Major Update 1 of 3: Baby Rene

 Foaling season is madness, y'all, especially since it coincides with the Christmas rush in the Kindle world. Horses and books are being popped out of thin air all over the place! Of course, it's also the time of year when the days are longer and the kids are squeezing in extra rides and shows to prepare for next year's interschools season, so several wheels are coming off my bus at this point. The blog, obv, was one of them for a minute there.

Friesian foal 2 out of an expected 3 arrived on the evening of November 12th. He is SO FRIENDLY

Nonetheless, I have baby horse photos to make up for it. The first of our Nooitgedachter babies arrived on November 15th.

She was quite a shock. I had been obsessing over Rene for two weeks as she got bigger and bigger and more and more uncomfortable and yet her milk just wouldn't come in. Night checks were starting to wear me down pretty well, and on the night of November 14th, I was absolutely exhausted. We had been at a horse show with the kiddos for the entire day and I'd been burned out even before that. That morning, I could just about squeeze out a drop of transparent fluid from her, but she had no signs of real milk that evening.

"Your baby is not coming tonight," I announced, and went to bed for my first full nights' sleep in two weeks. Obviously, Rene took my words as a challenge.

I reached the stable that morning and practically had heart failure because there was a poor sad motionless little foal lying on the ground on top of its placenta. Ignoring every piece of wisdom I have ever accrued in the past 20 years of working with horses, I dived through the stable door in front of the sleepy mare, crashed to my knees beside the foal, gripped its poor little neck with both hands and exclaimed, "Oh, please don't be dead!" Whereupon the foal's eyes snapped open and it leaped to its feet, thoroughly disgruntled by its first encounter with a human being. Sorry, baby. We're all freaking nuts.

Rene had done a sterling job of delivering her foal in the small hours of the morning with no assistance, which is hardly any surprise considering that she used to foal down out in the fields in her previous home. She was in perfect health and so was her very bouncy, hungry, happy baby, a beautiful big bay filly with a huge star and two socks. Why the filly had chosen to lie on top of her placenta instead of on the nice clean shavings, I'll never know. Sometimes foaling out mares is a perfect opportunity for God to play jokes on us.

The baby's owners named her Rose, and she is picture perfect. A little standoffish - unsurprising, since I only imprinted her around 3 or 4 hours of age instead of at birth - but very well-behaved once you've got hold of her. She's big, athletic, and has a ton of presence, too. I think she'll turn out a fairly big-boned mare but classy and elegant like her mom.

Either way, there's something special about her that's only grown more and more evident as she continues to grow and unfold.

Arwen was adamant that Rose was HER baby.

Next update: the momentuous birth of Baby Faith, an absolutely unforgettable experience!