A Touch of Homegrown . . .: JT's Saturday Suprise aka Pearl

* Okay, I really don't like the way this website uploads pictures - the first five pictures are in the right order, but the last fast are not...I'll date them and you'll just have to view them as is...

Ah, Pearl! Where do we begin?! Pearl had an exciting birth... My mare, Scarlett, was due June 2004 with who we now know as Aurora, so when Dad came running into the house saying Scarlett had had her foal on March 27th and it wasn't a paint, we were all pretty perplexed.

I had bought Pearl's mother, Honey, from a friend at work whose husband was quite upset she kept escaping and getting into the feed bins... (Awww, memories of Honey) ....bought her October of 2003 and never had a clue she was pregnant. I picked her up from my friends house thin and not eating well and after several weeks of not improving I took her to the vet. She ended having to have all but three of her teeth pulled and being tube dewormed. The vet told me her condition should pick up... It really didn't. Her appetite picked up, but her weight remained the same.

Let's see...the Wednesday before our "little parasite" was born I called Dad at work and asked him, when he got home from work, to take care of Honey...(put her down). She wasn't getting any better, just getting worse (the vets aged her between 30 - 35 years old. ANCIENT in horse years.

He got home and said she would, but to wait over the weekend and if she was still not improving he would take care of it. Well, next thing you know we have this beautiful baby here! The first born (for me) on the Ox Bow O! I had bought Honey for Jarom. He had expressed to me he wanted to learn how to ride, but felt uncomfortable with the bigger horses...Honey was perfect. So we named the brown baby "JT's Saturday Suprise" and were going to call her Pearl. She had, and still has, a huge egg-shaped white marking on her forhead.

Pearl has been a joy to have and a pain in the rear to train. I say that with love... I LOVE Aurora like nobody's business, but Pearl in my first born. There's something special about her...

Okay...basics... Pearl's mother was a bay and white paint Welsh pony and her dad was a brown Mustang!! Luvs it!! Pearl is definitely NOT put together perfect. I've heard from several people that she would make gorgeous mule babies, so I will (eventually Rebecca) take her to be bred with a jack donkey.

Pearl really isn't a treat eater...she likes her "meat and potatoes." If she's gonna eat, she's gonna make it count! She HATES to be dewormed (she's the sweet heart who gave me the black eye several weeks ago). She loves kids and loves Aurora.

Honey and Pearl

March 27, 2004

Her first pictures...hour or so old.