Last year Nathan and I started riding at an equestrian center near us. We leased a horse name Chocolate. She is an appaloosa and the most passive-aggressive mare I have ever met but super sweet and clever. Will do anything for a cookie. She was good for Nathan to learn the basics and a good challenge for me to keep motivated and strengthen my legs. That horse would take any excuse to slow down or stop. She and her pasture mate Skye were both early on in their pregnancy. Horses can be ridden lightly while pregnant up to a certain point in my opinion.
Getting back into riding has been interesting. The horses here are taller than what I am used to and have bigger strides so I don't look very pretty riding as just not used to it. I was also starting to want to have a horse. Nathan and I agreed to start looking for a horse of our own in July of this year. I was going to take my time choosing as did not want a repeat of what happened with the mare I bought a few years back.
We rode off and on until it was clear Chocolate was needing a break from riding.
In May, all the mares were having their foals. We were tempted to buy one of the foals. Nathan decided he wanted to experience the foal growing up with us. We took a week off for our anniversary and the day before our anniversary. We went to check on the foals since we didn't plan to go anywhere as I had a few health issues I was dealing with. We went to check on Chocolate's foal.
I didn't feel a strong connection. Plus Chocolate was not super excited to see us either, she just wanted to spend time with her foal alone. Fair enough. As we were saying hi I saw her old pasture mate Skye in the background looking miserable. I didn't interact with Skye much but I met her during the heatwave last year and helped keep her cool she was very very sweet, bright-eyed, and kind.
Well, apparently I made quite the impression on her.
I told Nathan we should take a closer look at her because she looks like she might be in labor! We got closer and she came up to us but looked miserable. I scrambled to find her owners as Nathan saw her water break. That must have been fun to witness.
Her owners came out. Skye turned around and there was a leg sticking out!
Frisky had 4 foals. I stayed up til many nights til dawn with her. MANY SLEEPLESS MOSQUITO-FILLED NIGHTS! To support her and see a foal be born. Frisky always, always manage to squeeze a foal out without a single soul noticing. SERIOUSLY?!
So this was my first time to see a foal be born and it was pretty much mid-day. Skye went to the far end of the pasture to lie down.
I had to sit down on the ground as I was not feeling well myself but wanted to watch this. She pushed a few times but got back up and headed straight for me. Like she was checking in on me. I was surprised. I was not the one in labor lady, I just need to catch my breath and she was checking in on us? She checked in with Nathan then went to each of her owners and returned to her corner where she pushed out a colt in 45 minutes. I have seen many humans in labor and let's just say Skye made it look like it was nothing.
Nathan and I were dumbfounded. The timing.
He was gorgeous!
Skye also seemed to be very comfortable with us humans being all up in her business.
We also know the father who is a wonderful well-mannered stallion.
Welp.
After not much thinking and some encouragement from a friend *coughelainecough* we ended up asking if he was for sale. The rest is not too distant history.
Once we knew we would end up being his owners we had to come up with a name which took Nathan less than 5 minutes. He said. How about Carbon? I then thought of Night. For C and N since he was practically born on our anniversary. We were thinking of Karbon Knight but we realized...that is one K less of something we do not want anything to do with so Carbon Night C+N was perfect!
I am excited to blog about him. I have some experience with foals. Thank you Frisky and Hidalgo! However exciting this is I also am worried about making mistakes and all the worries that come with being a new horse owner. Plus learning curve for me because I now have vets and farriers everywhere to choose from and learning the vaccine program and hoof care schedule and whatnot is definitely a new thing to navigate. I can just go to the nearest wilco and buy dewormer myself this time around. So easy compared to hoping I could get my hands on some way back when.
Right now the big question is what color will his coat be when his baby one sheds? Will he grey out like his mom. Only time will tell. I was predicting he would turn all black after shedding his baby coat.