04/11/2026
For those who have been eagerly awaiting the Shetlands to cause a fresh round of mayhem... Your wait is over 🤣
We put a bale of hay out to the horses across the road, which involved wrangling the tractor through the corridor with the Shetland ponies. Basically mission impossible with added piranha ponies but we managed it 🙌🏼 I opened the gate for the tractor back onto the road, secured it and then went to collect the buckets from Smartie, Gem & Jazzy. As I was getting the buckets, I heard a weird "trip-trap-trip-trap" that was strikingly similar to the sound of Shetland hooves moving at speed on tarmac. I looked up to see with total horror that there wasn't a Shetland pony out on the road, there were FOUR 😱🫣💩
I dropped the buckets and tried to negotiate the several-stringed electric fence gate at speed which involved much cursing. I grabbed the "emergency lead rope" I keep at every gate just in case of a situation such as this one. What exactly I was going to do with one lead rope and 4 escaped & totally wild Shetlands remained a mystery.
The ponies calmly watched me negotiate the electric gateway in my most ungainly "more speed, more guddling" manner, then galloped off up the road, bucking and farting in delight. The chase was on 🤦🏼♀️
I tried phoning Scott for back-up only to realise that I don't actually have his number in my phone 🙈 I tried his WhatsApp but there was no answer. I was on my own at the mercy of 4 wicked ponies!
I managed to catch up with Penfold who ran out of steam faster than the others and had stopped for a mid getaway gallop snack. Thank goodness too because a white van man on a mission appeared on the road and looked like he was all out of patience and didn't get the memo about a sense of humour 🫣
I looped my lead rope around Pen's neck and waved confidently at the impatient van man. All was in hand. I had a Shetland and surely the others would see their podgy leader had been defeated by my rope and give up their wild ways.
What actual happened was as I waved, Penfold boshed me out of the way with his bulbous belly and took off at turbo speed up the middle of the road, leaving me like a loser with a rubbish rope. I smiled weakly at the ever increasingly impatient van man and continued to chase after the rogue rodents.
They were heading at speed towards our neighbours and I tried to head them off and direct them into an empty paddock. No such luck, but my wild waving and screaming and lashing of the less than useless lead rope did result in them doing a U-turn. Yes - at least they were heading back towards the farm!
Unfortunately they didn't deem it necessary to go AROUND the impatient waiting white van and proceeded to brush their fat hairy bellies against the sides 🫣🙈😱🤦🏼♀️ As I watched this in ever growing cringey horror, I waved and smiled again at the van driver who had such a deep grimace on his face and was gripping the steering wheel in such a fashion I decided to move swiftly out of his way 😬 as he drove past, I almost said well, on the bright side, at least they've cleaned the bottom half of your van for you 😀 but seeing his steely stare I thought it best to continue with my wild Shetland chase and hope never to cross paths with this guy again 😬🫣🤣
The ponies were thankfully paused for another pit-stop snack, so I managed to skirt in front of them and quickly open the gate to our top field, currently home to the lambs 🐑 Izzy saw the gap into the huge field and bolted through the gate, closely followed by the other three reprobates.
All this time poor Pixie pony had stayed where she was meant to and was very distressed! I looped my somewhat useless lead rope around her neck and it redeemed itself, getting her safely back to the yard.
There was not a shred of a chance that I was going to catch those ponies tonight, and I didn't have enough time to faff about, so they're all out with the lambs tonight. I'll attempt to capture them tomorrow once they're in a grass coma.
Little buggers!!! 😈😈😈😈
