We have a picture!

What a difference a good diet makes!
Here's her 'before' picture:

Doesn't look so much like a pudgy pony anymore does she? Now I just need to get some ride time in so she can build up some muscle. Our farrier said he thinks she looks the best that she ever has, albeit out of shape.

Makes me happy that my girl is doing well despite the fact that I am 3,000 miles away...

Where have we been? A Buttercup update.

Caring for a horse when you are 3,000 miles away is different. It was never my plan to be supervising my horse’s care while out here in Oregon but sometimes it just works that way. Sometimes the best laid plans fall apart. You just pick up the pieces and move on.

And so it goes. My parents’ (Good bless them) have taken on full time care of the Buttercup girl. They do a good job, my Dad has followed my feeding instructions to the letter and I am happy to report that Buttercup has shed a lot of her excess weight. She is actually down to a decent size but is in need of muscling and conditioning. She is nothing but a pasture ornament at the moment.

She was supposed to go stay with my cousin, but family issues have prevented that so far. I was really hoping he would have taken her by now. I don’t want her to spend the next 2 years bumming around the pasture. She is still rideable and it seems a total waste to have her stand around doing nothing.

I looked into local leases but no one was interested in her. They all want “packer ponies” that will bring home blue ribbons for their kids not some old mare that is good on trails. What ever happened to riding for fun, exploring trails and hanging out with friends? Why does it seem that anymore all that matters is another blue ribbon to hang on the door?

Oh well. Their loss.

And so, my mare stands in the pasture. Getting treats from my family and visiting with the cows. Not such a bad life really but there has got to be something more for her. I’ll be home for Thanksgiving and if she is still on our farm will re-evaluate my plans. She won’t be sold. That is not an option. But I may start pushing a little harder for her to move to a place where she can get ridden. The roadblock keeping her from my cousin is plain stubbornness, a “well it wasn’t my idea so you can’t do it” kind of stubbornness but it’s what we have come to expect from this person so I guess it is nothing new. So my cousin and I sit on opposite sides trying to figure ways around this silly roadblock that won’t make either of our lives miserable.

Anyways, I will try to get some pictures of her up sometime soon. My parents’ do good with my feeding and grooming instructions. I am not about to press my luck begging them to take conformation shots for me!

Sandy the day we weaned her... June 1997

Not a bad looking filly!

One Last Suprise... The Story's End

Winter turned into Spring and our little Sandy girl was growing. She was quite the little trail riding buddy for Buttercup and I, scampering alongside us wherever we went. Even causing a few "loose horse!" scares amongst some of the contractors who were working on the farm.

She was turning into a real cutie. My whole family adored her, but secretly my Dad considered her "his girl". He would never admit it, but each morning when he arrived at the barn he would get out of the truck and yell "Hey Sandy girl!" And she would faithfully answer in her high pitched whinny and come trotting over to visit and be loved on. My Dad's a real softie with animals... but you'll never hear him admit it.

We loved her creamy buckskin color and I anxiously awaited for her to shed her winter coat, so I could brush her to a real shine. I went at her with the shedding blade and this is what happened...

Surprise!

My creamy buckskin was no more. The few stray hairs hung on as if to taunt me. But my dream of owning that creamy buckskin was gone for now. But hey! She was still a nice looking little horse and we still loved her to pieces. And too this day my family laughs about our 'magical" color changing horse. I guess I should have known it was coming, after all she did have raccoon like circles around her eyes.

Looking just like Mom...moving like her at least!

Our corgi using her as an overpass to cross under...

We didn't keep Sandy girl, I was a freshman in high school and had plans for college. There would be little to no time for me to train a young horse, let alone the fact that I had no training experience!! She was sold to a couple who trail rides with us. She is their baby girl.

I visited her a few years back (sadly without a camera) and she is the spitting image of her mother. She is well loved, they renamed her Baby Girl. Her pasture is right outside their back door and every morning she gets her share of sugar cubes and lots of attention. She lives with their two retired geldings... life can't get much better!

I have told the couple on numerous occasions that if they ever decide to sell her I want to be the first to know. I wouldn't hesitate, our Sandy girl would come back home. Back to where it all started. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Two For The Price of One!

I spent the next six months pouring over book and magazine article I could find on mare care... I was determined to do this and do it right. I wasn't going to be caught unprepared.

What I read scared the heck out of me... so many things could go wrong. What if Buttercup didn't make it? What if she had trouble foaling? What if the baby had contracted tendons? What if Buttercup hadn't received the proper nutrition in the early stages of her pregnancy?

Oh the what ifs!!

But I swear my Mom-Mom was watching over us, just two days after Christmas, our little bundle of joy arrived. We had been checking on Buttercup every hour, but missed the alarm for the 4 AM check and Buttercup foaled unassisted and without any problems.
It was a little girl and I was over the moon. She was ADORABLE and as I'm sure you can tell from the photos, fuzzy like a little teddy bear. Best of all, she was a buckskin! I always wanted a buckskin!!Our two for one deal was working out quite alright. I was learning more about horses than I ever thought I would. I was going to get to raise a foal! My friends were jealous, I mean how often do you get a chance to play with a foal?! They would all come and ooo and ahh at her and she ate up the attention.

She needed a name, as any prospective parent does, I had accumulated a list of "potentials." At the top of the list was Sierra... I thought it to be a pretty good name but standing in the stall looking at her I just knew she wasn't a "Sierra."

She was special, and therefore needed a special name. Something with significance. We chose to name her after my grandmother, because if it weren't for Mom-Mom, I wouldn't be experiencing this. So she was named Sandy's Surprise*. We called her our Sandy girl. We soon found out that she would live up to the "surprise" in her name...

Sandy Girl at 3 months...

* Buttercup's "show name" was Sandy's Secret and I thought Sandy's Surprise would be a good pairing of names.

Suprise!

I had a lot to learn about horse ownership. I had always ridden lesson horses, yea I knew how to groom them, tack them up and feed them. But I had no idea about getting them shod or what shots you needed the vet to give them. I spent a lot of nights on the phone with my cousin, asking a million questions. I am sure he was thrilled to see my phone number on the caller ID wondering if I could put human sunblock on her nose or if it was ok to feed her this or that kind of candy.

But I was figuring it out, I was learning by immersion. And in the not too distant future we were going to be immersed in an aspect of horse ownership that we never thought we would ever encounter...

It was mid-July, I had left for the county fair to tend to the chickens and rabbits I was showing as well as fulfill my duties as newly elected 4-H Senior Ambassador. There was no way to contact me short of driving to the fairgrounds which were a good 30-40 minutes away. My Dad was returning from his lunch break and when he rounded the bend by the pasture he saw our beef cattle standing in a circle, all staring at Buttercup who was sprawled out on the ground. She wasn't moving. His heart jumped in this throat, all he could think of was that we hadn't owned this horse for a full month yet and she was dead. We had killed her, he just knew it.

But she wasn't dead, she was in the throes of colic. He didn't know that, all he knew was she was still breathing, his daughter wasn't around and he needed to call the vet-NOW. The vet's office told him he needed to get her up and walk her. "Just how exactly do you get a horse up that wants to lay down?" he asked.

"Pull on her halter she'll get up. You might have to give her a push."

"She's not wearing a halter."

"Well just put one on... the vet will be there ASAP and whatever you do don't let her lay back down."

So my Dad, who has never haltered a horse in his life, goes back out with his co-worker to get her up and moving. They succeed in getting her up and walking. It seems like it takes forever for the vet to get there. They walk in circles... every once in a while Buttercup's legs would shake, buckle and down she would go. And each time my non-horsey, hero of a Dad would get her back up and moving.

The vet finally arrived and was able to treat her successfully. She would survive, it was just a nasty bout of gas colic. Then, while listening to her gut sounds he mentioned that there was a "ping" that shouldn't be there. He said hold on that he'd examine her further, Dad was nervous. Colic, pings that shouldn't be there, what else could be wrong with this horse?

The vet checked her out and turned to my Dad and said "I'm a cattle man, but I'm 99.9% sure you got yourself a pretty big foal in there."

"What?! Get your hand outta there!" Dad says, " You're telling me things I don't like!!"

Another vet seconded the prognosis, she was in foal. SURPRISE!

Two for the price of one!

She was due to foal in December. The countdown had begun, my family of first time horse owners had just been tossed into the deep end of the horse ownership pool and there was no turning back now...

She's Here!

PART THREE:
I swung open the gate so they could drive the trailer right into the pasture. I was grinning... I even pinched myself to make sure it really was true. And it was, my horse had arrived.

They swung open the door and she stepped off. They handed her leadrope to me and when I took it I realized my hands were shaking a bit- not from fright but from excitement. I stood there staring at her standing at the end of the leadrope. She looked back at me, gave a sigh and reached down to start eating grass. I was in love...

I was terrified of her before but now for some reason I wasn't. She was real, a gift from my Grandmother, something that would forever remind me of my Mom-Mom's love.I only had eyes for her, I was oblivious to my cousin and his neighbor who were unloading her tack. I didn't notice when they drove out of the pasture, all I could think of was my horse... right here, eating grass.

I tentatively reached out and gave her a pat on the shoulder. She lifted her head, snorted and then proceeded to rub her head on her front leg and go back to eating grass... a cuddler she wasn't.

I eventually unclipped her lead rope so she could be completely free in the pasture.She took off running, the wind blowing her mane and the sunlight glinting off her creme colored coat...

HA! Not exactly...

She actually just wandered over to a dusty spot and laid down to roll. So much for the story book tale of time slowing down as your new horse frolics in a pasture of tall grass while the sunlight streams down upon them!

My cousin was back from touring the farm with my Dad, and he gave me a few parting instructions, "Now make her mind hon, don't let her get away with anything. You'll be fine... she'll take good care of you." I gave him a huge hug and thanked him a million times...my dream had come true!!

That night I called my grandmother and told her every single detail, she was thrilled that I was so happy and told me she couldn't wait to meet her in person.

A week or so later she did, we rolled her wheelchair right up to the fence and she laughed as she fed Buttercup carrot (Mom-Mom wanted Buttercup to take a bite and Buttercup wanted the whole thing and a mini tug-o-war ensued). She giggled when Buttercup lipped at her straw hat and rested her nose on her head.

I gave her a riding demo and my Grandmother remarked to my parents (who were filming this occasion) that we had done good. We had done REAL good.

Within weeks my grandmother was gone, but she had accomplished her goal... her oldest granddaughter's dream had come true. And she must have been smiling down on us and laughing when we got the surprise of our lives around mid-July...