Hard to believe that it's mid-April already, that the first quarter of 2023 has been and gone and that despite good intentions this blog has been neglected since January.
We left you in January with the news that we were starting a newsletter on Substack for Eggsy Pony and Friends. Four newsletters so far if you haven't seen them yet here are the links:
We'd love it if you'd subscribe, as we keep on saying we won't spam you and we're not trying to sell anything, it's just a way of staying in touch with friends.
Talking of selling, in January Eggsy opened a little shop to try and raise some funds toward Eggsy's feed, like just about everything else these days the price keeps on going up!
The shop is on his Ko-fi page, there are some books in it and we've started adding a few other bits and pieces too. All proceeds go directly to toward Eggsy's keep, Ko-fi don't take a penny.
Yard cat
We had a very sad time in February with the demise of our old friend Gingee the cat who came home with us when we were forced to leave Muddy Bottom. We're so grateful for the year that Gingee had as a house cat, there's a piece about him here:
We do try to keep everyone up to date on Ko-fi, it's a very easy platform to use with the added advantage that if readers want to they can buy Eggsy a coffee! (Coffee money goes straight toward his keep).
In March Madeline celebrated her 21st birthday, of course there's a Eggsy Pony Diary entry about it on his Ko-fi page.
And now we're into April busy planning and plotting a future update, all will be revealed shortly, watch this space.......
Twitter feels really precarious at the moment, but we don't need to tell you that, you already know and many of Eggsy's followers are making plans to leave or have already left.
Where do we go from here ?
What are we going to do to keep in touch with our Twitter friends ?
How will people know that we're here?
We've spent years getting to know one another, building a community of people who have much in common, kindness and a love of animals. Together we've helped saved lives, offered shoulders to cry on, virtual hugs and cheered each other on, but, now it feels as if our engagements are at the mercy of a CEO who controls who and what we see on our Twitter timeline, whether or not our Tweets are seen.
It's not just Twitter, Eggsy Pony is on Instagram too, but, we rarely get to see what those we follow are up to, we don't do FB but have heard it's the same there.
What about all the sites people are suggesting we join? Should we be joining Mastodon, Tik-tok, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit, Clubhouse, Counter Social ...... the list is endless.
Eggsy Pony is already on Instagram and Ko-fi, we have this blog, but, Twitter has always been the main place we "socialise" with those of you who are interested in him. If Twitter goes down or just becomes downright unusable how can we keep in touch?
We've been trying to work out how to offer a good honest connection with everyone that makes wise use of time, how we can let you know what Eggsy Pony and Friends are doing, what's been happening, tell you about the interesting things we see, our hopes and dreams. Somewhere we can talk directly to you.
So today we wrote a newsletter you'll find it here on Substack. We'd love it if you'd take a few minutes to have a read and if you like it, if you'd like to keep in touch, if you can cope with another newsletter in your inbox, we'd love it if you'd subscribe.
We promise we won't spam you, it won't be one of those advertorial or marketing letters. We hope it will feel like a letter from a friend, one that arrives by post, in a stamped envelope, written in real ink with a proper pen. Only of course Eggsy's letter will be digital and arrive in your in box. If you want you'll even be able to reply because the service we're using allows you to like and / or comment on the newsletters. An added bonus for us is that it's free to use, unless one chooses otherwise which we don't plan on doing.
Here's the link to the newsletter we do hope you'll take a look and subscribe so we can keep in touch. Thank you.
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)
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.
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.
We've been in livery for just over 6 months now and if we're honest, although the horses have settled happily, things haven't turned out quite as we'd hoped. It's okay but we have been rather putting off talking about it, not wanting to sound like we moan all the time, but it really is time for another update. It's a bit like the good, the bad and the ugly.
The good:
The yard owner has allowed the horses to live out 24/7 which is really what we prefer, this has made life much easier than trying to keep Eggsy Pony from attempting to jump out of his stable.
The yard is only 5 minutes away from home by car, as opposed to 20+ minutes when we were at Muddy Bottom, it's about 40 minutes on foot so not that bad if necessary.
3 of the 4 paddocks have field shelters, one is very leaky, the other two are new, but no one really uses them except as a toilet.
2 of the paddocks have troughs we have to use buckets for the other two.
Everyone has been nice to us, to our faces anyway.
As well as the stables we have a small feed shed to ourselves which is brilliant as we feed straights and all 4 equines have slightly different mixes.
Space in the hay barn to store our haylage and straw.
The bad:
The fencing is in a very poor state of repair, so poor in fact that even our oldie Boo went walkabout, to keep everyone in we've had to spend our own funds (and time) on upgrading the fences with additional electric fence lines and purchase a second electric fence energizer as the yard owner is unwilling to have the mains electric fence on for more than a few minutes at a time.
The paddocks are poorly maintained, the alleged annual spraying hasn't happened and before the drought started killing everything off they were a mass of inedible weeds. We've spent days removing ragwort.
People smoke in no smoking areas, a real worry with hay and straw around.
With regard to the space in the barn for storage, was quite pleased to finally have somewhere dry to store forage and had intended to feed both hay and haylage. Sadly this was not to be, the roof leaks, so we'll stick to the wrapped haylage rather than risk hay being spoiled. Also one of the tenants, yes there are people living on site (we didn't know about that and it's a whole other story) allows his dog to go to the toilet in our straw.
Bonfires, hasn't been one in awhile as an irate neighbour called the fire brigade to the last one, but the burning of old sofas etc right next to your horse's paddock is not conducive to a happy livery yard.
The muck heap hasn't been removed since we first arrived, it's huge and spilling all over as no one seems to fork up.
The ugly:
This
should you be interested there's more about the livery yard wars in The Eggsy Pony Diaries over on Ko-fiwhere you can settle down with a coffee and read Eggsy's musings.
Over the last few weeks we've been publishing extracts from Eggsy Pony's Diary over on Ko-fi, his buy me a coffee site, where people can donate the cost of a coffee or more towards the cost of his care. We actually post quite a lot of stuff over there that anyone can see if they care to visit, but, the diary posts have been for supporters only. Meaning that only those who have bought Eggsy a coffee within the past 30 days or members who have signed up to buy him a coffee or two every month could read Eggsy's musings about the week.
Thinking that some of you who haven't been able to access the posts might be interested in what he has had to say for himself we've published three of his diary entries below. If you enjoy them maybe you would consider becoming a member you can sign up here , you're free to cancel anytime, or, if you'd like give it a try before committing buying a coffee gives you access to supporter only content for 30 days. All "coffees" go toward the cost of feeding Eggsy.
A Drama Llama Ding Dong sort of week
Loads of drama here on the livery yard this week, it probably goes without saying that it's mostly down to the humans.
It all started when we saw an equestrian flying through the air, for some unknown reason she'd catapulted herself from the back of her trusty steed, we know not why. Of course it didn't end well, next came the splintering of wood as said equestrian crash landed onto the menage fence.
The fence did not survive, the equestrian did all be it with a few breakages, broken finger and cracked rib. Who knew it was advisable to ride with a parachute!
Honestly you'd think that was enough excitement for one week but oh no, I suppose you could say it's been one of those weeks.
We're all peacefully grazing minding our own business when quite out of the blue an owner comes and collects her pony from the field, much to his disgust I might add. She's marching him back to his stable with mutterings about fat bottoms, crests and laminitis. I hasten to assure you that the pony does not have laminitis, his imprisonment is a precautionary exercise.
Pippin and I look carefully at each others behinds and decide it might be time to make a hasty exit before our human starts getting ideas, after all "the better part of valor is discretion" and we prefer to graze another day.
Another day and electric fence wars rage again. This is an on and off occurrence. There seems to be a problem with the electric fence being on, which is why we have our own as apparently I can't be trusted. Some people on the yard want the fence on and some, well one actually, says it's too powerful a zap and that someone will get hurt.
The yard owner is inclined to agree with "the one", possibly because his electric bills won't be so high, so it tends to be kept off. Pony owners want the fence on because ponies are inclined to attempt to graze where they're not supposed to. This of course does not include me as I'm constrained by our own electric fence, unless I get the opportunity.
Anyway an argument ensued, voices were raised and someone, who will remain nameless, called her opponent daft. I mean good gracious how low can these humans sink?
The following few days were an electric fence on / off sort of time as battle raged. Is there a winner? No, for some inexplicable reason the whole thing seems to have fizzled out and the fence is once again permanently off again. Until the next time....
My equine friends and I have concluded that sometimes humans are very hard to understand and it's best to keep our heads down and carry on grazing.
It's been a feet sort of week, not tiger feet obviously, no tigers here, thank goodness as they might eat us equines, but definitely a week of feet.
Started off for the humans on Monday morning when they had to take our canine friend Miss Darcey Puffle Dog to the vets. She'd been licking a hoof, oops foot, so much that it was swollen and red raw.
Possible allergy, antibiotics, antihistamines and a no chew dressing, £127.70.
Not the greatest start to the week.
It was our turn on Thursday, no not the vets, none of us can lick our feet raw we have hooves, it was farrier day. I'm exceedingly lucky as my farrier work has long been sponsored, thank you Graham & Edith your help keeps my hooves in tip top shape.
We all had a little trim and a clean bill of hoof health, glad the humans got some good news as, yes you've guessed it, they had to return Miss Darcey Poorly Paw Puffle Dog to the vets on Friday.
Another week on antibiotics, some fancy expensive pills that block enzymes involved in the processes of inflammation and itchiness of allergic dermatitis, £92.50.
No wonder they need help with financing my care, I could almost feel sorry for them and suggest that a tiger might have been a better choice for a pet:
"That's neat, that's neat, that's neat, that's neat I really love your tiger feet, I really love your tiger feet Your tiger feet Your tiger feet Your tiger feet"
Song by Mud. Songwriters: Chapman Michael Donald / Chinn Nicholas Barry
It wasn't me, the ball cock on our trough broke, not my fault.
Honestly it wasn't anything to do with me, just because I was drinking at the time doesn't mean I broke it. No not even if my muzzle did give it a vigorous bash, just for fun. It was not me the wretched thing had rusted through.
The result of the ball cock thing breaking was that the trough just kept on filling up and overflowing because Mads and I just couldn't drink all that water. We got a nice splashy puddle along the fence line to play in and the paddock next door got a mini lake before anyone noticed.
Of course once they noticed the livery yard man repaired it pretty quickly, and no it's not my fault he got rather wet in the process. How was I to know he'd nearly fall in the trough when I nudged him, gently, on the back just to remind him that he hadn't paid his dues - given us a mint.
Anyway the end result is that we had a lovely clean trough full of delicious clear water and what does she go and do?
She moves us into another paddock without a trough! Good for us as there wasn't much grass in our old paddock and there's more in this one. Bad for her as she now has to haul the water down to us !
Sometimes you have to wonder about humans making work for themselves. Now if it had been left to me I'd have just let us have free run of both paddocks.....
Eggsy Pony was abandoned with locking stifles when he was just a foal, you can read about his abandonment here, his care is funded via donation.
If you'd like to you can help Eggsy in the following ways:
Follow Eggsy Pony and Friends on Ko-Fi where if you choose you can also buy him a coffee, which isn't really coffee, the coffee money goes towards his feed.
