Welcome to Fern Valley

Here in central Alberta prime farm country,my husband Martin and I work together raising beef cattle and Appaloosa horses. Fern valley appaloosas have long been known for their quality of temperament conformation and color.I have recently rediscovered a love of writing and have published 2 collections of poetry. "Telling Tails" and Tails Trails and Campfire stories" . I look forward to a future spreading my wings as an author and as a horse woman .

Thursday 17 November 2011

A Chip off the old ...well, Chip

Forgive me all, my blog is a little trip down memory lane this week . One more post on the past today then I swear I will get back to the day to day

So between revisiting the Honorable Mentions , and the followup response on Never To Old (Grey Mare's blog , this post has been on my mind  . So since this week seems to be about reminiscing  here we go  !


 A couple posts back I re posted an Honorable mention of my old stallion Chile Poivre (Chips)


In it I mentioned his last son Fern Valley's Phoenix. I still have Phoenix; he is now 4 and growing up to be a lovely horse. With so many of his sire's little idiosyncrasies. They truly do not look a lot alike ,Chile had a very clear and pronounced blanket with very little roaning , and Phoenix (or Fix as my nephew calls him) is a red roan with s few spots , blue eyes and is considerably shorter and stockier than his sire , and yet... there is something .


Enough so that I , who used to never mix up horses names have begun slipping up and calling him Chips or Chile ,when talking about him , or when he is doing something familiar,(like playing bongo drums with his feed tub) I called out to him to settle down last night and said "Hey Chips!" well the look I got over the fence was priceless ! I swear it could have been the old fella himself staring me down! Funny thing , I have raised several colts from Chips, and Phoenix is the first one to share so much of his personality . Johnnie, has his color pattern, Blue had his size , Digger , more of a temperament thing . Chance ,showed a little of the wise arse side , and his lovely gaits , Wilder is such a gentle kind souls like his sire , I could go on and on , But Phoenix , somehow got something a little different . Is it because he was the last and I set my hopes so high? or is it just luck of the draw . Or something completely beyond my understanding? Whatever it is I am glad, I feel like through all of his progeny Chips lives on , and with Phoenix? Each time he does a "Chips” thing I feel like a get a little gift. Phoenix is his own horse with his own quirks and tricks but the sense of the familiar about him warms my heart.





Stay safe everyone!

7 comments:

Linda said...

LOL we have five horses with the same breeding around here right now and a couple that are look-alikes....Hazer, Hasty, Hackney.....I wonder where are the H's came into being and the fact that two are almost identical at a distance.....

GoLightly said...

what a lovely lineage, how lucky I am to have seen snapshots of it!
And heard, of course, "bongos..."
LOL!

Janice said...

Excellent photos and story...as usual:) I really like that last pic.I enjoyed your Ashes poem as well.

Anonymous said...

Nice to have those reminders of him - he looks like he was a fine one!

Country Gal said...

He will live on through his off spring and in that he will always be with you. He is a legend that lives on through his kids. Wonderful post and photos ! Have a wonderful day !

kestrel said...

You have fabulous horses girl! What a legacy...

Crystal said...

How cool that Pheonix is so like Chips?? I think you made the right choice in keeping him :)