Buttercup

A week or so ago I saw on Facebook that one of my vet school classmates was getting rid of her miniature horse (we all call her a pony and we know she is a mini).  We weren't really in the market for a horse or pony.  We have been talking about getting one off and on since summer time.  We have been between something small the kids could goof around on at home but not take on trail rides or something a little bigger that would be a good trail horse.  Not that a pony can't go trail riding, but that is a lot of trotting for the kid that is riding the pony.  Currently we have 4 riding horses.  Brad has one.  I have one and the kids fight over one.  Brad and I both ride double, and one kid rides on Ollie and then we are short a horse for one.  Which means V has to ride a horse he doesn't really like.  I easily convinced Brad that the mare was worth looking at, he had a pony growing up and has fond memories of that.

The kids and I headed down to see the mare and my two biggest horse critics (J and C) liked her a lot, and she didn't seem to mind my 4 kids hanging around her and being loud, or the two crazy border collies that were at the barn.  J and C were led around on her and they had a lot of fun, even though she was walking pretty fast.  After sleeping on the idea for a night I told my friend we would take the mare, Buttercup.  I think we should name her Tinkerbell because we have a Peter Pan and a Croc but the boys don't seem to agree and they all seem to be ok with her current name.





 


I had some excited kids but it was a very long week before we could pick her up.  We had to wait because we needed to get some work finished up on our barn.  We have stalls, but no stall gates.  We have a nice inside pen, but no gates.  We have a great small pasture for her, but no shelter and we thought she needed to have a place to get out of the rain.  We have a great shelter and automatic waterer but we have Ray (all 2,000 lbs of him) and Ray doesn't play well with new horses.  His pasture mates are known for following his lead and it can get ugly if you are the horse on the receiving end.  Eventually we will introduce them but for now Brad built gates!  The problem is there was some complications hanging them so Buttercup spent the night in the horse trailer parked inside the barn.  It really is not different than a stall, she didn't seem to mind.  After a night of all the kids loving on her, leading her in circles, picking up her feet 20 times and a cat taking a ride on her back (Bugs is weird!) she may have been happy to be out of reach and have some alone time until morning. 





I can usually accurately gauge how all the kids will respond to something.  J is usually the wild card. J and C ended up really liking Buttercup right away and V was more interested than I had expected.  I thought D was going to be thrilled and he didn't even want to go near her until today, she needed to grow on him I guess.  He is my horse lover, but he also loves our horses (he has been able to identify and name all 5 of our horses before he was two yeas old) and the horses on Unbranded, he doesn't love every horse he sees.  In Buttercup's first full day at our house she as been walked up to the house, walked into the garage, walked on the icy ground to Grandma Diane's indoor arena, was ridden by a couple kids and loved on quite a bit.  Her new residence is a stall in Grandma's barn, at least through the weekend.  The kids want to play with her a lot and it is easier in the arena.  Although the new pretty pony pen gates are finished and installed and patiently waiting to keep a pony contained.