Love+Rosie

REMEMBER Rosie? I promised that I would write about her. Rosie comes to us from Lesotho, a country bordering our own at the Freestate province. Rosie used to pull carts there where it snows in winter. She lived in a village with rural people and no grazing. Often times her owner would ride her to the shebeen (pub) and drunkenly inflict ills on her. For example, in addition to the harness wounds our girl had when she came to us, in addition to the bot fly eggs that lit up her tummy, in addition to her skin and bones, she had a panga wound low down on the mane. Perhaps this was a random act of violence, or maybe it was meant to mark her as the property of her owner; because if you cut deep enough (and she was) the mane grows back white in that place.

Rosie walked from Lesotho to South Africa (Bloemfontein in the Freestate). She walked to a dealer yard. Her owner's mom died, and as is custom he needed a cow to slaughter for the funeral. He had Rosie as trade and thought that if he got her to the dealer he'd get enough money for a medium-sized cow. Rosie walked and walked and made it into the country. Then, 80-100kms from the dealer yard she broke down. Her owner had some corrugated iron with him, which he hammered out flat and then hammered into her feet. He thought this would make her hooves strong enough for the rest of the trip. Sadly, it did not. She could not walk and eventually she was tied down to the back of a small pick-up or bakkie and driven the rest of the way. When she got there, infection had set in and she was unable to walk for four days.

This is when the plea went out. She was on the market for $250, loads more than meat price... but he insisted on his cow money and would not let her go for less.

This was what she looked like

I decided to buy her and off we went...we drove 600kms to fetch her and paid the full price. Her owner had named her Papiertjie (Scrap of paper) which is what she resembled. I renamed her Bring Me Roses (Rosie) hoping for friendship and love and companionship from this FIRST Houthoek rescue. She was covered in wounds, her hooves were infected. Her belly lit up with the eggs of botflies - a parasite nibbled up through the eggs on the coat and into the digestive tract.

Rosie was thin, her hooves were shocking and she was so so sweet.

Shaggy dog, Rosie loving on Tristan

Her harness wounds stayed for quite some time, but she steadily gained condition...

Harness wounds showing up here, and still needing some condition

And then, four months later, she gave me roses after all...

SURPRISE!

And as you can see, she got SHINY!

Getting better, always :)

Feeling fine :)

And her tail grew wildly!

After Tiger Lily was born Rosie became more withdrawn. She became the independent Basotho pony she could be, while Lily got up to some weird things...

Lily and Masu

Lily and Masudik broke out of the paddock and into my front lawn :)

The point is that she was pregnant from the start, we just never knew. Both Lily and Rosie still live with us, and most of these pics are from 2009/2010 - when they started.