Marlene and Morticia

How on earth did I end up with two ponies called that? Actually, I wouldn't have it any other way - I think they are brilliant in their outlandishness. You can't beat standing at the top of the field and calling these two! and Morticia is a perfect name for middle daughter's pony - her heroine is Wednesday Addams. Add to that my eldest daughter's pony, Matthew, and there we have a perfect collection.

Finally our snow has gone, and the sun even made a brief appearance today. We managed to get the ponies out for the first time this year. Just a walk around the block today - Tishy has newly had her shoes removed, and Marlene, little teddy bear that she is currently, hasn't been ridden since about September time. Both were pleased to be out and about , and Magpie was overjoyed to be out running with the ponies again.

I have started work on the second textile piece, Race -The -Wind. Not very happy with it at the moment, it feels very harsh and 'clunky'. What I really want to do is start building up gossamer thin layers over the basic image, but I have nothing suitable in my boxes of fabric. I'm going to have to go and rummage in other peoples stashes before I can go any further. ( By other people, I actually mean my sister, who has an enviable fabric stash - a whole barn full. I just have to grovel a bit to persuade her to let me help myself)

Snowy Days

This is the reason there has been no painting of late. The daily chores seem to take up most of the day in this weather! Luckily the ponies all seem fairly content to be out in the snow, as long as they have plenty of hay to eat. As you can see, little Austin is so well insulated with his Highland coat that the snow just settles on his back without melting. It doesn't appear to bother him in the least.

Me, I'm pretty well insulated too, but it's hot work hauling hay around the fields!

Piper and Hazel too, are in full winter woolies.

Even the children are doing their bit to help. You can never have enough logs for the fire.
Thankfully it seems to be thawing out. There is more heavy snow predicted for this afternoon, but I find it hard to believe - it's too mild out there, and I suspect it is more likely to come as rain.

Pony Updates

We are feeling rather sad in our house at the moment. Foggy, our littlest pony, has gone off to a new loan home. He has been utterly outgrown, and we have lent him to friends with small children who will adore him, but never-the-less he leaves a big gap behind him.
Now we are on the lookout for a suitable ( and affordable!) bigger pony, something around about 12.2 hands. Marlene is in foal for next year, so we will have to stop riding her later this winter. She went to stud to visit Glenmuir Buzzard , a beautiful Highland stallion, who is the sire of my Piper, and also of this gorgeous fellow below. He is Holmedown Austin, who belongs to my aunt, but is staying with me for a couple of months while she is away. He is 6 months old, and one of the most chilled out foals I have ever come across!

And below are pictures of my friends foals. These are dartmoor hill ponies, which were brought down in the drift at the beginning of the month. They are all sired by the spotted stallion shown here. She separated out her 5 and kept them back at the farm to wean as she didn't want them to have the stress of going through pony sales. They will be for sale once they have been halter broken.

The chocolate and white filly is just stunning, and every time I go to visit I come home wanting one.

And here is a commission piece I have just finished. It is not my usual subject matter, but I have always felt that dogs are my weak point when it comes to painting, and as I have turned down dog portraits a couple of times recently I thought it was a good opportunity to practice. It has certainly given me confidence and I think I am now happy to paint dogs!

How do YOU negotiate gates?

Jack, the anteater, with his snaky tongue, manages to insinuate himself through the smallest of gaps.

Magpie, the canine ping pong ball, shows him how real dogs do it.

Hazel thinks they are both hilarious.

Chagford Hill Pony Sales

A week of clouds lying low around us, fog on the high moor, and mist and perpetual dampness on the low moors signalled the begining of October, and the pony drift.
Today dawned cold and clear, and as always, I walked down the road to watch this year's crop of foals auctioned.

There were at least as many coloured cob foals as true Dartmoor ponies, with the larger ponies in much greater demand. It's a poor year, recession hangs over everyone's heads, and the prices were lower than usual, with several unsold. I always leave my wallet at home - it's so hard not to feel tempted to bring home the unwanted colts!

This fellow though, is one I would have stood and bid for had I been in a position to do so.
A 14hh , 7 year old piebald stallion. I didn't stay to watch him go through the sales ring, but I'm sure he was snapped up!

The Foragers Harvest begins in Earnest

The hedgerows are more thickly laden with fruit this autumn than I have seen for years. We wander around the field edges, purple stained and greedy, tiptoeing through nettles and gingerly reaching through the brambles. Rowan and haws, hips and blackberries, sloes and elderberries, all are growing in abundance, jumbled together and weighting slender stems earthwards. All these and more, we have been gathering. The jewel like colours inspired me to rummage amongst my yarn collection and collect my wool ends in glorious berry shades. Now I need a nice pattern for a jerkin if anyone has one?

Hazel tries her best to eat our blackberries as fast as we gather them.

While Sandpiper does her best " I'm the boss in this field" display. ( This is for Hazel's benefit, not ours - Hazel being the latest addition to our herd - Sandpiper is deeply annoyed at her sharing our blackberries, despite not liking them herself!)

A Little House on a Hill

This is Marlene, all dressed up for going a-visiting. My daughter thought the special occasion warranted it! I had heard from Terri Windling that the Travelling Hermitage had arrived, and as I regularly read Rima's wonderful blog and love her work, we wandered over the hill and paid a visit.

There are times when immersed in blogland, that I pause and think to myself - this is just an illusion! We 'meet' people on our virtual wanderings, and build relationships, and count some of them as real friends, and yet we only really ' know' an online persona. The person behind it could be entirely different from the image they project. ( I'm sure that most are not, but these are the things I start to think of when I feel I have spent too much time on the computer, and not enough time connected to the real world!) It was wonderfully refreshing to meet Rima and Tui, and find that they are just as nice in real life as they appear in Rima's blog!
They were kind and welcoming, and it was lovely to see them and their wagon, tucked away in a secluded spot, a haven of calm and beauty on a hot afternoon!

Time to make space!

So, it's the summer holidays, and as it's hard to get much painting done, it is time instead for the annual tidy up of my studio! ( and I have family coming to visit next week, and at least one of them will have to sleep on the little cabin bed in there!). I have finally got around to making prints of all the transformations paintings. These are listed on Etsy here. I also have a very limited number of cards with these printed on. I have not listed them on Etsy, as it's not really economical to do so, but if there are any you particularly want, do please contact me, and I will see if I have them.( they are £1.50 each)

And, after much deliberation, I have decided to offer up the originals of all these shown here. I'm not very good at parting with originals, but my house is tiny, and I like to have most of my wallspace crammed with other people's artwork, so there really isn't much room for my own. These larger originals, are all listed on ebay here.

And that brings me to this little mare, purchased on a whim, because I liked her, although I have had to scrabble around and borrow from the housekeeping money to find enough to pay for her. (Another reason for deciding to part with original paintings) Thankfully, the family agreed they didn't mind me doing this! She is 2, possibly 3 ( a little bit of uncertainty there) approximately 13hh at the moment, and has a pair of piercing blue eyes. Her name is Mahogany Mist ( she is by the connemara stallion Timber in the Mist) but I promised the children they could choose an every day name for her. I had to rule out Misty from the start - we already have a pony called Foggy, and although we do live in the wettest place in the UK, I really don't need any more reminding of it. Instead they opted for a tree name, and chose Hazel, which I think suits her, so Hazel she will be. She is kind natured, and trusting, but very nervous and anxious about her new home at the moment. Marlene is grudgingly playing nursemaid to her, though she is starting to get annoyed by Hazel following her so closely that she bumps into her everytime she stops.

A New Pony!

We have a new addition to our equine family!
She is the reason I haven't had time to blog for a couple of days - that and the hay coming in the last two evenings. I was a bit shocked by just how unfit I am - stacking bales in the hot hay loft was exhausting!
Anyway, I'll tell you more about her in the next couple of days - she is still settling in, and a little bit stressed by her new location.

Foal Update

Foals change so fast! These are the ones from my earlier post, and already they are growing away and changing colour. This colt below is the one we named 'Paddington' because of his spectacles. He has already whited out.

This is the black filly I have been admiring so much. She too is losing her foal coat, and is looking grey beneath it. She is still very nice, but now, 6 weeks on, and into the hotter weather, it is obvious her dam has bad sweetitch, so there is a 50/50 chance she will have passed it on to the foal.

This is another favourite of mine - a mare I have liked for years. (you can see her pictured in my drawing for the WHOA sketchbook, at the top left of this blog). She has a nicely made filly foal this year.

Thankyou!

Firstly I'd like to thank everyone for all your helpful comments on my last post. I'm sorry that I didn't have time to reply to everyone individually, (too busy dealing with animal stresses this week!) but I REALLY do appreciate your kind words and advice.
The buttercup rash has completely gone on three legs - it's lingering still on the fourth, but I'm working on it. Thankfully, it doesn't appear to be bothering Red in the least.
Today's good news is that Marlene has come into season, so not in foal!

I also found time to do a quick painting of a bloke with a stoat on his head. And a small boy masquerading as a chaffinch. My sister and I are organising an Open Studios event for Chagford Arts Festival in about three weeks time, so I am desperately trying to finish some work to exhibit!

Buttercup Rash

These few days of gloriously hot weather have brought a problem with them. A couple of days ago I saw that Red's legs had suddenly flared up into what looked like a very bad case of mud fever. He is an appaloosa, with pink skin on his muzzle, so I do sometimes have to apply a bit of sun cream on his nose ( which he hates), and it would seem that the very strong sun combined with the buttercups being out has resulted in a bad case of buttercup rash. I had only encountered this on pink muzzles before, but this time Red's legs were covered in crusty scabs from the knees down, and his pasterns were particularly bad.
So, what to do?
I couldn't find a great deal of information about this, so I've gone for some common sense treatment. First, I brought him in and thoroughly washed his legs with hibiscrub (anti microbial), as the scabs were weepy, very much like mud fever or greasy heel spots. This took nearly an hour to do each leg, but, surprisingly, he didn't seem to mind at all. Usually he fidgets when having something done, but he almost seemed to be enjoying this. Then, after thoroughly rinsing them, I left him in the barn for the rest of the day, away from the sun, as, if I am correct, buttercup rash is due to photo sensitisation of the skin.

By the evening, it was time to turn him out. He is already in the field with the least buttercups, but it is impossible to remove him from them entirely. I had intended to put Aloe vera gel on his legs when they were dry, but actually, the skin felt so soft, and there was no sign of new 'weeping' from the rash, that I changed my mind. Instead, I put brushing boots on all four legs to protect them from the sun, and the buttercup pollen, and barrier cream on the exposed bits of his pasterns.

So, the plan is to keep him out of the bright sun while the buttercups are out, and I am hoping this will solve the problem. Still, if anyone has any other experience of this, I'd be glad to hear what has worked for you!

Another Camp Ride

The forecast was good for the bank holiday weekend, so at the last minute the girls and I packed the tent, saddled up and rode out for 3 days. This is us leaving the farm where we keep the ponies. We met up with friends, and rode out to Manaton, where we stayed at Wingstone Farm. This was a new place to stay for us, but we couldn't have asked for a better place. It is not a proper campsite, but that makes it more special! Juliette Rich, the owner, does lovely Bed and Breakfast in the house, but is happy to take tents and horses. She made us feel very welcome, and we will definitely be returning in future!

We pitched our tent in the meadow by the stream, under the oak trees. This is a beautiful stretch of meadow and woodland in the bottom of the valley below Hayne Down and The Bowerman's Nose. The clear water gurgled and splashed beside our tent, and the meadow was bursting with wildflowers. We are in the middle of bluebell season, and everywhere you turn, there are carpets of blue. I turned my ponies out in the meadow alongside us - there was far more grass than they are used too, but it was a nice treat after a hard day's riding.

There are also lovely big airy stables in the barn, where my friend Kathryn kept her two ponies, as the grass in the meadow was too rich for them.

On the second day , we set off along the Dartmoor way, down through Houndtor Woods. The beginning of the track sloped down steeply, and was very stony. This is the worst terrain for Red and Foggy, as they are barefoot, but I led Red down, and he picked his way carefully. At the bottom of the valley the track became softer, and we followed the river along before turning back onto the moor, and following a sheep track up across Trendlebeare down. The path down to the river crossing was steep and rocky. This is where the barefoot ponies come into their own. A lot of the track involved climbing down from boulder to boulder. Without shoes, there is far less chance of slipping on the smooth granite. I again led Red, but the children on their surefooted hill ponies just hopped and scrambled down the hillside. At the bottom, back in the bluebell woods, was a clear, cool river, a welcome drink before climbing up the other side of the gorge, and eventually emerging into the hot sun at Houndtor. We stopped for ice - creams at the van in the car - park below the rocks, before heading back across Hayne Down to Wingstone.

After a paddle in the stream, my youngest daughter and I spent a quiet hour in the beech trees, making fairy houses!

It's always fun to have a camp fire! The girls made toast, and then decided to split bananas open and stuff them with broken chocolate biscuits before baking them on the fire!

They said they were delicious!

On Monday, it was a little cooler and we set off home via Holwell and Bonehill rocks and down into Widecombe for a lunch stop, before a long haul back across the moor. 6 hours in the saddle on this last day, but we had such a wonderful time! The ponies ( and Red) all behaved perfectly for the whole trip, like true trail ponies! The older girls did lots of cantering and jumping, and discovering their brakes on the open moor, and dear little Foggy took perfect care of my youngest daughter, trundling after the older girls when she wanted him too, or walking back with us if she didn't want to follow them. He never moved an inch while she climbed on and off him, dropped his reins while trying to open gates, or was mobbed by crowds of children on the village green at Widecombe.

Here we are, the whole gang ( except me - I'm always behind the camera!) . Red, the appaloosa is my ride, and the two grey ponies are ours - Matthew, a dartmoor hill pony, and Foggy, our little Welsh mountain pony. My friend Kathryn, has Yeoman, an elderly grey Highland pony, and her daughter rides Bramble, another dartmoor hill pony.