Spring is popping, and it’s keeping us hopping here on our farm on the hill.
A filly was born to our pony named Misty two weeks ago — a beautiful little dark beauty with a tiny touch of white on her shoulders, feet and the tip of her tiny tail.
Just a week later, a colt arrived for our pony Fancy Pants. This little fellow is brown and white with the brown making the shape of a heart on his side. His mama was born here years back.
Her brown markings against white made her back legs look as though she was wearing a pair of bell bottom pants, and I jokingly said it looked like she was wearing fancy pants. The name stuck.
The first couple of days in a young pony’s life are filled with awe-inspiring moments for me, a world apart from the calves I grew up watching.
This little filly, standing on toothpick legs, seemed so fragile. After nursing for a bit, the filly stretched her neck and in an unexpected burst of energy, bolted around the pen filled with fresh straw bedding. We laughed at her antics, filled with bursts and sudden stops.
A boss once told me we are born to be horse lovers, or not. My husband was clearly born with the love of horses in his bones.
His mother once told me that, as a little boy, he would draw horses on paper, cut each one out carefully and place them in their own pens and pastures. When she cleaned the floor, he would start all over again.
With a new filly and colt preening about, I see glimpses of that boy, having great fun. He leads Misty to pasture, her baby staying at her side. I am amazed by how fast that tiny filly can run, taking long jaunts away from her mama, running large circles in our greening pasture.
The colt is a showman in every way, and he is a beauty. Fancy Pants watches as her colt kicks out his back legs and runs with abandon, snorting and bucking in the pasture to the north of where Misty stands guard over her filly.
Once in a while on this sunny, breezy day, I noticed Misty allowing her filly to touch noses with the colt at the gate which separates the two.
While the ponies arrived here as gifts for our young grandchildren, every day I see exactly who is enjoying this shining moment most of all.
Life offers up a constant blend of work and reward. Sometimes, it shows up as pure joy.
