Felix the Pony (The Stretch!)

"How's Felix doing?" Grandma asked.

I wasn't supposed to hear. However, I was sitting on the couch next to Carrie while she was on the phone. The slow turn of her head and the wide eyes were a dead giveaway: There was a secret afoot.

"I'll call you back, Mom," Carrie said.

The secret had four legs.

This is Felix. He was an oops.

No, he wasn't Carrie's oops. She planned this. 

Carrie came home late on a couple of Bo visits. She'd been stopping off to check on Felix. His mom had been bought by a farm looking to have a kid's riding program. It turned out she was a 2 for 1 deal. They went out one morning and there was Felix!

Carrie bought Felix for $500. He was worm infested, but his brain "was near bomb-proof." He'd been exposed to all sorts of animals, kids, and noises, and (atypical for a horse much less a baby) was fine with it.

Carrie made a deal with Sarah. She brought Felix to Sarah's farm to de-worm. Carrie didn't want the mess at our place....and she didn't want me to know about Felix yet. Especially if the de-worming process killed him (Yes, it was that serious).

In return, Carrie helped Sarah out with barn chores. Sarah's family was all ill and she could use the help! I was happy that Carrie was going out and helping a friend. It didn't seem out of character, so I wasn't suspicious of her motives. 

With the secret out, Carrie invited me to come see Felix. We told Shane he could play Roblox and he didn't even notice we were gone.

It wasn't a long visit. We helped shovel and cart off some poop while we were there. I took a picture of some pigs (Sarah runs a rescue barn for all sorts of animals).

Fast forward a couple days and Carrie decided to bring Felix home. He'd passed more worms than you'd want to know about and everyone knew about the Pony Surprise (I never have to shop for Anniversarys, Birthdays and Christmas because of things like this).

We were in the lows of the historic cold streak, so everyone got bundled up including Felix!

It was an easy trailer.

Laura was out with Ernie. He refused to walk on, because he wanted to see the baby. Shane was excited and ran out coatless!

He had on double shirts and pants, so he didn't complain right away. He followed Felix into the stall before sprinting back to indoor heating!

Felix's purpose is two-fold. First, Carrie wanted for Bo to have a buddy when he arrived. Babies instinctively cling to other babies. She had planned to bring Felix home the day before trailering Bo. Grandma's slip accelerated the timetable.

Second, Carrie's conscience didn't want to leave Felix where she found him. She thought he was adorable and at only 1/10th the price of Bo she felt it was affordable.

Felix is going to stay stall bound for a while. That will let him and the other horses adjust to him before he's moved to the baby lot with his soon to arrive friend.