A New Neighbor

Monday May 9 2011

'Twas a dark and stormy night - and come early morning, this little Fluffy popped up in the neighbor's foaling pen. He is LJ Owyhee Tourmaline, a smokey black colt - mother is a bay, father is Lost Juniper Ranch's LJ Owyhee Moonstone, a cremello Quarab.

Little 'Tourbo' was possibly re-thinking his timing, as the cold wind blustered and howled, and he shrunk up and shivered, neck scrunched down like a turtle and short curly tail tucked between his legs, huddling near mama as she rested from her adventure.


After a while, he was wanting to lay down, and studied his long legs, but couldn't quite figure out how to make them fold.

Instead he took a short little gambol, then came back to mama, clearly poking around looking for breakfast.

Finally mom got up, Tourbo zoomed right on in and had a nurse (isn't it amazing how they know just where to find the milk?), and all was right with the world.

Welcome to the crick, Tourbo!

[slide show]

Cry Uncle!

Friday July 24 2009

Owyhee Smoke Signal is almost 6 weeks old now.
The smokey black filly is still all legs, friendly as puppy dog, cute as... well, a fuzzy baby horse. Steph says, "I think she's the best baby in the whole world! The most beautiful baby ever, and the most intelligent. And the friendliest, and the most curious, and the funniest..." Of course that is a completely impartial observation.

Smokey is pretty smart, as she'll let you touch her all over, and she's already doing very basic natural horsemanship ground work - moving from pressure, letting me throw a rope all over her. Her reward is scratching, because she loooooooooooooves being scratched all over.









Smokey and her mom Princess have been hanging out with various herdmates, and the other day, Steph turned a few of them out in the big pasture together. Stormy stuck close by to keep an eye on the little Grasshopper.
He goes up to check on her now and again like a dutiful uncle.



The herd drifted up the little hill and out of sight for a while, and then Princess and Smokey came running back down to the house by themselves.



Smokey whinnied as she ran along, "Uncle Ssstttttooooorrrrmmmmmyyyyyy!" (She's very vocal - she calls to everybody, horses and humans.)

And conscientiously, Stormy came cantering over the hill and back to mama and baby, making sure all was okay.




Smoky runs and plays,







leaps and bucks,





grazes like the big horses, wanders around doing her own exploring. She's not intimidated by anything or anybody, and walks right up to Dudley or Finneas in their pens.


She comes up to me for more scratches. Stormy follows.







I'd have to agree, she is pretty friendly. And pretty smart. And pretty darn cute. Possibly the best horse baby in the whole world. And I am not biased, only making an objective observation.