Paula's Beginning, Horses on Hold, New Additions, Move to Lillington

New Additions

From 1995 through 1997, the girls didn’t have much chance to see, groom or ride the ponies we started with as they were just helping their grandpa Ed feed them while I worked full time and a lot of overtime hours while their dad (Larry) was overseas. They did get some time with the ponies, enough that they were grasping how to sit on them, maybe get them moving - though not always in a forward gear, and grooming.

We did have our first purebred Shetland foal, a filly. She didn't do well at birth as she was born under the fence and was found with her sire trying to nurse on him while he cleaned her up. When re-introduced to her dam, "Patty" wasn't at all happy about the thing in her paddock and shelter with her. "Chick-a-Boom" had been pre-named after a song the girls liked at that time and there was no-way we were going to let the little one "go". So, after the vet gave us very poor prognosis of life - she proved everyone wrong with the little spark that turned into a larger than life will to live! After spending 48 hours at the vet clinic, she came home to spend 20 days living in our kitchen by night - getting her formula and milk from a bowl. She would ride out to the farm on the floor of the truck almost under our daughter's booster seat until the day she refused to lay down. Then she moved back into her mom's pen. The pen was along the road that cut through the property so we now had people stopping to ask about the "stuffed animal" along the road. Her name became "Stuffy" - which has stayed with her.

Move to North Carolina

In March 1997, Larry arrived on vacation from Saudi Arabia and we packed up and moved all these ponies (Now having grown to 6 head) with us back to NC. Just 10 days after arriving, Patty produced "Shado" about a month earlier than we were expecting her! With no barn or shelter ready, we ran out and bought tarps to make a "psuedo shed" for our tiny addition. The pics show how wet the girls got while putting the shelter together in the rain with me while Patty and Shado watched.

I wasn’t working and the ponies were on leased property about 8 miles from the housing area we lived in. The girls’ suddenly learned much more about feeding, grooming and such. A search to find riding instructors who would willingly work with our children and the un-broken ponies was not successful. We were told the “beasties” and the kids were too small and/or young to be taught. So, I dug up teaching manuals, spent time calling riding instructors in other areas out-of-state that did work with children and small ponies, purchased books and magazines and embarked on teaching them all myself. Folks where we boarded the ponies used to get such a kick out of me – I’d lead the stud pony with our oldest daughter Skye on one side, and the two others on their mare ponies on the other. It was a great exercise for me – in one year I lost 80 pounds that I’d put on since having the girls’.

In 1998, 1999, 2000 & 2001 we visited Perdue Ponies of Bailey, NC with Ed & Deb Perdue. We would look at thier current crops of ponies and talk about how ponies were shown. The girls also had a ball checking out the frogs around the big pond.

There were things they weren’t learning and eventually Skye (the oldest) was to get lessons from Alison Eynon who was then a student at St. Andrews College in Laurinburg, NC. We did go to some fun and learning shows – and we learned. When Alison moved to a new job, all three of the girls and several of the ponies recieved lessons through another St. Andrews student - Liz Harris. In the process, the original ponies were broken in and many more were bred, raised, trained and sold.

I had started the girls pretty much with western riding (see Patty's, Magic's , Satin's & Sioux's pages), but they wanted to learn to ride huntseat and jump. In 2003 they were happy to work with not 1 but 2 different instructors that took them with their green mounts (oh – yes, they’d grown and were riding bigger ponies now!) and they all learned to jump. We went to quite a number of local shows in 2003 .

Paula's Beginning, Horses on Hold, New Additions, Move to Lillington

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