The usurper

We had a few more additions to the farm this summer.

Jellybean, the teenager's fancy pony, came home for an indefinite staycation. She's likely to stick around until her original trainer finds another small child just aching to do dressage - the trainer's and pony's specialty.

Um, yeah, not holding my breath.

In the meantime, Jelly is living the life of a wild pony, free to get dirty and play politics with the herd.

Or both.

Poor Annie is taking the brunt of this. Jelly usurped Annie's role as lady in waiting to Queen Josie and defends it a bit too aggressively if you ask me.

Jelly's ambition in action:

And so it was done.

Walkabout pony style

In all the pony drama this morning, I...

...well

...I...um

...left a gate open.

Cringe.

Josie and Annie, BFFs in crime, got to take their own little walkabout. Unlike the chickens, the ponies chose to take their spin at high speed.

It was Shadow who clued me in. He was racing in circles around his paddock. Something he normally only does during high winds and thunderstorms. Um, no storm in sight.

Oh, wait.

What's that big hunk of spotted appaloosa butt doing OUTSIDE Shadow's paddock fence?

Cr*#p.

I didn't have my iphone on me when I spotted the two fugitives, though I doubt I would have stopped to record the highlights anyway. Too busy kicking myself. But I could have gotten some great shots.

Like, their christening foray into the new pasture, sans fence. They've been standing in their bare, muddy paddock watching me clear brush out there in the grass for days. It must have been killing them.

Their visit to Tyche's paddock on the other side of the barn. Josie was a broodmare in her former life. She pines for Tyche across the barn aisle, but never gets to touch.

Josie crashing through the tree line at a canter only to discover the sagging forty-year-old wire fence buried in the undergrowth. Sheesh. Thank you, Josie, for stopping.

The 80 lb 12-year-old single-handedly guarding the bridge over the creek as 1600 lbs of marauding ponies headed out to the road and an even bigger adventure. That is one pony-savvy 12-year-old. :)

Like a lot of ponies, food was their ultimate downfall. Give me liberty or give me grain. Josie took the grain. And where Josie goes, Annie goes. So that was that.

Really, I need some new fences. And a new stall. Oy.

Josie enjoying greener pastures in years past.

A new toy

Back before Christmas, back before snow, back before frozen water buckets and constant stall cleaning, I bought myself a new camera. I was so impressed by the photos that folks were posting on their blogs, I thought, "I wanna do that!"   So, I read up on what people were saying about good digital cameras for beginners and bought a Canon (oops) Nikon 5100. (I thought about the Canon, but actually bought the Nikon.) Today, I took it out of the box.

I found myself with some free time (what's that?) after I turned all the ponies out this morning, so I dug out the camera and opened it up. Mountains of cords and plugs and batteries and lenses later, I glanced up to discover snow swirling around outside. "Eureka!" I dumped the instruction manual and raced outside. Well, race is a relative term right? I still had to put on 3 layers, top and bottom, my heavy muck boots, my gloves, etc.. Compared to the astronauts preparing for lift off, I was fast and I had my new camera in hand. I only had time for a few shots though, on auto focus, before commonsense kicked in and I realized how wet the snow was. I stopped then to bring the poor ponies in. In any case, here are the first few shots from my fancy camera! I'm super excited.

Meet Annie.