our new foal

(You might want to click the video until it takes you to Youtube's main page to watch it. I don't know why it's only showing the partial picture.)

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Two Sundays ago, Dad looked out the window to the gully at the bottom of the hill. "We've got a little speckled one on the ground!" We all ran down with cameras, babies (well, a baby), and wide grins. Some friends were over, and soon the neighbors were too. All to celebrate this little filly! Isn't she grand?

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We'd been watching Dutchess (a.k.a. Dusty) carefully as her due date approached and were sad to miss the actual birth. But it was so cool to be around within a couple hours of it. My Pops has been breeding and raising Tennessee Walking horses for some years, but this was the first birth I was home for. Sunday is her name so far, unless someone has a better idea. David points out that she had to be born SOME day of the week, so naming her for that is a bit un-creative. But she seems like a Sunday.

It was quite an idyllic scene, with the grass so green and the sky so bright...all but for the fact that Dutchess wouldn't let Sunday nurse. She kept kicking her away. It could've been due to the onlooking crowd, but Dad says some first time mamas do this. We eventually led them up to the corral and reassuringly held Dutchess still until Sunday could get a good latch on. Sunday's getting all the nutrition she needs nowadays, evidently, because she is a romper and a runner! Dutchess has to chase her all around the meadow. Sometime I'll try to get a good video of that.

* * * looking back 6 months ago * * *

A very memorable part of my early labor was going for a walk around the meadow with the fam to get my contractions to intensify (because my waters had started trickling, and for a home birth with a midwife who follows the rules, you've got 24 hours to be in obvious solid labor after your waters break or else you're supposed to go to the hospital). Ditching higher reasoning to birth instictually and peacefully, like the animals, was a theme in my birthing books, so it was really special to have this moment with Dutchess, who was at that point in middle-pregnancy.

(Listen. You don't give a rip about fashion when you're in labor.)

* * * fast forward to now * * *

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This is us four on Thursday, Zoralee's 6 month birthday.