our Annie

Some of you knew we were thinking about it, some of you knew we'd decided, and some had no idea we had any intention of doing it. But I doubt anyone is going to be too surprised that we have a new addition to announce! Meet Annie, our new pony mare. She showed up at 10:00 this morning, and by 10:15 seemed as settled as if she'd been here forever.

Her color is chestnut. According to her teeth, she's somewhere in her late teens, but not yet 20. Her breed and her history are a mystery, but somewhere along the line she was treated nicely enough that she's trusting and trustworthy herself. She's taken kids, sheep, dogs, cats, chickens, and Pig all in stride. She even peacefully looked on while I taught a couple of herding lessons this morning, head hanging over the fence between lessons as if to ask the sheep what the deal was with the whole thing.

Annie and Lacy greet each other. For the most part the interactions between the three ponies have been very amicable. An occasional squeal from Lacy or Butterscotch, but nobody looks too serious about it, more just a "hey, this is our place, so don't try anything crazy!" sort of thing.

Interesting coincidence, the woman I bought Annie from is the same woman that sold Lacy to the woman who gave her to me. Small world! Was fun chatting with her about Lacy's past. (Apparently she'd been a fairly well known hunter-jumper pony in the south prior to being sold as a broodmare. This woman bought her to breed to her Welsh Cob stallion, got a nice little colt out of her, then sold her to the woman who eventually gave her to me.)

Here's Zoo Boy aboard Annie when we went to look at her earlier in the week. The important thing about this was that Zoo Boy doesn't like riding horses. At least, not traditionally. He rode the pony we used to have (Ladybug) when he was a toddler, but has had no interest in riding Butterscotch, Nina (a pony we'd adopted for the kids to ride last spring, who wound up not getting along with our other two so we had to find a home for her), or any other horse/pony we've come across since. Yet, the first thing he said when he saw her was "Can I ride her?" Once he found out that yes, indeed, we were there so that they COULD ride her, he asked "Can I go first?" and then didn't accept just being led around inside the barn, he wanted to REALLY ride her. So, go figure. Certainly weighed heavily in my decision to buy her!

Hanging out with the gang. We'll keep a fence between them for the first day or two, just to be safe, but I can already tell that they are going to work out to be buddies. So now we're a 3 horse family. Which means we officially have a "herd". Which means I'll have that much less time for blogging....