March...March Madness and Mayhem!

Puffin

We've all been enjoying having Puffin on our calendars this month - a photo of him during his stay at Marsland Nature Reserve - he's a very handsome boy and you can definitely see he has Exmoor pony genes...and he always a super hairstyle! 

To say that March has been challenging is probably an understatement!!  You just never know what is around the corner...and for poor Jenny she fell two weeks ago and broke her leg/hip which was a very painful ordeal for her - when you see the scale of the injury it's clear that she was very brave indeed!  We are so lucky to have the NHS for these trauma incidents and after a trip in an ambulance to A&E, within 24 hours Jenny had had a major operation to pin her hip and leg back together again.  She is amazing us all with her recovery - and the hospital too who released her after just a week in the Royal Devon and Exeter.  Jenny is well on the road to recovery now and hopefully it won't be too long until she is off her walking frame and back to walking independently again. 

It was a daily 4 hour round trip to do visits to the hospital each day and all this co-incided with my mid-week volunteers having left to take up paid employment so it made for some very long days for Faye.  Margaret came every day to help with the pony dinners and make sure Topsy got her extra feeds whilst we were out.  It was such an exhausting time and it's still not really that long since we lost Munchie.

Last weekend the "cavalry" arrived - Katie came to us on her corporate charity day from the Oxford based solicitor firm where she works - such excellent timing as spring has definitely sprung and we needed to get all the fences up to make sure the ponies have their trackways in place - she had a blister by the end of the day poor thing but we really appreciated her help so much.  On Saturday Nicole and Martin came down to help - again all the way from Oxford and by the Sunday we had Katie and her husband David, Margaret, and Nicole and Martin for the morning so it was great to have a big tidy up and get the barn rearranged and get things a bit more organised again after the mad time we've been having recently. 

The lovely spring weather we've had this week means that things have started to dry up - 3 fields were rolled today - what a whirlwind!

Frodo and Katie

Ponies on their track system that Katie helped to set up.

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End of February

Rocky prancing in the snow, Munchie in the background

Thank you to everyone for your supportive messages regarding Munchie.  I'm really taken with how many hearts Munchie stole and how much of an impression he made on people, even if they'd only ever met him for a couple of hours!  He really was very much a people pony and it seems that everyone who knew him, for whatever space of time, long or short, really did fall in love with him.  Everyone is so kind in saying how much he was loved, and that he knew he was loved, and we really did give him the best quality of life possible with his (at times very complicated) health conditions.  The herd have all coped very well and everything happened in a way that meant they got a chance to process what was happening - all are very relaxed.

A bit late for the posting of this one, but the calendar photo for February was Rocky prancing in the snow, with Munchie in the background.  Whereas last year in February/March we were under siege from the "Beast From The East", this year we really have benefitted from an amazingly dry and beautiful 3 weeks of warm, mostly sunny weather.  Quite a shock really, but very welcome to have some relief from the cold and the wet, and an unprecedented opportunity to roll the fields - never before have we done this in February!  Thanks to the efforts of John and Martin the fields are looking much improved, even if only temporarily.  We're also benefitting from all the extra visitors who have been coming to help and visit - Sam, Zoe with her dog Echo, Nicole and Martin, Frances, Izy, and Sue.  Many hands make light work indeed!  So lovely to have lunch out in the garden in the sunshine with our lovely pony shepherd dog by our side and Topsy joining in the garden party too - Martin even brought her a homegrown carrot from his allotment so she really did join in the picnic too! 

Such a shame to have lost the weather now but not a surprise...now we are "battening down the hatches" in readiness for the weather warnings with Storm Freya...maybe March will come "In like a lion and out like a lamb"...

Topsy's keeping up with her extra feeds and enjoying some time
without her rug during the day.

Frodo supervises Martin's handiwork with the tractor and roller.

Beautifully flat field by the end!

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