The Peppermint Pony

03/09/2024

Popped up in memories.
Challenging party, yet the magnificent Silver never put a hoof wrong.

28/04/2024

Bookending this "memory" was this photo from a party served the same day. My two hard-working children, helping to put food on the table for the pleasure of others'.

It was particularly hard to do business in the era of "the customer knows best" when the full saying was : "the customer knows best in matters of taste".

Quite an enormous difference!
In those days, after print ads were irrelevant, and before people became wise to just how malicious and capricious social media can be - a bad review once caused me to lose half a years income.
Safety, expectations, personalities, weather, mental health, and entitlements. Lots of factors and unknowns.
The ponies knew none of this, and soldiered on, sure of their roles and happy to do it. If only that had been enough!

19/03/2023

Heart of a lion, this one.

Silver was exhausted by the third party, but he still posed for every shot.

28/11/2022

I've had TWO homes back out of taking these cats without coming out and letting me know first.
Please let the third time be a Christmas charm for GiGi and Buddy! 😻😻😻🎄

17/11/2022

Reaching to the TPP universe for new homes for my indoor/outdoor cats.

Due to more than one family member insisting on allowing their curs to harass and potentially harm these cats - I am now homeless and my beautiful, personality-plus felines need safe homes.
Both are neutered and have current rabies shots. Both love to play.
GiGi (tuxedo tortoiseshell) is a consummate mama cat supervisory type. She came to us starving, from a horrible farm in Ohio, with 5 kittens and with a poorly healed broken leg. ~5.5 years.
Buddy (ginger boy) is her remaining son. He's a long silly baby of a cat, adores his "egg and cream" at the counter each day (he asks so nicely!) loves to sleep on or between your legs. A real purr monster. Also ADOREs machinery and men-stuff.
These two should go together. Both love to accompany you around your property while you work.. 5 years.

I do not want to surrender them to a rescue, because they will not be fun to live with if confined to the indoors, nor happy, and I can't trust a rescue to not place them in an indoor home.

27/03/2022

I was always happy to see the backside of March. Some of the best memories, and some of the...worst! Bathing unicorns in 38°F in a garage with a tarp for drainage... Being more acquainted with graupel than the average citizen...

But I am tears today, missing my ponies and so sad for what happened.

05/03/2022

I will be at the Maryland Home and Garden Show at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium this weekend and next. Face painting, balloon twisting and glitter tattoos. See mdhomeshow.com for details.

12/12/2021

Christmas wishes and find memories of all my past clients

Cutest Gingerbread ever!!

16/07/2021

Feeling maudlin! Wishing I still had ponies and could fill all the unicorn wishes I am sure are on that list

It started when a New Jersey man wrote how he used the site to buy a bike for a child in foster care.

18/04/2021

Memories! So many spring parties to remember.
Sparkle was especially eager to please at this one.

02/02/2021

😂😂😂😜🤪❤️

05/01/2021

12/12/2020

If you long for words grounded in the days of common sense and horsemanship, please consider following this page.

We were talking about bitting a few days ago and you know, we all have our own beliefs. I’m going to share a change in perception that has occurred, slowly but surely, in the span of my riding life.

When I was young and in lessons with what would now be termed a classical dressage teacher, the horses were always encouraged to chew their bits quietly. How did we do this? We regularly practiced our horses on a variety of lateral movements to engage their backs… We celebrated the true paces of our horses, encouraging them to round up and then, to stretch… We schooled with fairly loose cavessons or without nosebands, altogether!

We knew it as fact that if the horse didn’t contentedly and constantly chew his bits, the way we might with a small piece of gum, that the training had gone awry somewhere. If the horse didn’t clink his bits, or roll his cricket—it didn’t really matter what sort of discipline he was performing—that it meant his back was ’blocked’ and he wasn’t being well-schooled or well-ridden. If he did not chew, he was not on the aids, he did not ‘swing through from behind’ and he was definitely not in self-carriage. It was as simple as that.

My own teacher was a one-woman crusader against tight cavessons. It’s probably a good thing that she passed away before the current trend of crank and flash nosebands that are done up so tightly—even at the highest levels of competition—that they leave indentations along the bridge of the horses’ noses. It was she who drilled into my brain that it was a sin to own, let alone use, a pair of draw reins or side reins.

I remember her marching up to complete strangers and berating them, in German, if she couldn’t put the flat of her hand up inside the fronts of their cavessons. I would sit upon my own gelding, red-faced and ashamed, not understanding that, to this passionate and incredibly adept horsewoman, kindness to her beloved horses far outweighed the need to be liked.

Fast forward four decades and now, our horses work in the arenas of the world, in silence. No more softly clinking bridles. They are to keep their mouths shut, no matter how hard we drive them up into restraining hands. "Putting them in frame", we say. No matter our chosen sport, we have forgotten the art and aesthetics to which we might aspire!

We have taken the spirit and beauty of the horse and in its place, rewarded subjugation. Servitude has replaced all brilliance. Ironically, it has now become a shameful thing, to use the word 'submission'. Yet, our actions better tell our truths.

Allied to this is our current fear and distrust of the double bridle. Properly prepared in the snaffle, I can remember few horses showing any displeasure when they graduated to the bit and bridoon. No, not if they first trusted the hand. Nowadays, we expect the majority of horses and riders to stay working on the snaffle for their lifetimes, with the goal of achieving a positive contact. Say what? And me thinking that the highest aim was beautifully rounded self-carriage.

I’m left looking at this news clipping of a horse who was a major player in my life, nearly forty years ago. How is this even possible?! Sometimes I wish she was in my hands now, while I have maturity on my side, for she was a hot tamale. We often clashed swords, this warrior princess and I. Honest, brave, fiercely spirited… it was a wonder Shadow’s slight fifteen-hand frame could contain it all.

Not always an enjoyable ranch ride due to her crackling energy, the jet black mare excelled in the show ring, especially among the show hacks. She was always the smallest one in the class. It never occurred to me that in years hence, there would be no place in the competitive world for a horse of Shadow’s stamp. No. There would be no point in showing her charms among today’s winners who appear, in my mind, as so downcast.

Eyes dancing, softly snorting, gleaming with checkerboards and swoopy patterns on their rumps, we cantered ‘round and ‘round while our hacks awaited, with barely-concealed excitement, the ring master’s command to “Extend the tr-rot!” Their footfalls light on the arena floor, I can remember the musical tinkling of their double bridles. I’m smiling now, remembering the joy of being upon the glamorous merry-go-round of classically trained horses.

This was taken in the concourse of the old Stampede Corral. Shadow, waiting in excitement and I, with ill-concealed nerves. She was a bit lit up with watching the Hackney ponies going gangbusters in their sparkling viceroys... the crowd in evening dress, clapping, whistling, cheering them on.

It saddens me to learn that the Corral is slated for demolition. This storied building with its gaily-painted wooden seats and encircling concourse, the walls filled with old black and white photos of the star horsemen, rodeo performers and hockey idols of our past… I will miss it when we are free to gather at Stampede Park, once again.

📷 Browarny Photography.

17/11/2020



06/11/2020

Memories from one of my favorite parties. I'll try to dig up the link from this album - from 2015

23/10/2020

Just beautiful.

19/10/2020

Bahahaha!

09/09/2020

September memories

28/08/2020

How amazing is this!?

The first of many carousels! 🎠🎠
Throwback to this giant rotating carousel cake we made for a wedding at for .

26/08/2020

***canceled for weather, fields are closed***

I will be twisting balloons at Sunflowers of Lisbon, Fulton MD location this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, August 28-30th. Prices start at $2. Come on out and see me!

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1350186751853698&id=452953714910344&sfnsn=mo&extid=fviL18e4OrExUHM3

24/07/2020

I love working with swirls and sprinkles as much as I do pretty flowers so you might be seeing more of these in the near future on my feed. I have so many ideas that my brain could explode sometimes. Haha. Hope you are all having a great week 💓 (please remember I am currently closed for new orders due to building work) 💓

29/06/2020

Was this Pocohantas's first or second riding gig?

31/05/2020

Are you planning a trip to Florida? Take a day to go to Party Animals Pony Rides. You are welcome to bring your photographer, but no one does it like Jennifer!

03/04/2020

Something to brighten your day.

I had an overwhelming urge to bake today. I miss it so much. It’s not just my job but my passion. Anyway I decided to make something that I have been meaning to try for some time but never got round to it. Pizza cake! What do you all think? This cake is making its way to the hospital this evening as a gift to some of the doctors and nurses of A and E at the NNUH. 🌈🌈🌈

17/03/2020

Looks like an advertisement for Hay Huts!

22/02/2020

We are here at the Beckley's RV area at the Maryland RV Show today and tomorrow, 11-5 for FREE face painting and balloon twisting. Come on out and see us!

21/02/2020

I have seen this very expression on the faces of Peppermint Ponies!

So brave. 😂

17/02/2020

How cool!

Taking bookcases to a new, magical level!

16/02/2020

Amazing

This will be the 10th iteration of my feathers! As I sit and get my new feathers put in I took a look back at the previous 9 colors! Any idea what’s coming?? Any suggestions for future colors?? I’d love to hear everyone’s thoughts??!!!

15/02/2020

It's that time!
Come on out to the Maryland RV Show and Sale and get FREE face painting and balloon twisting from the Enchanted Faces crew.

Victor won't be twisting but his old buddies Ian and Shaely will be there. Victor is now twice this size (finally grew into those man hands) and has his own thriving business, Fish Everything.

So hope to see you and share our SEVENTH season with Beckley's RV!

11-5, Saturday and Sunday this weekend and next.