Meet our Miniature horse Hunter

Isn't he just gorgeous? Well that's a mothers view of course. And to be honest, he is always very popular at 'open garden' days and family functions. His name is Hunter and he is a miniature horse,very much part of our family. The dogs are great companions of his too, often found sitting with him while he crops the lawn.

He is 13 years old this year, which is probably the adolescent stage of his life, as mini's can live 30 years and more! That being said, a horse is a lifetime pet and not just a whim, so it was a big decision based on whether I was prepared to look after him for a very long time to come - because we all know that children grow up and leave home and the pets usually stay! When my children and I went to first view him at a property near Goulburn, NSW,  he was only 6 weeks old and truly the cutest little thing we'd ever seen, frisking about his mother. Then, when he was weaned at 6 months old, he was delivered to our Bloomfield Cottage property where we had prepared his own fenced off area and built a small manger for protection from weather and feeding. He was the same size as our golden retriever at this time and was very popular with all the neighbourhood children!

He has been a great companion while I'm in the veggie patch as his corral is right next to it. He will whinny and neigh his hellos and we often have a little nuzzle and a kiss on his soft nose. Hunter always gets little treats from the veggie patch but usually we tie him to a strong stake around the lawn so he can crop at leisure - he is definitely not to be trusted anywhere near the garden beds or the roses - which I might add are his favorite.

When he was little, the girls used to comb and platte his mane with beads and all sorts of pretty ribbons - poor boy. But these days his grooming is left to me and I just brush him occasionally and trim his tail and fringe. We don't cover him with a blanket in winter, so he grows this amazing thick fluffy coat to keep warm. If you run your fingers through it you cant feel his skin at all it's so thick.

He got quite sick once, about 6 years ago, and we rushed him to our local equine veterinary hospital. We had the vet out the week prior because he wasn't eating or pooping - very bad for horses! They operated immediately on him and removed two large 'stones' from his stomach that was blocking all functions. We kept them as a reminder to keep his diet plain and regular and he has been fine ever since. The stones feel like pumice stone and smell of chaff. The vets are not sure what causes them
but they usually occur in the spring, which this did.

He is a wonderful part of this lifestyle living, and his manure is always greatly appreciated in the gardens and worm farm. Like all animals he is wormed regularly - we don't put that manure in the worm farm though.

Hunter is just one of the many animals we have at Bloomfield Cottage that makes this a fulfilled and busy lifestyle.

See what comes out of this odd little cocoon...........

I found this funny cocoon thing the other day. Iv`e never seen one like it before - and I can tell you that over 30 years of gardening, iv`e seen plenty of weird insect eggs, sac`s and cocoons. But this one was a slightly corky little thing, with a tiny hole in one end. Such a cleverly built little thing, which was securely attached to a branch of wisteria.

Have you ever seen one of these before? Well I hadn't, so I cut it off the branch and bought it inside. I put it on the window ledge in the kitchen in a vase of water so I could photograph it, which I did some days later. My daughter said 'yuk, what is that' and I said I don't know, some sort of cocoon.

'Don't leave it there - what if something comes out', was her initial response. 'Oh it's not going to hatch overnight' was mine.

So it sat there on the window sill for a good 10 days, until one morning, I came into the kitchen to find hundreds of creepy little insects all over the window glass and bench tops. 

Luckily my daughter and husband were still in bed! Thank goodness they hadn't yet traveled too far around the kitchen, and were still isolated to the window and sink area. As you can guess, I raced for the insect killer spray and quickly sprayed the crap out of them! I had goose bumps and the creeps!

After gloving up and finding the old dish cloth I removed all the dead little bugs before my family saw them! Ha, nothing worse than your 22 yr old daughter telling you 'I told you so'.

Well she was right, and I learnt my lesson - don't bring any suspicious insect nests in to the house!
I'm still not sure what they were, but I suspect they are a hatchling of a wasp or perhaps grasshopper? I'm so glad I only just caught them crawling about everywhere - imagine if I got up and the nest was empty and they had all disappeared throughout the house! There were hundreds of them! Argh, that doesn't bear thinking about.

Please leave a comment if you think you know what the little critters were. I searched the net but there are just so many weird little cocoons. I've since found two more cocoons outside - which is where I will leave them - lesson learnt.

Deaddie insects.