Thankful

Firstly, I hope this update finds you warm and cozy and DRY. The rain has definitely returned to the PNW and with it the mud – our very favorite thing in the world. The only upside to the days getting shorter and wetter is that we finally have a few minutes to reflect on this past season at the farm. This is Toni’s Ponies 4th year functioning as a nonprofit. A lot has changed in that time. I’m told that they used to go get hay from the barn with a wheel barrow and feed that way. Gosh we love our Gator! And when I started volunteering there were maybe two other regular volunteers. Now on Wednesdays we have between 15-20 volunteers feeding, scooping, washing buckets, pulling weeds, grooming horses, desensitizing horses, working with our wild ones. It’s an incredible team that we have and we are so ridiculously grateful. This has been a tough year – we’ll get into that a little more in a minute.

Where to begin friends? A lot has happened since our last update in June. I’m going to start with our most recent news and events and work backwards.

November

This morning we woke to find one of our longest residents had crossed the rainbow bridge. Our beloved Joker Man was in his 30s and had been declining since spring. We thought that he had bounced back this summer as he  had put quite a bit of weight back on and had a little spring in his step. But over the past several weeks we noticed that Joker was not walking well and had just recently become blind in one eye. He still had his appetite and absolutely loved being brushed and having his hair braided. Joker was such an amazing little guy. So many children pet their first pony upon meeting Joker. He had the best hair on the farm and his little ears were so cute you wanted to chew on them! He was very attached to his girlfriend Princess and would just make an absolute fuss if she was to be removed from her shelter next to him. He had the most elegant little prance and we will miss him so very much. All in all Joker had a beautiful life here at TP. We knew this day was coming but it doesn’t make it less difficult.

Toni’s Ponies Annual Gala, with its vibrant Pony Gras theme, was an unforgettable celebration steeped in the spirit of New Orleans. The venue shimmered in Mardi Gras colors—purple, green, and gold—(and of course we had to add our signature pink in there ) illuminating the space with a warm, inviting glow. Guests mingled, wearing their finest attire with a touch of New Orleans flair—beaded masks, feathered accessories, and dazzling jewelry that added to the glamour of the evening. It was truly a joy to see so many familiar faces, all coming together to support a wonderful cause and enjoy a night of celebration. The silent auction, featuring generous donations from our local community, was a highlight of the night. From exclusive experiences to handcrafted art, each item brought in bids and raised crucial funds. It was heartwarming to see the community come together in such a meaningful way. Thank you to all that attended and all that donated and all that helped to make this night so successful. We were able to raise $6000, all of which will go toward caring for our 28 equines. We can’t wait to party with you all again next year and are excited to announce that next year’s theme will be Disco!

October

Early October Andy’s dad passed away from cancer. This last year has been really hard for a number of reasons but one of those has been that Toni has been flying solo a lot. Over a year ago Andy’s father started declining in health and much of Andy’s time has been spend with him, caring for and making sure that he is safe and stable. There have been countless doctors visits, transfusions, late nights. Anyone that has ever been a caretaker knows that it’s not easy. It takes a physical and mental toll on a person. When you are there for the end of life care of a loved one you are never off duty and in many cases you just have to work through your grief. It is constant and in many ways your life gets put on pause. This past Saturday the memorial was held for Stephen and it was beautiful. Please keep the Prader family in your thoughts and prayers.

September

September was spent soaking in those last golden days of early fall before the rain came. We welcomed three new horses to the farm.

Wildfire is a beautifully level headed wild yearling that was rounded up on the Colville Range and destined for slaughter. No one would step up and adopt her because of a hernia that she has on her stomach and also she’s missing a little bit of the tips of her ears (probably due to frostbite.) From the moment she arrived we knew that she was special. I think she might hold the record for how quickly she moved into the large herd. She immediately attached to our dear friend and volunteer Jeanie and between Jeanie and Toni working with her she quickly acclimated to her new life and family. She’s now out in the herd and pals around with her best friend Nova. It’s rare to see the two separated and we often call them the Bobsy Twins. I wonder if Darby ever gets as confused as I do with them!

The other two rescues are a Mare and Foal duo that we named Cedar (the mom) and Timber (the colt.) They are both wild and coming around slowly. We had them in the upper pasture originally but as the rain started to come we knew that we would need to move them down to the barn. There they have a little more covered space and we have plans to attach their paddock to the round pen so they can have even a little extra space for exercise. They both have pretty sweet personalities but the little boy is sometimes a bit of a stinker and we all have to stay very alert when working with them. Mom is definitely more skittish but she’s coming around! We are excited to see them progress.

August

In August the Hood Canal Brewery hosted our annual BBQ and brew! We had a great turn out. It was a super windy day but the music was amazing and the food was superb! We raised funds to support the ponies and had a good time doing it.

Later in August, when Toni was having her family over for a camp out weekend we lost one of our mini donkeys. Daisy was fairly new to TP and we adored her. She was a beautiful red colored girl who was extremely friendly. She was absolutely in love with our mini Remi and had come from a very loving home. We honestly do now know what happened with Daisy. She was shivering the day prior – we had a cold front and some rain come through that weekend – we blanketed her and brought her up into one of the stalls. She soon stopped shivering and ate her dinner and seemed fine. We kept her overnight and when we woke the next morning she was up and doing fine. When we came by to feed an hour or so later she was gone. This was a first for us. While we didn’t have Daisy long, we so loved her. She was such a neat little donkey. She traveled to the brewery with us, and was the star attraction for a group of visiting elementary school students. Rest in peace little one!

July

July saw us in downtown Kingston walking the 4th of July Parade. The downtown parade starts at noon and takes about an hour. It is commonly referred to as the longest-running 4th of July parade west of the Mississippi River.

“Nobody has been able to pinpoint the exact start,” event chairman Tony Clark said in 2022, adding that the Kingston Historical Society has photos of the celebration from the late 1890s. And we are a part of it!

The second weekend in July is our HUGE yard sale fundraiser. This takes months of collecting to put together and a solid week of set up to get it ready. We want to thank everyone who donated items, who showed up to set up and all of you who stopped by to shop! We had some really great items this year and I know everyone left with a treasure or two or twenty. This is hands down our largest fundraiser of the year and it enabled us to fill our barn with hay for the year. It is such an amazing feeling to know that we have that covered for now. We could not do this work without our community and our amazing volunteers.

Earlier that week Toni brought home the newest addition to her family. Cowboy was brought home from Eastern Washington. When he arrived, he was such a different pup than he is now. For about a week he was incredibly despondent. He ate very little and didn’t react to being pet or anything. Never aggressive, just nothing. It took him awhile to come around but when he did – boy what an awesome pup! He came with another much younger puppy that was napped Sippy. Sippy unfortunately was very sick and crossed the rainbow bridge less than a month later. Cowboy now is living his best life! He loves Toni like crazy and has learned to be such a good boy by following Stella around while she taught him the ropes and loves farm life. He gets to run and play with his BFF Cooper.

And now you are all caught up!

 

So what’s next for Toni’s Ponies?

December 13 Christmas in Big Valley will have a Toni’s Ponies night! They are so graciously donating funds to the rescue! We will also have a bake and merch sale as well! If you haven’t been to Christmas in Big Valley to see the lights, please come. It is truly beautiful and the folks that run it are the most amazing people!

They are open starting November 29 – January 5. Hours are 4:30 to 9:30 every night. Admission is $14.

Come Support Toni’s Ponies on Dec 13!

Also if you are interested in donating baked goods for our bake sale please contact Toni!

THANK YOU

You have no idea how grateful we are for each and every one of you. Without our group of volunteers and the community support that we receive we would not be able to do this work. That’s not hyperbole, it is a fact. This thanksgiving, Toni’s Ponies is thankful for you!

rescue update!

It's been busy busy out here at the farm and we thought it was time for a little update! So here's what's going on in a nutshell:

July Yard Sale

We have been busy busy collecting donations for our annual yard sale! We are still in need of donations and if you would like to drop off; 10-2 on Wednesdays and Saturdays are ideal but if that doesn't work out just get in touch with us and set up a time to pop by! If you are local (Kingston, Poulsbo, Hansville) and need us to pick up please let us know!

If you aren't familiar with our yard sale, this is how it works... All of our items are donated then a group of AMAZING volunteers spend a week getting everything organized and set up for a MASSIVE four day yard sale (July 11-14.) Because we receive these items as donations it seems only fitting that we ask for donations in return rather than pricing! There's a little bit of everything - a treasure for everyone! All the proceeds from this fundraiser go toward providing feed and vetting for our equines! This is probably our largest fundraiser of the year. It's a lot of work but it is so so so worth it! So come on out and visit the farm in July! This year we will also have a lot of horse tack as well!

Nova gelded

This last week our not so little Super Nova got gelded! The surgery went perfectly and he is healing nicely. He's got another month before we can put him in with anyone ( gotta let that testosterone run it's course) but after that we hope that he can share a space with the lovely Stazi who is similar in age. They've been besties over the fence and we can't wait to see them run and play together!

teeth floating for our minis

This is a HUGE week at the rescue. We have farrier day on Wednesday where all of our horses get their feet done. and on Friday all of our minis are getting their teeth floated. It's an estimated cost of $2500. This may not seem like a huge expense in the world of vet care but it all adds up. We've had a pretty vet intensive year at Toni's Ponies. We have put the all call out to ask for a bit of help raising funds for these guys. ANY amount helps us tremendously! If you feel so inclined to donate for these guys specifically you can click the link here! This is for Joker, Princess, Gin, Tonic, Missy, Carl Wayne, Le' Roy, Bobaloui, Daisy, and Remington.

next on the schedule

We will not be having our scheduled Community Farm Day this Saturday. We hope to be able to reschedule later this summer but you can catch Toni's Ponies at the Kingston 4th of July parade! We are also still plugging away at getting the Thrift Store up and running! We had a great workday in late May and hope to plan one again soon when we get some word from our roofing guys! Stay tuned!

Newest additions

In April we welcomed our three newest residents. Remington the mini horse as well as Daisy and Bobalouie who are miniature donks. They have settled in just beautifully!

pirate festival

It was awesome to partner with Hood Canal Brewery for the Kingston Pirate Festival this year. We are so grateful for the opportunity to run the beer garden as a fundraiser!

zebra

Also.... in case you missed it... we were visited by a local celebrity. The PNW lost zebra! That little one sure got around! Can't believe it hopped on a ferry and got all the way to Kingston.

looking forward to summer!

We are so excited for summer! While we love the rain - because it makes the grass grow... We are absolutely just done with the mud. We can't wait to take the horses out and give them baths and love on them and spend days in the sun! As always, if you are interested in volunteering, our volunteer days are Wednesday and Saturday from 9am-2pm. Wear appropriate footwear, pack a lunch and come on down to the farm! See you around!

Hello Sunshine - Goodbye mud!

Wow, it’s been a long time since we’re been here on the blog and there’s a good reason for it… we are exhausted from shlepping through this MUD! We don’t like to talk about it because it makes us feel like we’re doing something wrong but it’s really just math… Washington rain + 25+ horses is going to equal mud. We are reassured by our farrier and our vets and everyone else that has horses and rain that it’s everywhere but still what a pain. But let’s hope that’s mostly in the past and we are moving towards the best time of the year for Toni’s Ponies and Washington State in general! Bring on the sunshine!

So what’s been going on the since last we updated? A ton! Our last blog post update was about loosing our sweet boy, Gary. We are happy to report that we haven’t had any losses since then, though it has been a near thing. Again, the reality of rescuing horses is that many times we get them when they are advanced in age and we rarely know trauma their bodies have encountered already. Needless to say we are a frequent for our vet. In the last couple of months we have had to move three of our horses to soaked food permanently and cut out some of their snacks due to choke. We’ve had to post signs on their pens so our walkers don’t accidently give them something that’s going to cause them issues. We love our walkers and all the love they give to our little guys but it just isn’t safe anymore for them.

Many of you know that we welcomed a new non-equine member to the farm! Toni was contacted about a week old lamb that lost it’s mama and was probably not going to make it without intervention… and so we welcomed a beautiful little girl lamb and named her Poppy! Then we found out she had a penis and renamed him Peppy. He’s mostly just called Lamba Lamba and he follows Toni EVERYWHERE! We are pretty sure he thinks he’s a dog and you have to see our video of him and Princess hopping and bopping in the front yard. He’s really brought us so much joy! Our other sheep that live part time with our next-door neighbors are home for awhile and we hope that the new little guy will be able to hang with them!

We also welcomed a new horse to the herd! This is Lovely Rita. She is such a friendly girl – if you are a human. She’s holding her own in the herd and has even got the hang of getting in her stall for feeding. She came to us very loved in in excellent health. We are excited to get to know her more! This picture was taken early on - she's now running with the herd!

Somewhere in there NOFB Andy brought home a hurt pigeon. That was a surprise! Wendy and Sheila took him over to West Sound and they got him all patched up and released him which is awesome!

As the weather has started to get better we’ve had a lot of new visitors to the farm! We love seeing the littles come out and spend time here with their folks! And while the mud has been the bane of our existence they seem to LOVE it!

We were the very grateful recipients of a generous donation from The Power of 100 Kitsap County. This amazing group of women philanthropists are committed to taking care of their community and we are so incredibly grateful that they chose us! The funds that they donated will go to making our rescue safer for both our horses and our volunteers. We are looking into ways to mitigate the damage the water causes for next year as well as gravel areas that need it! Of course our vet care comes first… which brings me to our next close call.

Saturday afternoon on our volunteer day our spunky little Arabian, Phara was acting out of sorts. We saw some strange stretching and then she laid down in the barn (not normal for our guys) and when prompted to get up she just didn’t seem to be feeling it. We walked her down to the yard and checked her for gut sounds – none – and her breathing was labored. Needless to say, she was in a lot of discomfort. We called the vet and kept her up and walking. We offered her water that she didn’t drink and we were all very worried. The vet came and things were not looking good. Phara definitely was blocked up and part of what was causing it was likely a colon stone the size of a cantaloupe. She was tubed and a mineral oil was run through her and then the waiting came. As usual we were waiting for poop and trying to get our girl to drink. She was moved to a stall and her bestie Barbie was brought to keep her company. Things did not look promising.

We have volunteers here at the farm that fall hard for certain horses. And horses that fall for them too. One of the hardest things to see is a horse whose future is so up in the air and the person that loves them. I have to hand it to Toni and her volunteers. They are so incredibly strong. I watched two of our youngest volunteers step up and do all the things that had to be done with such strength of character. They were worried and sad but that didn’t stop them from hauling water, walking Phara, thinking about ways to ease her discomfort. All the while they knew it was possible she was not going to make it through the night.

Miraculously Phara did make it through the night and the next day and now we are on day 4 since her impaction. She’s back in the herd and we’ve seen bowel movements. She’s drinking and eating and chasing Barbie off her hay. We don’t know how long this will last. She’s still got that colon stone in there but we are so excited to be able to spend more time with her. If you are wondering what a vet bill for this sort of thing looks like – it’s hefty. This visit alone was $1018.

That brings me to our next topic! I know it seems like we are always fundraising – and we are – because that’s the life of a nonprofit rescue. We’ve just come out with a new T-shirt design for the spring and we are excited to share it with you. All profits from our merch go directly to taking care of the horses here – paying vet bills like Phara’s. We are currently taking preorders for our shirts. It helps us out so much if you preorder – this way we know we have you covered with size and color. These shirts are soft style shirts. If you ordered the shirts last year for the 4th of July  - these ones are a very different cut – not as boxy. We can’t wait to see everyone wearing them! We plan to put in an order next week so that they will be here mid April! Click on the link below to order!

PREORDER T-SHIRT HERE

Wrapping it up here, thanks for sticking with us this far! I want to leave you with some exciting news. One of our favorite horses is leaving Toni’s Ponies. We’re of course a little sad to see her go but also our hearts are full because this is the culmination of what we do. This is the goal and part of the journey. In 2020 Ruth (now called Rosie) came to Toni’s Ponies emaciated, wild, and pregnant. She was untouchable. Over the last 4 years people have put time and energy and love into building relationships with her. Shelby, Toni, and Andy spent countless hours early on with her getting her to trust humans. In 2022 She was adopted by Andi Kosalko, one of our amazing volunteers. Andi boarded her here at TP and continued to work with her. She was able to get her comfortable getting her feet done and being under saddle. They’ve built quite the bond! And now Rosie will be moving to a barn just down the street from Toni’s Ponies where Andi will continue her training and bonding! This will be so good for both of them and we can’t wait to see how their journey progresses! Because of that this past weekend Andi spent a lot of time getting Rosie comfortable for her trailer ride to her new home! They both did great!

We look forward to spending more sunny days on the farm loving on the horses and getting things done! Our volunteer days are Wednesdays and Saturdays from 9am-2pm. If you have been wanting to come out and volunteer come on out! We are excited to meet you and we always have tons of poop to scoop and horses to love!