The Golden Pony is a Lucky Pony!!!

Isn't this lovely?!? I was the very lucky winner of Jane Augenstein's 200th post give-away...the prize was this gorgeous hand crafted folk art hooked rug, which of course Jane made with her own two hands. I mean, she even dye's the wool and designs the rugs she makes!

The colors are so rich, the feel is soft and warm, yet thick and strong...it is gorgeous, quality work.

Jane has a wonderful web page, Liberty Homestead Rugs, that has lots of information and photos of rugs that she's hooked. In fact, she will even design one especially for you of your pet!

This is the back side of the rug...personalized!

Every hook is smooth and the edging is as neat as a pin.

I ran around with the Golden Pony to all of the newly painted walls, holding it up, to see which color was best...it looked good against ALL of them! Then I saw The Perfect Place...in a different room...

Right next to the beautiful original watercolor that I won

in another blogger give away from Danielle Barlow

at Notes from the Rookery!

Needless to say, there are some tremendous

blogging artists out there!

So there stands the Golden Pony...in my office...

in the kitchen...above my desk...where I can

admire it on a daily basis; and of

course show it off to anyone who might stop by!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for being such a great blogging friend Jane and doing such a fantastic give-away! Rest assured that the Golden Pony is loved and will be cared for...for many years to come!

Now, I did say that the Golden Pony was a Lucky Pony...it has to be. I jokingly commented that I was going to go out and buy a lottery ticket when I found out I had won it...but something else arrived with the Golden Pony...

The Forest Service has decided (with a lot of convincing from the Central Oregon Wild Horse Coalition) to return Dreamsicle to his home! In fact, he along with his two mares, the other bay band stallion and two of his mares will be returned to the Big Summit HMA next week!

Dreamsicle here in the front will return with the

bay mare in the back, and the bay mare

in the center.

The bay stallion on the left, the bay mare, and the

bald faced mare with the four socks will be

returned to their home in the Ochoco National Forest.

Another positive is that two additional mares from another HMA will be going too! Yep, each stallion will get another mare for his band.

The Coalition has been working on getting genetic diversity in the HMA and the best way to do that is by introducing a couple of new mares. The FS finally agreed that this would be an opportune time to do just that. Yahoo!!!

They will release the stallions with his respective mares at separate locations so there won't be any confusion...it'll be confusing enough.

To help with the Coalition's ongoing genetic studies of the herds in the HMA, DNA samples will be pulled from all the Big Summit horses that are at the Corrals right now. This will give us a lot of valuable information. I'll be out at the Corrals sometime next week to help pull, bag and tag the hair samples.

I'm sure you're wondering...what about the other horses that were gathered? Well, three fillies will be put up for public adoption.

This filly is one that will be adopted out.

She came in with the bay stallion band and is

the filly of the bald faced mare.

She looks to be a yearling.

These are the other two fillies that will be available.

They were the fillies from Dreamsicle's mares, but

they are not sired by Dreamsicle. The two mares

are carrying Dreamsicle's first foal crop.

The photo is from last June, so these two are now yearlings.

That leaves another mare and a yearling...and a 2 year old horse colt. Sadly, the mare and yearling have a conformation fault commonly called roach-backed. It's where the spine curves upward (the opposite of a sway back). This mare's foal from 2009 had the same fault, so it's quite obvious that it's hereditary with this mare. It was agreed by everyone that she and her filly should be taken out of the breeding pool. They will probably go to long-term holding.

Then the 2 year old colt...well, if no one else is found quickly to adopt him, he will be coming to live at the Rough String! Not that I need another horse...but I named him way back when he was just a lil' foal...Slider. He was playing on a dirt mound right next to our camp; he'd run to the top and slide down the other side...hence the name Slider. So, My Man and I have an affection for the lil' guy.

So, I really believe that the lovely Golden Pony brought a very good piece of luck...thank you Golden Pony~~