A Day in the Life of a Foal [in Taya's own words]

As the time for Lady to foal drew near, we began tucking her away in a stall right next to the house every evening and letting her out bright and early the next day. Generally, mares tend to foal secretly in the wee hours while no one is about.

Every morning I would go out and find Lady criss-crossing her legs and dancing around in front of her stall door waiting for me to let her out to potty ~ don't ask me why, but she flatly refused to *ahem* tinkle in her room. When you factor in the fact that she carried that baby for almost an entire year, we had a pretty good routine going on.

One morning I walked outside to find Lady in the opposite corner of the stall watching for me. She had the strangest look on her face. When I asked her what was wrong, she stuck her nose out at me and whinnied; that was about a nanosecond before her water broke. Oh, wow ~ you mean NOW?? I flew into the house to tell my husband and daughter (and - of course - grab the camera! ;o) So we all got to witness Taya's arrival, which was an awesome thing to see (truly miraculous :o) We spent a little time taking care of the necessary details and of course playing a bit with our newest resident, and then quietly left mother and daughter to bond. We named her Nataya, a Shoshoni word that means "She dances the dance"; Taya for short. Isn't she just beautiful??