Zippy's special misson

Zippy is my very best friend and field companion.  She is now 28 years old so Mum decided that it was the right time to retire her.  So when I was turned away Zippy had her shoes taken off too and is supposed to be living a life of relaxation and luxurious pampering.

Except she was asked to go on a very special mission.  Mum's niece came to stay for the day and she loves Zippy, so Zippy was tasked with the very important an special mission of taking Ellie for a ride up and down the road.

This included a lot of eye spy, mostly pigs, sheep and other ponies - that was the human version, Zippy was playing eye spy grass, more grass and oh yes more grass!  She managed to sneak plenty of opportunities to try the grass too.

The mission was a complete success, Ellie loved her ride and Zippy loved taking her out, and liked being asked to pull out of retirement for the mission.  I think she's secretly hoping there will be more mission, little light people are good fun especially if it comes with a side of grass!

Had a breakthrough....

Well actually Zippy and I have managed two breakthroughs!  Straight through our fencing to the paddocks that were 'resting'.  It has lots of yummy grass in it.  Zippy and I have managed daily escapes into the two resting paddocks, all week, so we have very full tummies.  Dave was being a goody two shoes though and decided it was too dangerous and so stayed in the wet muddy field - silly boy.  Considering he has been breaking down all the other fencing in break out attempts you'd think he would have joined us???

We even managed to make Mum smile, even though we were being naughty - which I think is quiet clever.  Every afternoon when she arrived to take Zippy home, she called us and we came galloping across the fields, jumping the broken fencing.  Mum was particularly impressed with Zippy's speed, she was soooo fast she didn't even have time to get her phone out to record the action, which for a 28 year old horse is pretty impressive.  Dave and I hope we are still that fast when we are that old!

Sadly our adventures have come to an end, the fencing has been repaired and now is tricky, ouchy stuff again - humph!

Field Report

I have been moaning to Mum about the amount of water we have in our field and that we might have to take up swimming lessons.  She told me not to be so silly and that there were ponies much worse off than me, who really needed swimming lessons and that a few very small streams through the field were nothing to worry about.  This was our field at its wettest, we are quite lucky it is ridge and furrow so we just stand on the ridge bits, plus we have a big bank which Mum is standing on to take this picture so if we really get fed up we can stand up there on that.

So for all those poor ponies out there who are really swimming, sorry for being so silly.  Dave and I are now working on a sunshine dance to see if we can help improve the weather for you all.  As you can see in the picture below we just about made the sun shine before it started to set behind the hills.  We will keep trying - we think its working because the sun is out again at the moment!!!!

We have quite a boring routine at the moment.  Dave and I wait at the gate for Zippy to arrive in the morning and neigh to say hello when we can hear her coming down the road.  We then all go off to tuck into the hay Mum gives us.  Then we stand at the gate waiting for Mum to come back and take Zippy away to her bedroom for the night and then she also gives Dave and I our hay rations for tea time - which we eat straight away!  This is us standing at the gate waiting for Mum to arrive.  As you can see I decided not to grow my clip back, Mum thinks I'm mad but I don't see the point, my tummy fluff is keeping me warm and I am hoping it will soon be spring.  Ahhhh yes spring - lots of yummy green grass to eat.

 Hoping all my pony swimming friends are managing to keep safe and warm and have found somewhere dry to shelter out of the rain.

Errrrr we look like girls now!

Being turned away is very boring, so I am glad Mum arranged for Dave to stay, otherwise I would be REALLY bored.  Sunday we were all dragged onto the yard at the field (Note: I am no longer good enough to be allowed down to the proper house yard, where my lovely warm stable resides!)

Anyway Dave and I got attacked with a cold hose, but fortunately only our tails.  Mum washed all the mud off and then spent ages carefully combing out our tails applying various lotions and potions until we were tangle free.  This is Dave's tail below - errrr don't tell ANYONE but Mum sinned and chopped some of his tail off - I know, can't believe it, with scissors in a straight line too!  Her excuse was it was trailing two inches into the mud it was so long - well it's not now - sorry Dave!

This is me, not a great picture, I'll blame Mum for that but at least my tail is now fluffy rather than mud wrapped rasta style!

But then would you believe it, Mum decided to plait our tails!!!!  I mean Mum we are NOT girls.  I know Dave can be a bit of a wuss but even he didn't deserve to have his tail plaited - yuck.

Life is very boring here at the moment, that has been the excitement of the whole week  Otherwise we are just eating hay and chilling.  Oh yes Dave got to go for a walk down the farm track, I hope Mum is not getting ideas, has she forgotten I am the love of her life.  Dave will be in trouble if he starts muscling in on my Mum.  Hmmm I think I had better keep a close eye on them both!

It's race time.....

The other day I got to go on another new adventure to meet some more of Mum's friends.  This time it was Barnaby and Liz.  They live near Rockley and have the most AMAZING riding ever - I want to move over there, we only crossed one road and there are miles and miles of grass tracks you can ride along.

I know Mum likes to canter and when we go out on our own we try to get some practice in, as many of my pony friends don't like going fast, or in Zippy's case is now too old and creaky.  Mum said she thought Barnaby would be up for a canter.  However when we went out on the ride he took quite a bit of convincing.

There was a big muddy hill and Liz said they always charge up there, so I was all ready to go but Barnaby wasn't interested - it was quite sticky icky mud.  However later on Mum held me back so we could have a canter to catch up as its not often we get treated to so many nice grass tracks.  I was keen to catch up so after bouncing on the spot for a while I was allowed to charge after Barnaby and met let me whizz past too, Barnaby suddenly woke up and decided to catch up and we started a race.  Humans are soooo boring just as we got going they pulled us up - hey I thought you wanted fast?

We were allowed another canter later and after a toss too much of my head a super quick acceleration Mum asked me nicely to stay behind Barnaby and let him go first - humph! but I did do as I was told.

We got one last super charged blast up the field towards home which got Barnaby and me a bit over excited and it took a while for our Mum's to calm us down and wait for the horse and trap to go past.  It was a great ride about 6 miles and I had so much fun, hope we can go back soon - thank you Barnaby for teaching me racing I had never done it before and its really good fun, thank you Liz for letting us come visit and ride with you xxx

Family Frolics

Well Christmas is a time of getting the family together, and I have managed not only to ride with my Uncle Eric down the road but I have managed to get away with inviting cousin Dave to stay too!

Mum has a new friend, Kevin, who really knows how to ride, so she arranged for him to borrow Eric.  Most of the time Eric is good but he hasn't been ridden a lot lately so was a bit fresh.  He also doesn't seem to like me much so I have to be on alert for stray legs heading in my direction.  We had a good ride around Cotmarsh, Mum was up and down like a yoyo because all the gates were shut and not pony friendly - grrrrrr!  But the weather held and we kept dry and just managed to get back before it got dark.  Hopefully I can have some more rides with Eric soon.

Well that was what I was thinking until Mum broke the news to me that I need to have a rest for a few months while she has another operation on her ankle.  Not happy about this, especially as it means for some reason I have to give up my toasty warm rugs and stable and be 'roughed off'.  NOT IMPRESSED!

The upside though is because Zippy is so old and has to stay in her stable at night, I got to invite my mate Dave from Wales to come and stay while I am being roughed off.  He arrived yesterday afternoon, I wondered why I had been turned out in the big field on my own.  Lots of neighs and galloping ensued.  I showed off my talents at doing handstands I'm getting quite good at those, I think Dave was impressed he couldn't buck half as high as I can.  I said I'd help him practice while he's here.

However being Dales we soon had to get on with the serious job of eating grass.  For Dave this is a big plus as he was inside for the winter in his pen.  I've managed to keep my raincoat on at the moment, only because everytime Mum comes down its raining and I give her a sad face and she hasn't the heart to take it off while its tipping a gale - crafty, not too sure how long I can keep the sad face up for but will try for as long as possible!

Zippy has a bit of a reputation for not mixing with other horses and I hadn't seen her all night as we were left in the field while she was still up at the house, so it was great to see her arrive this morning.  I had made friends with Dave and we were getting on great, but Zippy says I'm not to like him, so its a bit more tricky while she is around I have to pretend I don't like him (when really I do) but as Mum put out lots of piles of hay we all settled down to eat instead.  I'll have to work out the field politics later, it could take some highly skilled negotiation techniques to win everyone around!

Meeting new friends

Brrrrrrr it was cold when I woke up yesterday morning. It was real icy so we got turned out with some yummy hay - but I prefer to nibble the grass! Just before lunch Mum packed me up in the box on wheels to go visit a new friend.

To be honest I do worry about my Mum and her sanity, especially when we are driving along narrow icy lanes, you do have to question whether the trip was really necessary or whether there were better roads we could have gone on. She was sensible enough to creep along very slowly and kept good control when we skied down a big hill, didn't know cars could do that!

Slightly shaken we did arrive safely. OMG how big was this horse I was going out with, he was huge! I could have walked under his tummy (well nearly), he's at least 16.3hh he could be bigger. Now you would think a big horse would be a brave horse, but in Benno's case this is not quite true. He's a very clever horse mind and pretends to be scared out on hacks. Now this is just a cunning plan to ensure his safety at all times.  So I had to go in front on the whole ride, which meant Benno's had his own personal ice checker to help ensure he didn't slip, told you he was clever. 

 Me waiting to meet Benno.

Now being in the lead meant I had to walk fast, I did such a good job Benno's struggled to keep up with me. We managed to dodge all the ice and we both kept upright.  I was taking my job of keeping Benno safe very seriously and towards the end of the ride the road crossed a stream. I have heard so many tales of trolls living under these types of bridges that I wasn't prepared to fail in my duty and risk Benno being attacked by a troll so I wouldn't carry on.

As a car was behind us and it was icy Mum decided she had better get off and lead me, that way she could check for trolls - luckily there were none this time, phew! Catherine was impressed with how easily Mum got back on, the advantage of having a short pony, rather than one on stilts!

It was a lovely ride and Mum was so proud of me, I had grown several inches taller with all the praise - see I'm nearly as tall as Benno in the picture! Thank you Benno for not biting me, Mum and I really enjoyed the ride, hope I can come back soon and do more escort duties. (I haven't told him I'm only 4, as I thought this might upset him & he might not trust such a young pony to be in the lead - I don't think it would matter now).

Today is horrible rain and wind, I having been typing my blog waiting for Mum to arrive for breakfast - still no sign! Bet she is still asleep, tucked up warm in bed, listening to the horrible weather. Can't blame her I'm still tucked up in bed doing the same!