Fifty-four Chincoteague Pony Foals So Far.... And Pony Penning Week Information

The annual Pony Penning on Assateague and Chincoteague Islands in Virginia will happen during the week of July 20th through the 27th this year.  The Chincoteague Firemen's Carnival will be open  every night except Sunday; and will be open on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons.  On Saturday, the 20th of July, the Saltwater Cowboys of the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company (who is the owner of the ponies on Assateague Island in Virginia) will round up the herds located in the southern compartment of the island and take them to the main holding corrals along Beach Road.
  On Sunday, the Cowboys will round up the herds in the northern compartment, and deliver them to the north holding corral, about 2 miles north of the Wildlife Drive Loop, on the service road. Monday morning, at dawn, the ponies will be herded across the island to the Atlantic ocean beach, and walked down the beach, next to the surf, to the main parking lot and on down the Beach Road to the southern holding corrals.  On Tuesday, all of the ponies will be checked by the veterinarians.  Foals will have blood drawn for their Coggins tests so they can be transported out of state.  Any pony deemed too old, too pregnant, too young, too ill, or with any other mitigating problem, will be taken by trailer to the Carnival Grounds on Chincoteague.  (Unci, an older mare with congenital lordosis - causing a swayback - is routinely trailered over.)
   Wednesday morning, at slack tide, the ponies deemed fit by the veterinarians will swim the Assateague Channel between the two islands.  The crossing is about 1/8 of a mile, and the tide will not be running in either direction.  The swim usually takes less than 3 minutes, and the ponies are closely monitored by the US Coast Guard, the veterinarians, and members of the CVFC.  After resting from the swim, the ponies are herded along Beebe Road and then north on Main Street to the Carnival Grounds, where pasture, hay and water troughs await them.
   On Thursday morning, at 8 o'clock, the auction of the foals born up until that moment, are sold to the highest bidder.  Most will be leaving the island for the rest of their lives.  A few will be designated as "Buy Back" foals; these foals will not leave the two islands.  A person or group may bid on and purchase a Buy Back baby; they will have the right to name the foal and have their photo taken with it - but the foal will live out it's life on Assateague (with 3 days on Chincoteague each year) and all of that pony's progeny will belong to the CVFC for selling in future years.  (I purchased a pony in 2015; she had her first foal this year and the filly will be sold on Thursday, 25 July.)  If the foal is too young to be taken from it's mother, the new owner must return for the Fall Round-Up and pick up that foal.  Any foals born after Pony Penning are usually sold at the Fall Round-Up; this past year the foals were sold by a silent auction mail-in bidding system.
   On Friday morning, or early afternoon, again at slack tide, the southern herds are taken back to the Channel to swim back to Assateague.  Originally all the ponies of both the north and south compartments would make the return swim.  Since the CVFC, the National Park Service and the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge do not want any pony fatalities caused by crossing Beach Road, the northern herds are now trailered back to the northern end of Assateague (in Virginia) and released.
   *****   We have had fifty-four foals born so far, with only one fatality.  Kimball's Rainbow Delight was seen with a foal at her side on 19 May.  They were seen from a distance, and a photo was taken.  To me, the foal looked to be chestnut, but a few other people think it was palomino.  The foal hasn't been seen since that day, and Rainbow Delight was at the third equine pythiosis (aka "Swamp Cancer") vaccination without a baby.  So we seem to have lost it to unknown causes.
   Of the 53 foals living, there are 23 fillies and 30 colts.  There are 10 bay babies, 3 buckskin babies, 5 chestnut babies, 3 palomino babies, and there are 5 babies that other folks believe will be black.  I think there are definitely 2 black babies - but I'm not sure how the other 3 will shed out, once they lose their baby fur.  They might be black, a dark bay or brown, or possibly a dark, smoky buckskin... only time will prove the real coloration.  There are also multiple pinto babies - 1 buckskin pinto, 1 black pinto, 5 palomino pintos (one of them a perlino/cream with blue eyes), 9 chestnut pintos and 12 bay pintos.  DSC Photography has classified one of the bay pintos as a chestnut pinto, but the end of the foals' tail is black, not chestnut, so it is technically a bay.)
  How many more babies will be born before Pony Penning?  How many during and after?  Again, we can only wait and see...

Photos - Winter in the Mid-Tier United States

Northern California

Kansas

Kentucky

Maryland

Colorado

North Carolina

Missouri Ozarks

Memphis, Tennessee

Assateague Island, Virginia

Compassion, Love and Peace

This is going to be my last political posting for a while....  the news just keeps getting more disgusting, appalling, and hopeless each day.  We, humanity, seem to be degenerating at a great rate at this point in time.
   I am still reeling from the attacks made by all the groups that poured in to Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend for the "Unite the Right" gathering.  We are having a march in Denver, tomorrow, to celebrate the life of Heather D Heyer, the paralegal killed last Saturday by a professed Nazi supporter.  This is too little, too late, but we will honor the memory of a young woman who was protesting hatred by marching quietly on a street with her friends.
   There has been an outbreak of attacks against innocent people this week.  First, Thursday evening, the van attack on Las Ramblas in Barcelona, Spain - that left 14 dead and over 100 injured.  Then the attack in Camblis, a two hour drive south of Barcelona. (Camblis was where some of the planning for the 9-11 attacks took place.) There was also an explosion there the night before the attack at Las Ramblas, and police now believe that the people involved in the Barcelona attack had been planning to bomb several places before "something went wrong" at their manufacturing site, and they decided a vehicular attack was in order.  The driver of the van at Las Ramblas is still at large and being sought throughout Europe.
   Then there was the knife attack in the market square of Turku, Finland the following day.  An 18-year-old man from Morocco attacked several women with a knife, killing two. He reportedly targeted eight women, one of which was pushing a baby carriage.  Two men tried to intervene, and both of them were stabbed, as well; one of whom was so severely cut that he may lose his arm.  The suspect was shot in the leg, arrested and taken to the hospital.  Four other men have been arrested with suspected ties to the attacker.
    This morning, a man in the Siberian town of Surgut, in Russia, stabbed at least eight people, seriously wounding two of them. The Russian police fired shots at the man and killed him.  They are investigating the incident.
   Friday night:  In Kissimmee, Florida, two officers responded to a call and were apparently ambushed.  One officer is dead, the other in serious condition.  A man has been arrested.
     In Jacksonville, Florida, two officers responded to a call about a man considering suicide.  He greeted them with shots from a high-powered rifle, shooting one policeman in both hands, and the other in the stomach.  The man was killed by the officers.
     In Fayette County, Pennsylvania, two officers approached a man to serve a warrant.  The man reached into his backpack, pulled out a gun and shot both officers. The officers shot and killed that man, also.
      Too much death and destruction for me, folks....   I know this happens every day in our country, and around the world.  But I want PEACE  for all.
      Then there is the ousting of Steve Bannon from the White House - he's going back to Breibart News to spew more hatred and ignorance.
      The world needs help - compassion, love, and peace need to rule this place.

Island Sunrises and Sunsets - Photos

Chincoteague Bay sunset

Assateague sunrise

Chincoteague Channel sunset

Happy and Bodacious Bob with Assateague sunset

(Photo by Beached Paws Photography)

Chincoteague Channel sunset

Crab pot sunrise

(Photo by Beached Paws Photography)

Marsh Island sunset

Chincoteague Ponies - Photos

Bayberry, stallion in Maryland

Above and below, Twinkie, a yearling, son of Riptide

and Diamond's Jewel

                                        

Surfer Princess and Badabing

Dream Catcher and Ajax filly

Essie, Marguerite, Maverick, and Joansie

Three generations in Maryland:  Phoenix (yearling in front), mom 

Charmed (bay pinto), and grandmom Ninka

Spring Pony Round-Up - April 7 & 8

The world famous Chincoteague ponies will have one of their three annual round-ups this Friday and Saturday.  The ponies, made famous in Marguerite Henry's book, Misty of Chincoteague, which 20th Century Fox made into a movie in 1960 (released in 1961) titled "Misty,"  live year round on the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge on the barrier island of Assateague, in the state of Virginia.
   The island of Assateague is 33 miles long, and is located in both the state of Maryland and the state of Virginia.  All of Assateague Island is a designated National Seashore - and ponies roam free in both states on the island.  The ponies in Maryland, on the northern end of the island, are completely feral and receive no medical care - other than the females receiving contraception darts each year, to prevent over-breeding, which would lead to over-grazing, which would lead to a starvation death.
   The ponies on the southern end of Assateague are another story.  They are actually owned by the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company, they receive veterinarian care, are fed hay in snow storms, have firemen chop away ice at water holes when they freeze over during the winter, and are rounded up for care three times a year.  Other than the week of Pony Penning, which occurs during the last Wednesday and Thursday in July, the ponies have free range in the north and south compartments of the Virginia section of Assateague.
   Each pony is checked by veteran horsemen and a licensed local veterinarian (and his technicians), they receive their annual shots and have their blood taken to test for diseases.  Hoofs are trimmed, if needed, teeth are floated (filed) if needed.  Every single known pony will be checked out, and looked for, if missing.
   So far, as of 9 p.m. Mountain Time tonight, April 5, there are four new 2017 foals in the herds.  All four are sired by Tornado's Legacy, a buckskin pinto stallion.  There are three fillies and one colt.  Suede, a first-time mother in Riptide's herd, produced a handsome sorrel colt, allowed him to nurse and then abandoned him.  The CVFC had a mini-round-up, got the mare and foal back together, and trailered them to a farm for bonding and better growth.  The colt passed away after 4 days, even though he was nursing and looked well.
    The northern herds on the Virginia end of Assateague will be rounded up, examined, vaccinated and released on Friday, 7 April.  The southern herds will be rounded up and processed on Saturday, April 8th.  On Saturday, also, the nearly yearlings who spent the winter at the Chincoteague Carnival Grounds will be checked over and then released onto Assateague until the summer round-up and swim.
   This year, the Annual Pony Swim and Auction will take place on July 26 and 28. The Saltwater Cowboys will begin rounding-up the ponies on Saturday, July 22.  They will all be checked and vetted.  On Wednesday, the combined herds will swim the Assateague Channel (at slack tide) from Assateague to Chincoteague.  Thursday morning, the foals will be auctioned off to the highest bidder.  A few foals will be designated "Buy Backs", and they will be announced before the bidding begins.  A Buy Back foal can be purchased by anyone - but they leave the foal in perpetual care of the CFVC  for breeding purposes.  If you purchase a Buy Back, you receive your bill of sale, you get to name the foal, and you get to have your photo taken with the foal.  That's it - other than being able to visit the baby as it grows through the years, at Round-ups, and seeing what babies it produces as an adult.  If you purchase a non-Buy Back foal, you must make arrangements to have it trailered to your home - you can't put the baby into the back of a pick-up truck, or an SUV.  It must travel in a stock or horse trailer.....     But that's several months in the future at the moment.

Assateague and Chincoteague Photos

Buckeye, a 9-year-old Feather Fund Chincoteague pony, gallops along Tom's Cove

Charmed and her new colt on the Maryland end

Butterfly Kisses - Riptide foal

Chincoteague Bay sunset

CNWR sunset

Eagle eye, Assateague

Dolphin family

Nasty Weather - Matthew

I have to admit that I don't remember much about weather-watching before the family moved to Florida in 1961.  I do remember snow when we lived in Millington, Tennessee, and I remember feeling hot and sticky when we lived in Kingsville, Texas.  We moved to Gainesville, Florida a few weeks after I turned 5 years old, and Dad retired from 22 years in the US Navy.  Our house in Florida was a little smaller than our house in Kingsville, but we had a great yard with trees and bushes.  The house floor actually sat about two feet above the ground, so it could breathe and stay cool in the summer.  Gainesville, itself, is about in the middle of the northern peninsula of Florida; it took 90 minutes to drive to either the Atlantic Ocean, or to the Gulf of Mexico.  There was a nice fishing lake about a mile from our house, and lots of little creeks and swampy areas nearby.
    And, as I've frequently mentioned, we (or I) spent most summers on the barrier islands of Chincoteague and Assateague, in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Virginia.  My Grandfather purchased a small lot on Peterson Street and built a catalog-ordered Sears & Roebuck house just before he married Grandma, two weeks after her 16th birthday, in 1915.  The "big kitchen" was added onto the house in 1919, and Grandma chose the wall paper to be used.  It was an oyster-white background, with blue-grey trellises and large old-fashioned English pink roses - some in bloom, some still buds.  Besides the corner with the warped floor boards, so that the rocking chair was permanently tilted back, the thing I remember most about the big kitchen was the wavy brown lines at five different heights, that ran all around the room, marring the wall paper.  (There were six, after the Ash Wednesday Storm in 1962.)
   Now, Momma always kept a decent house - she dusted and cleaned and vacuumed, so nothing was dirty, even though we did have piles of books and magazines all around.  One summer night, after wiping the kitchen table clean, I asked Mom if I should try to wipe away the brown marks on the wall paper.  I think I was six or seven years old at the time, and she explained that those brown marks "were history - the history of the house and the island."  They were the high tide marks of hurricanes and nor'easters and big storms - and they couldn't be washed away.  I think I loved that room even more than the rest of the house, once Mom told me that. The latest owners of Grandpa's house knocked off the kitchen and enclosed the front porch, so the history I grew up with is no longer visible.
   While living in Florida, we saw, via television, what happened during hurricanes.  In Gainesville itself, we had lots of rain, some flooding, and high winds - but we were never hit as hard as places along the coast line.  I lived in Florida, pretty much straight through, from July 1961 until the fall of 1995.  These are the Hurricanes that struck Florida, or near by, while I was there:
1964 -  Cleo and Isabell        1965 - Betsy and Dora     1966 - Alma and Inez     1968 - Gladys
1972 - Agnes     1979 - David     1985 - Elena, Juan, and Kate     1987 - Floyd     1992 - Andrew
1994 - Tropical Storms Alberto and Beryl; Gordon     1995 - Allison and Erin
    And, of course we watched the horrific coverage unfold in 1961 with Hurricanes Carla and Hattie; in 1967 with Hurricane Beulah; Camille in 1969 was devastating; then Celia in 1970 - and Alicia in 1983, Gloria in 1985, and Hugo in 1989.

    I feel so much sympathy for those of my friends, family, and colleagues who are being impacted by Hurricane Matthew.  I know that a lot of folks I know are under evacuation orders, and are not at home with some of their most prized possessions.  I wish I possessed magical powers and could wave my hands, or wriggle my nose, and make the seas and winds calm again.  (No, I do not want to be a God, or God-like.)  I just wish that our coastal areas could enjoy calm weather...  Friends, please let me know if there is anything that I can do for you.  Know that you're in my heart and thoughts...

Various Photos

Moose in Boulder County, Colorado

Looking up at the talons of a great horned owl

Blooms of a horse chestnut

Squirrel

Barn in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia

Wiltshire Vintage Art Show  - jump jockey and mount

View from Pole Hill, Larimer County, Colorado

Mom & Dad

Yesterday would have been my parents' 68th wedding anniversary - they were married in a double wedding ceremony in Pocomoke City, Maryland  by the Reverend John Ditto.  The other couple married were Mom's sister, Ruth, and Earle Gordon; they divorced after 9 years.  It seems funny that an Oklahoma/Kansas farm boy and the daughter of a waterman of Chincoteague would meet and marry.  Dad joined the US Navy in 1939 to become a bomber pilot.  Poor man - he washed out of the program because he had no depth perception.  So he was sent to the Ford Company and became an expert on airplane engines, and went to sea on an aircraft carrier.
  Mom was born and raised on Chincoteague Island.  Her father was a dual citizen of Sweden and the United States. But her maternal line goes back to the first land patents on the island, and the Whealton family.  Having been on, or around, the island for more than 300 years, she was related to almost every "old timer" family there in Accomac County, and along the Eastern Shore of Virginia and Maryland.  Pop-pop's Swedish relatives lived in New York City, and were a backbone of the Fulton Fish Market.  Mom-mom was a true Chincoteaguer, and had the Whealtons' fiery temper.
  Mom and Dad met at NAS Chincoteague, over on the mainland.  Mom was working as a cashier in the base's Ship's Store, and, of course, Dad was a customer, posted to the base.  At that time, he was being endoctrinated in radar systems, having just returned from a stint in the Caribbean.  Mom thought he was a dashing Puerto Rican, with his deep tan, black hair and moustache, light green eyes, and the way he could speak a few Spanish phrases.  Dad thought Mom was extremely straight-forward, to the point, and had a great sense of humor.
  After a little over a year of wooing, Dad proposed and Mom accepted - after he had to confess one thing.  Mom had told him during their second date that she would never marry a man who was younger than she was.  Dad found out how old she was, and added two years on top of that when she asked his age.  Proposal day had him confess that he was actually two years younger than Mom - she laughed, and then accepted his proposal.  Their honeymoon was in Baltimore, Maryland.
   Mom's sister, meanwhile, had accepted the proposal of her boyfriend, Earle Gordon; and so the double wedding in Pocomoke City took place.  They were married in 1948; Dad died in 1980; and Mom never remarried. She passed away in 2001.
      This photo was taken by my Aunt Ruth, about a months before the weddings - her fiance, Earle Gordon, is toward the front of the photo.  Mom and Dad are in the back, Dad at the tiller, and Mom is wearing her favorite jacket, made of fringed buckskin.  She always loved ponies, horses, and the West.

Island Photos

Since it's grey and depressing here - island photos!

Bald Eagle at Assateague Island beach

Storm reflection

Chincoteague (near) and Assateague Islands

Assateague cottontail

Young buck

2009 - Surfer's Riptide, mom Surf Queen, dad Surfer Dude

Yankee and Carol's Girl's colt practices in Maryland, on Assateague

Winter Views of Chincoteague and Assateague Island

The photos below were taken by Brian Patton earlier this week...

Looking towards the mainland

Main Street

Quiet yard and pines

Curtis Merritt Harbor

Misty statue on Main Street

The Assateague Lighthouse