Trailer loading.....

Trailer? No problem! As Mark Rashid says, if you act like you've got all day, it'll take five minutes!

Took her longer to reverse out than go in in the first place.......

A dryer walk!

Ali & I took them out again tonight, for a nice bit of grass, Skyfaxa was very good, even took the lead without too much stressing............ :-)

When we got back I measured her, apparently the distance from the middle of the knee to the top of the coronet band in inches is the same as the eventual height in hands, she measures 15.5 inches so should mature to 15.2 hh......we shall see.

A wet walk

Took Gandalf and Skyfaxa out for a walk today, it has rained all day so we all got pretty soggy.......

they didn't seem to mind, especially as we found some nice grass for them to munch!

Gandalf even went as far as paddling in a puddle, he usually hates getting his feet wet!

Have had quite an eventful day today. Started off with a phone call from Jane to say the big boys had gone AWOL during the night.....so we had to go running round the village in the rain to find them but luckily it didn't take long, thanks to Aliénor's sharp eyes we spotted them munching away behind some of the new houses in the village, with the occupants just watching them not having done anything useful like phoned the Mairie to say there were a couple of loose horses about....
Anyway, because they are not in the usual pasture they share with Buffalo and Ross, which is currently totally inaccessable due to the road outside the gate having been completely dug up to install mains drains, you can't even walk past it let alone lead the horses past, and there are lots of big digger monsters everywhere, so we had put them in the paddock across the road from Jane's but the fences in there are not brilliant. We spent time yesterday putting in new wooden posts at the place they got out from last time, but then they escaped through another bit As Jane only has one stable, I decided to ride Gandalf down to my place, that way she can bring Maverick in at night and not worry about him.
So I had a freezing cold hour and a half hack but it was nice to get the chance to spend some time on my own with my horse, he wasn't too keen to leave his friend but soon settled down and we saw lots of horses and a few donkeys on the way so he wasn't too lonely......I promised him there'd be a nice surprise at the end of his trip and there was:







Skyfaxa seemed pleased to see him!!



He seems huge next to her though....He had a nice roll and got filthy straight away and seemed right at home.



So he'll be here til we get the fences properly sorted out up in the big field. I am looking forward to taking them out and about together, hopefully he can show Sky that the world is not tooo scary a place!

The farrier came.....

Skyfaxa has never had anything done to her feet except me lifting them up and occasionally picking them out but she was such a good girl for the first ever farrier visit today....

She hardly moved at all, just a couple of times because she couldn't get her balance.

Then it was Noisette's turn, she took one look at the farrier and tried to run away!! This is the first time she's ever been worried about anything! But once she realised it didn't hurt, she was fine and Sky came to see what the fuss was about..!

Measuring up.......

Today I got the weigh tape out and Skyfaxa wasn't too bothered by it......

She weighs 255 kilos and is 13.1hh. We practised walking on the long line for a bit, then it was time for a nice lie down in the sun!

We have snow forecast for tomorrow, I wonder what she'll make of that?!

I love her spots......

Playful donkey

Ross was in a playful mood today....Buffalo just stood there and let him get on with it in a " kids, eh?!" kind of a way........

Scary plasic bag

Got a nice rustly plastic bag today so thought I'd see what the girls made of it........

Skyfaxa wasn't too keen at first......

...but eventually decided to let it near her......
















...and even be rubbed with it (in exchange for carrots, of course!!)

Noisette, as ever, has no problem whatsoever! She's amazing, considering when she came here she'd never left the field she was born in 6 years ago, she takes everything in her stride.......

Where's my horse gone?

Went to check on the big boys this afternoon to find that Gandalf had made such a deep hole in the hay his head had all but disappeared!

He looked cute so I took some more pics. His nose is so soft and velvety.........

I'm very lucky to have a horse like Gandalf, he's one in a million.........

Running in the sun

Something spooked the girls this afternoon just as I was going to get something from the barn. Skyfaxa was trotting around snorting so, as Adam does, I went into the field and trotted about with her and when she cantered off I followed and she calmed down really quick, came to nuzzle me then followed me about for a bit........

Took some pics of her rushing around first though!

A painting.....

....of my baby girl, not the best I've ever done, but I quite like it.

The decorations are on there because I'm going to use it on some of my Christmas cards this year........

I did one of Cocktail too:

Rossy's back.....

A couple of weeks ago Ross the donkey came back to live with Buffalo, the 35 year old Appaloosa in the field next door to Gandalf and Maverick.......

Buffalo won't let him out of his (somewhat limited) sight these days........!

He looks so cute in his little coat........

Out of the field......

Yesterday I let Skyfaxa out of the field on her own to wander around and see what was what in the courtyard. She was a bit hesitant at first, but soon settled down to eat some mulberry leaves......Aliénor got the brushes out and groomed her, she seemed quite content to stand there and made no effort to wander off, she obviously enjoys that!

The vet came

This being France, a UK equine passport just won't do so the vet came to do a "signalement" so Skyfaxa can be registered with the National Stud. They have to note down idintifying marks and whorls of hair on the horse, this is normally fairly straightforward but not with an Appaloosa!! The poor vet spent ages drawing her muzzle, can't help thinking it would have been easier to just take a photo!!

She even had to draw the stripes on her hooves......

Researching her pedigree

I spoke to Skyfaxa's breeder the other day to get the details of her breeding. Not a lot for her mother, she's registered with the Gypsy Cob Society simply as "Melba", a white cob. Bit of a dead end.

Much more detail with the stallion though. He is Capitall Hadrian by Capitall Hefin out of Capitall Martha, both Appaloosas.

Capital Hefin

Capitall Hefin's sire was Capitall Cyril (left), he was 15.2 hh.

Capitall Martha was by a Thoroughbred called Paper Cap, he was 16.2 hh, so maybe she'll get bigger than I thought!

Another first

Managed to worm Skyfaxa today, it was surprisingly easy, she didn't object at all, just pulled some funny faces once the stuff was in her mouth (sadly I didn't get the camera out quick enough to photograph them....). Then did a bit more halter training, just a couple of minutes as it was getting dark.

She's getting more confident every day.........

Lots of firsts today for my baby girl. Went out into the field with a headcollar & leadrope in my hands to see how she'd react. Lots of snorting, not really surprising since the last time someone did this she was grabbed, had her nose shoved in and was hauled across the field in England by several burly blokes. She panicked and reared but got absolutely nowhere........I stayed well out of the way at the time because I didn't want her to associate me with that kind of treatment. It wasn't easy to watch.......



Anyway, I wandered around dragging the leadrope behind me (with a cat attacking it from time to time) and she quickly got curious and started sniffing. I picked it up in one hand and scratched her with the other, then rubbed her with the rope for a bit. This was evidently OK. I went away, got a handful of food (another first today, never had hard feed before but she's looking a bit skinny so have bought her some foalie food), she tried a bit, decided it was good, then I very slowly put the headcollar on and did it up as she was munching away.



Then I took a few steps away, she followed, I kept the rope slack all the time like Adam Shereston does, she stopped for a bit, went the other way, I went too very calmly and stopped when she did. Hmmm, she thought, noone's forcing me to do stuff, this is good......I wanted to get her to follow me to the box so I put a tiny bit of pressure on with the rope, you could see her thinking about this, eventually she took one step forward so I immediately released the pressure. She learns quick this girl, I did that a couple more times and she got it!



That was enough for one day, she's only got a little baby brain, don't want to overload it. I took the headcollar off, she didn't immediately run away, I gave her a rub then she wandered off to graze. So I fetched a soft body brush, and another first, she was groomed all over - she even let me brush all down her legs without moving her feet.



Very good start.......then after that I had to go and spend ages redoing all the fences she broke the other night......still, gotta take the rough with the smooth!

Skyfaxa v. electric fence

Well, the trouble has started.......went out to check on them Wednesday night and I'm glad I did as there was electric tape all over the floor and a load of snapped fence posts..... She'd obviously got caught in the electric tape and panicked (yes, the fence was on!!) and snapped off a load of posts - luckily they were only the pine ones and not the heavy acacia ones so they broke easily. Managed to get her & Noisette into the box (so glad I had an extra big one built) and check her over, you can see where she had the tape round her neck but thankfully all her pulling hadn't broken the skin. So now I'm off to buy a load of plastic piquets to redo the fence........!Still, on the plus side she is now terrified of electric tape.......

She's here.....!!!

Skyfaxa has arrived! Finally the wait is over! She came in a HUGE lorry, she was the last one to be delivered and looked very lost in there......

She must be very confused by now, she's gone from running around in a huge field to being confined in a small barn for a week, then several days in the lorry and now she's in the paddock with Noisette.....there's a bit of running around going on, Noisette was initially wary of her but has now decided she's bullyable and in true small pony style has decided she'd like to be in charge.........

Skyfaxa is still wandering around snorting at scary stuff, the worst being the goat, Sugar!! I'm sure she'll realise soon enough that nothing in her new home will do her any harm! I'm going to leave her to settle in and recover from the journey for a few days.

She really is beautiful........