  so that the lady and Artie could not see him with all the white stuff blowing all around.  Artie was worried that he would never see his friend again so he started yelling as they walked around the barn to go in the front door.  When they got to the door, here came the Fuse, charging out of the white stuff and casually strolling into the barn with his buddy Artie.  So then he and Artie got some hay and everyone was happy that they were not out in the storm.