Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Chelan: RIP

Jerechos Chelan died yesterday.
She was about 35 years old.

Chelan was our pony and she died peacefully in the field at Ingrid's place.

Chelly was never my pony until much later. She was originally bought for my brother and then inherited by my sister. I always gave off this air of 'my horse, Copper, is better than your pony'. Secretly I was always a little jealous as Chelly was obviously MUCH prettier than Copper.

Copper was another horse who dies peacefully in the field at a ripe old age at another Ingrid's place.

My brother outgrew Chelly fairly quickly and I dont think they ever really bonded. I clearly remember my brother galloping through the cross country course up in Hope. He was having a beautiful picture perfect clear round. Then came the ditch. There was not a damn thing anyone could do to get that pony over that ditch. My father got so pissed at her he literally half pusher half carried her over so that my brother could finish the course about 2 hours after everyone else had already done. Rest of the course was clear.
Adriene's next pony was Michael and they bonded very well. Those two were made for each other. Two Kamikaze boys. The hunts people loved them and hated them all in the same breath. Those two broke every hunting rule there was and had fun doing it. That pony is still alive. Bloody miracle as he is heading over 30 as well.
My sister got the most use out of Chelly. Those two were so cute. They brought a lot of blue ribbons home just because of cuteness. They did shows, pony club and eventing. As long as there wasn't a ditch everything was good.
Chelly went through a bit of a limbo period after Alisha moved on to Shadow. We never sold her and at one point even tried. For some reason no one wanted her. The biting might have had something to do with it.
Chelly used to bite.
Way back when we first got her she made the mistake of biting Alisha. My dad grabbed her ear and bit her back so hard the pony yelped in pain. After that she made sure she was within biting distance of wood. She never bit anyone after but sure looked scary while she was chomping on that piece of wood.

I inherited Chelly by default and usefulness. Chelly made a perfect lesson pony and I had become the neighbourhood riding teacher. A lot of kids learned to ride on that pony and Chelly made them all love doing it. She would go around as pretty as could be, jump what was put in front of her and be just enough of a bitch to make them learn but not scare them. She ended up being a perfect lesson pony. As I was the one using her I became in charge of her extra bills - veterinarian checkups and regular foot care. I grumbled sometimes but Chelly really was worth it. But then even my lesson kids grew to big for her and got moved on to Stormy; another wonderful pony.

She lived for a little while with Helena and William, my old boss. Chelly was getting pretty old by this time. She became a companion for their horse Jackson. When Jackson got sold we had to find Chelly a new home. It was actually in a roundabout way with the help of Deirdre and Dr. Bate (our forever vet) that we found Ingrid.

Ingrid is the neighbourhood scary witch person. She lives in a house slightly resembling the 'Gingerbread house' but run down. Her fencing is pieced together with every piece of scrap she could find and the front gate is padlocked shut. Personally a good thing as her dogs are terrifying and can only understand German. She is an unkempt stooped over elderly woman that stinks. When you get to know who she really is, she is a lovely person. Her garden is BEAUTIFUL! The flowers are an envy of the neighbourhood. Her animals are well looked after and love her to bits. Her cows come racing across the field when she calls and even Chelly would come ambling up and say hello.

Ingrid is one of those old style German ladies who has traveled the world. Her and her husband chose to not have children because they loved to travel so much - and travel she did. Ingrid has been everywhere. But when her husband died she found herself alone. She moved to Canada because her brother was here, and then put all of her love into her animals. She drives a classic VW van once a week to go shopping and has a beautiful bug stuffed in the back. She speaks to the animals in German only. She talks to them so much that a few months after I brought Chelly there she no longer responded to English.

I spent a summer teaching Ingrid a few things on pony care - what to feed her as her teeth were falling out, and how to watch for foot founder from too much green grass. Ingrid sucked it all in and Chelly lived with her for about 7 years.

Mom used to see Ingrid in town every so often and would check up on Chelly just to make sure. They had discussed putting her down this winter as Chelly was starting to show signs of end.

Instead she died peacefully in the back field

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Posted by (Top)Andrea::6/01/2005 :: 3 Comments:

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