Rhianon has been horse mad for a long time, it probably started when we visited friends who owned horses, then really bloomed after Dick took the girls with him when he went to a neighbor's place when he went to get their horse manure to compost.
When the time came that we thought she was old enough to have a horse of her own we went looking for a young horse that she would like and also an older horse that would be more suitable for her sisters.
We found what ended up being perfect for all of us, a Shire mare May in foal to a grey Thoroughbred. Her foal Epona was born on May 7 2005. It was quite an event; Rhianon had slept in the barn for weeks before the birth because we really didn't know what signs of impending birth to look for in horses. One afternoon May's behavior made it very obvious that the event was very close. That night Rhianon took the cell phone to the barn so that she could call me when the water broke... I woke several times through the night, at 4 a.m. I was on the verge of going to the barn to see if she had slept through the birth but decided to just go back to sleep.
After waiting up all night so as not to miss the birth, Rhianon phoned me at about 5.45 the next morning, the cell phone doesn't work very well in the barn so she was breaking up, I couldn't tell from her tone if she was excited or distressed... so I rushed straight to the barn. As I entered the barn I saw May lying down with a two feet and a nose emerging, then the front legs and head emerged, still covered by the membrane as shown in the picture below.
Right after I took the photo above May stood up, then lay back down facing the other way, within seconds the foal was born, "it's a filly" Rhianon announced excitedly.
Rhianon got the foal of her dream... May is bay with four white feet and a white blaze, in my eyes she is beautiful, but bay is Rhianon's least favorite horse color. She loves white horses and it looks like the foal will be grey, and over time will turn white. She was born brown with the telltale rings around her eyes indicating that a color change is on the way. [horse color genetics are very interesting].
