Surprise

We keep some of our horses at a friend's house because she has more grass than her horses can handle. She also keeps a large pony for another friend of hers. We stopped by there yesterday to trim one of our yearling's hooves. Our friend was mowing her yard, she and my husband were discussing changing oil on her lawn tractor.

I was listening and looking across the field occasionally at the horses who were at the back of the property. Something seemed strange about what I was seeing, so I tried harder to focus but at that distance and with my elderly eyesight, I couldn't make a certain object out. So, I finally said, "What is that?". My husband and our friend turned around to look. My husband said that it looked like a foal. I asked where our friend's German Shepherd was and my husband said that it's legs looked too long to be a dog, as he sprinted across the yard to the gate.

By the time that we arrived on the scene the "foal" had found it's mother and was nursing. My DH yelled to me that it belonged the pony. When it took it's head out from under it's mother and peeked around at us, we both started laughing and my husband announced that it was a mule.

The man who owns this pony had bought her at an auction last summer and had no idea that she was pregnant. We had been there about a week ago and I had made the comment that she looked pregnant but ponies tend to look that way, so we didn't investigate further.

It took awhile before our friend who owns the property got back to where we were. We didn't say anything about it being a mule to her and she was talking about how surprised her other friend was going to be. When she was finally close enough to see it she had the strangest look on her face. She said something about it having long ears before she realized what it was. I wish that I had had my camera with me, it was so funny!

It is just the cutest thing you ever saw. My husband finally caught it and we all got to pet it. It is a dark bay boy with a dorsal stripe, a curly mane and tail, very long ears and a light tan nose. You can't look at it without laughing. It's mother is a large bay pony with two blue eyes, she is real pretty and seeing her with this ugly little duckling is so sweet. She loves him no matter what he looks like.