Eggsy Pony's year that was 2022 Part 2 July - December

 

This is Part 2 of Eggsy Pony's year that was 2022, if you haven't read part 1, January - June, you'll find it here:

Eggsy Pony's year that was 2022 January - June 

July

You may remember that when we left Muddy Bottom in January, Hansel the Goose and  Gingee the stray cat who stayed came home with us, in July Eggsy Pony gave an update on how they were settling in via his Eggsy Pony Diaries on Ko-fi :

"Gingee our old feline compadre from Muddy Bottom days finally left the sofa and started to explore the house. This has not gone well, he is now encamped on the landing much to the disgruntlement of several other felines who liked that spot. The human is also rather disgruntled as Gingee Roo Roo is now deserving of the name Gingee Poo Poo, he has, unfortunately taken to using the bathroom for toileting. That's right Gingee Poo Poo is pooing on the bathroom floor! On the bright side he is still weeing in a litter box downstairs. As far as this little pony can see cates are a law unto themselves."

"Hansel our goose compadre from Muddy Bottom got a new pond so at least he's happy. For pond read huge shallow sided feed bucket, it's really not fair I want one filled the the brim with yummy food..."

As temperatures rose to 40c, 104f, tempers frayed on the yard. Two ponies colicked after apparently ingesting grass clippings, the owner blamed the yard owner claiming that cutting  grass and not removing clippings was criminal negligence.

Someone called the fire brigade when the yard owner had a bonfire. 

One of the ponies who had colicked came down with laminitis and once again the owner blamed the yard owner for her pony's health problem.

Then to top it all the yard dog was accused of biting someone and reported to the police as a dangerous dog.

Things were getting rather unpleasant ....

August

The RSPCA visited the yard following a complaint about a dog in distress.

The police visited the yard following complaints about goodness only knows what.

In a fit of pique the yard owner declared he'd had enough of liveries, was going to put the place up for sale and that we would all have to leave. The thought of having to move the horses again, after they'd only just settled, was horrible. 

It was a horrible time on the yard, muck destined for the muck heap got dumped in a gateway and left, the sand school gates were locked to prevent access to a certain person, fences were pulled down...

It was so hot that the grass was a scorched savannah.  

And suddenly it was all over, the unhappy owner finally left and peace was restored. The place never did go up for sale.

September

I concussed myself, I'd gone out to feed Hansel the goose in the pouring rain, not looking where I was going I walked straight into a branch that had come down and banged my head. I didn't think anything of it but by tea time I was feeling decidedly sick and unwell. So unwell that next day I asked my son's to do the horses for me.

It actually took me a few days to realize I was concussed, at first I thought I'd caught a bug of some sort but realization slowly dawned when I started getting words muddled up and forgetting what I was doing. Unfortunately I suffered post-concussive syndrome which was to last for several months. 

I'll let Eggsy tell you about the next traumatic experience with another extract from his Ko-Fi diary,

"The next disaster also came in the pouring rain, Mr Boo colicked. He was pawing the ground and going down to roll, eventually refusing to get up and we all thought he was a gonna. The horse's boy and herself sat in a muddy heap trying to comfort him whilst waiting for what seemed like hours for the vet. We horses all stood watching with worried hearts.

The vet thought he was a gonna too and was talking about humane euthanasia on welfare grounds when Mr Boo basically said, "Sod that I'm not ready to pop my clogs yet" and stood up. He had to undergo the indignity of having the vet's arm up his bum and several injections but was given 24 hours reprieve." 

I must add that Mr Boo made a full recovery from that colic episode and is still with us.

October

Miss Darcey Puffle Dog is back at the vets with the mysterious swelling again, she had surgery on the foot a while back and we thought / hoped the problem had been resolved but a couple of months down the line we were back to square one with little idea as to what was wrong with her. This time biopsies were taken, along with one from a spot that had appeared on her ear. The results came back as "trauma" causing the foot to swell and a benign tumor on the ear. More antibiotics.

November

Tina from Guiding Horses made a supa dupa brooch / pin using some of Eggsy Pony's tail hair, that's his hair in the little bottle. She's selling it and some others as a fund raiser for Eggsy, the kindness of some is heartwarming.

(Now sold)

December

And here we are in December all present and correct, Miss Darcey Puffle Dog finally came off her antibiotics and (touch wood) the foot is fine and the benign tumor has simply disappeared. 

Everyone is fine, though the horse's boy did catch covid earlier in the month he has now fully recovered. 

We've had bitterly cold weather with days of hoar frost and frozen ground, we seem to be in the middle of a rainy spell now and everything is mud including the ponies. Here are some photographs from Christmas Day.

So that's Eggsy Pony's year that was 2022. Wonder what 2023 will bring.....

(If you enjoyed the extracts from Eggsy Pony's Diary there are more on his Ko-fi page, some free for all to view others for supporters only, buying him a "coffee" gives you access to them and other supporter only posts)

Eggsy Pony's year that was 2022 Part 1 January - June

 It's seems to have become a bit of a blogging tradition, during the time betwixt and between Christmas and New Year, to publish a  retrospective blog on the year that's about to end. This is Eggsy Pony's 2022 year that was part 1 January - June: 

January

 2022 started with us losing the land we kept the horses on and also our major source of income. New Year's Day found us desperately seeking somewhere to keep all four equines together as well as a home for a goose and a cat. We'd been told by our then landlord that he wanted the horses off his land by the start of the year and we hadn't found anywhere to go. 

Things were getting very "uncomfortable" at Muddy Bottom, despite the fact that our rent was paid  and we hadn't even been given written notice to quit, the landlord had started chainsaw work on trees next to the horses' paddock. And during the Christmas holidays he'd sent his son and granddaughter to Muddy Bottom to try out their new dirt bikes! 

It was rapidly becoming apparent that we couldn't continue to rent from this man and the family business was also on the site.

Losing the land plus the behaviour of the landlord on top of the enforced business closures during the 2020, 2021 lockdowns forced us to come to terms with the reality that we could no longer continue our family business. 

Eventually, through a friend, we found a livery yard that had vacancies for Eggsy and his friends. Paying livery was going to more than double the cost of keeping our horses but we just couldn't find any land to rent within a reasonable distance from our home so we had little choice but to move there.

We'd also failed miserably in our search for new homes for Hansel the goose and Gingee the cat, both had been dumped in the orchard to fend for themselves and of course we fed them and they became our responsibility. The only solution for them was to come home with us, not ideal but we couldn't leave them there, they'd been abandoned once and we weren't about to abandon any creature in our care.

January 19th was moving day for the horses, Eggsy Pony took hours to load, and, when he arrived at his destination promptly attempted to jump out of his stable. But, Eggsy is no showjumper and he only succeeded in getting his front legs over the stable door and was unable to get himself out of his predicament. 

He was such an unhappy boy and we were fortunate that the livery yard owner allowed us to let Eggsy live out as long as the fields didn't get too poached.

February

February found the British Isles battered by storms, Eggsy Pony and Friends field shelter survived, it's a bit colander like with lots of holes holes in it so the winds passed through. Others on the yard weren't as lucky 

Fortunately no one was hurt and the upturned field shelters were eventually righted with the assistance of a local farmer.

The big news for Eggsy Pony was that we joined Ko-fi which is rather like a blogging platform where fans (does Eggsy have fans ?) can show their support by buying a coffee. Of course the money isn't really spent on coffees, Eggsy doesn't drink them, nor should he, but it goes toward his keep.

March

During March we decided that it was about time Eggsy had his own birthday. We didn't know exactly when Eggsy was born so in previous years we'd celebrated his birthday with an extra carrot or two on January 1st the official birthday for Thoroughbreds in the Northern Hemisphere. 

The date we came up with was 28th May because that's the date that the people who had abandoned Eggsy to die left the area. The date that his life changed forever.

We also celebrated a real birthday, Madeline, Eggsy's  Thoroughbred friend and companion reached the grand age of 20 on March 5th.

April

In April we celebrated the anniversary of Eggsy finally getting gelded the year before. It had been a momentous day for all concerned having taken us simply ages to save the funds to get it done! 

May

May started with Eggsy's canine friend Miss Darcey Puffle Dog's birthday on May 4th but of course for Eggsy Pony the big date was 28th May when he could celebrate his very own birthday, without having to share, for the very first time. He had a little virtual party over on Ko-fi, and was completely spoiled in real life.

June

June 1st was Pippin's birthday, Pippin is Eggsy's elder brother by another mother, which this time coincided with a visit from Auntie Philo who always brings such wonderful and bounteous treats with her.

Another June birthday was that of Eggsy's first friend Boo who was 24 this year.

The birthday boys caused a bit of a ruckus during their birthday month by escaping their field and munching grass on the track. To be fair it wasn't exactly their faults, 3 of the other liveries had broken the fences of their paddock and gone walk about so naturally the other horses were quite interested in what was going on. The fences are a bit wobbly, Pippin doesn't know his own strength so a fence post wobbled a bit to much and he stepped out followed by Boo. 

This adventure resulted in us having to improve the fencing with the addition of our own electric fence energizer and extra electric fence rope. An expense we could have done without especially as Miss Darcey Puffle Dog made her first, of what was to be many, visits to the vet with a swollen foot where she was initially prescribed antibiotics and antihistamines.

June ended in great sorrow when the oldest resident, Little Lady, a miniature Shetland in her 30s was destroyed. Her owner who was also very elderly and rather vulnerable was finding it increasingly difficult to care for her so felt that was the best thing to do. Unfortunately, this decision was made under an enormous amount of influence from another on the livery yard and those who had voluntarily taken over the care of Little Lady were very upset about the whole thing. It was to be the beginning of what was about to become "open warfare" on the livery yard. 

Click  for Part 2 July - December 

Hello again

Sneaking back on to this sadly neglected blog for a quick catch up with you all.

If you've been following Eggsy Pony & Friends on Twitter and reading the occasional blog post on the Ko-fi page you'll know that the blog absence has been due to a catalogue of disasters. Well, perhaps disaster is an exaggeration but there have been all sorts of things keeping us away from the keyboard and screens in general.

Things like concussion with a lengthy bout of  post concussive syndrome which may, or may not have resolved itself, it depends on the day. Followed by a flare up of carpal tunnel syndrome making typing inadvisable if not downright uncomfortable. 

To clarify the concussion had nothing to do with horses, it was caused by walking into a tree when feeding Hansel the goose in the pouring rain, not looking where one was going.

Hansel is doing fine!

Anyway we're here now to keep you up to date with our goings on:

While we've been away we've had a few health issues with our resident OAP Mr Boo, we had a colic incident which resulted in the vet being called out. For awhile there it looked like he was going to be PTS, but, thank goodness he eventually got up and some pain killers did the trick. 

Talking of pain killers for Mr Boo, sadly he's been having lameness issues with the hoof that had multiple abbesses last year. It seems that he is suffering from pedal osteitis, inflammation and  de-mineralization of the pedal bone. Daily bute and a sole support pad are keeping him comfortable for now and he's on Formula 4 Hooves to hopefully improve the quality of his hoof and thus his comfort levels. At age 24 surgery is not an option for Mr Boo.

Fortunately all other equines have been fine, not so the canine member of the gang. Poor Miss Darcey Puffle Dog has been backward and forward to the vet for months now with mysterious swelling of the foot and lower leg. She's had surgery, she's had biopsies, she's had multiple courses of antibiotics. Too date no cause has been identified, the biopsies came back as "trauma" but what's really causing it we don't know. The antibiotics send the swelling down only for it to return a few weeks after she's stopped taking them. On the bright side she is completely unaware that anything is wrong with her!

And what about the livery yard?

Well, shall we just say the people who were so very unhappy there all left. We now have new liveries who are experienced horse keepers, 2 of whom have worked on yards previously, things are now very pleasant on the yard with happy horses and happy owners.

As for Eggsy he's settled happily as long as he doesn't have to go in the stable, which is fine by us as we prefer the horses to live out anyway. So far the paddocks are holding up to the rain and aren't overly muddy so fingers crossed he'll be able to stay out.

And last but not least, what of Gingee the stray who stayed to become the Muddy Bottom yard cat, who came home with us, to become a house cat. He's settled in very well, though it has taken several months for our other cats to accept him. He spends most of his time happily snoozing on the sofa. 

So that only leaves the Eggsy Pony Advent Calendar to tell you about, we're posting it over on Ko-fi this year, a daily Christmassy picture along with a blog post, the Advent Calendar is free for all to view and read.