The ups and downs of horse ownership.

There are so many ups and downs to horse ownership, which I weighed and thought through very carefully (like at least for 5 minutes) before we agreed to let the girls get their two little ponies. The way they nicker at you on a frosty morning when they see you coming, has to be one of the highlights of our day. The thrill of knowing that when school work is done, you get to brush and walk these magical beings, has helped to motivate us to get our work done. That has been a bonus I didn't even consider.

There is one thing in particular that all horse owners fear. It's the C word. It can come out of nowhere for no apparent reason. It can become deadly, expensive, and cause extreme exhaustion to horse and owner alike. It's Colic. I lost one of our big horses to it several years ago, and lost my savings account to it not long after, when one of our previous ponies (Fry's chocolate Brownie) had an episode of it. It took 3 different farm call visits from our vet, and numerous hours of me "working" on the pony. So, when my oldest Princess and I were walking our "new" ponies through the woods the other day, and I noticed something "off" with our little bay, I became concerned. By the time we made it back to the barn I was pretty sure he wasn't going to make it. I called my friend from THE BARN, and she came straight over to help me diagnose what was going on. Yes. It was COLIC!! We gave him a shot for pain, and she left with the advice to ask Sweet Man to dig a hole. A pony sized hole.

 This brought back all of the emotions of loosing my other horses. "Why Lord? This is going to hurt so much...for me AND the girls this time!" We did everything we could..without calling the vet in. We took turns walking that pony for five hours the first day.

We let it roam around the yard, eating fresh grass, hoping that would get "things" moving in its gut. We took turns being 'on watch', which was a great opportunity to catch up on some reading. ;-)

Three days of alternating between walking, watching and giving pain shots, I do believe we saved our pony! It was scary and a tad bit exhausting, but several good things came out of it. We got a whole lot of exercise, and we now have a pretty tame pony. :-)