people4ponies blog: November + Pony Catch Up

Saturday 3 November 2018

November + Pony Catch Up

Frosty ponies picture on the November 2018 calendar -
Rocky, Bobby, Dan, Wolfie, Frodo and Arthur

Time has been going so quickly - mostly because there have been 10 ponies here to look after and that number is really the absolute maximum limit to manage, particularly when poorly ones need extra looking after. Thankfully Bisto has gone back to his "Mum" now - after a slight delay because their barn/stable became a casualty of the big storm the other week.

Alfie

The weather has been very peculiar this year with the grass flushing in the autumn - no fences up for the spring but up for the autumn instead - very peculiar! Apparently on Exmoor there have been lots of cases of grass staggers with horses - thankfully we've avoided that so far (fingers crossed)! There's been lots of frosty mornings which we love - we have really missed those in previous years. The grass is changing now so it won't be long before the ponies will be allowed onto their winter pasture. The colour of the trees has been most spectacular - as Alfie demonstrates, posing next to the Liquid Amber tree. Catherine and Victoria helped me to get the gateway mats down just in time so we have a rubber walkway to try to keep us on the move as the amount of mud increases!

During half term we had Archie and Caitlin help for a day, and then Henry and his Mum on a different occasion - and we finished the week with a stall at the Apple Fair in South Molton where we raised just over £150 for the ponies. Margaret featured on Spotlight this week as Witheridge has it's spectacular church display of 5,000 poppies in the church in preparation for remembrance Sunday - as such she had been knitting red and purple poppies to contribute to the numbers needed. She kindly knitted some extra purple poppy brooches for us to sell at our South Molton stall - they are for remembrance of animals lost during conflict. Amazingly we sold out so she is knitting more!

Archie and Bisto

Henry and Munchie

We were very pleased to hear an excellent report for the horse sale at Hallworthy market this year where standards have improved considerably - trading standards and Defra were present. Animals without passports were not sold and handling was considerably improved. Apparently taking photos and videos at the market has been banned by the auctioneer - obviously this is the preferred evidence for any investigating authority when there are problems so I will be taking this up with Trading Standards.

We have more stock on its way in preparation for our Christmas stalls...and very importantly the design for our 2019 People4ponies calendar is currently at the printers so we should be able to pick those up very soon - we've had people enquiring about our calendars and whether they can make purchases - we are a little delayed...but they will be ready for sale very, very soon! Keep an eye on the blog for more news about when the calendars are ready for sale!