Chloe got a Christmas bath today, Maria hosed her down by the big barn. Chloe is gentle and obedient when being groomed, she seems to enjoy it. After Maria labored to clean her for 20 minutes, laboriously scrubbing every part of her, she went over and rolled in the mud. Ponies are like that.

(Friends, Chloe, like most older Haflinger-Welsh ponies, is a big girl. She is a draft horse who has been around the track a few times, she not overweight, she is not foundering, she has been seen and fussed over by farriers, trainers and vets. She is exercised rigorously and her diet is closely watched. Her weight has been stable since she got here. I’m sure you mean well, but I don’t care for amateur diagnoses of animals over the Internet and pay absolutely no attention to them. You get what you pay for. Do us all a favor, please don’t do it here. We take good care of the animals in our care.)

It’s interesting, Chloe is by far the biggest animal on the farm, and she is also the easiest to groom and care for and move. The donkeys are wicked clever, if you even think of washing them or giving them medicine, they are off like a shot. They are mind readers and intuitives. If you have a carrot in your pocket, and it is out of sight, they will be all over you in a flash. To get them locked up in a stall, you have to put food down, walk in the other direction and call them to come to you. They will run into the stall every time, thinking they are clever. And they are. but most of the time, not as clever as we are.