A Hopeful Future

Yesterday I said I would write about the horses I cared for while in junior and high school for today's post, but something happened that lifted my heart and I wanted to share it here.

Late in the afternoon I drove out to the barn for Abby's daily carrot run, and as I pulled into the lane to the new barn,  I saw that Tim had hitched his truck to the trailer.

I asked him where he was going, but just as he began to answer, he got a phone call that he needed to take. 

To give him some privacy, I walked around the new barn and down to the northeast pasture to visit with Abby and Sultanna.

Sultanna has started coming any time I call up Abby, but I don't mind. (Abby is licking peppermint juice off the bars of the gate. Again.)

When his phone call was over, Tim joined me at the trough. He had a halter and lead rope in hand. I had a pretty good idea as to who was going somewhere and why, and Tim confirmed that - Sultana was going off to be bred!

About eight days after giving birth, a mare will have what is called a foal heat, her first heat since foaling. It's a good time to rebreed the mare, and so Tim was preparing to haul her to the stable that owns the stallion she was bred to last time. She will come home as soon as we know she is in foal, so it could be a month or two before we see her again.

And that means that next spring we will have another foal in the nursery paddock.

I will miss her - as Sultanna's pregnancy progressed, I spent a lot of time with her and grew very fond of her. But it will be nice, even healing, to have a new baby to look forward to.