Cricket!

Ponies are NOT ALLOWED in the irrigation ditch.... but, it's SURE CUTE!  

* Please notice that Cricket actually looks WHITE in these pictures! 

Cricket is NORMALLY any color other than white.  For example, ORANGE:

Or, if you prefer a darker color of mud (in a delightful pattern): 

Is there a support group for my PONY??? Cricket's MUD addiction is getting to the point where it is starting to cause harm to her and those that love her. If there is MUD anywhere in the world, Cricket will seek it out!

It started out as just a superficial "problem." Just her appearance suffered. Cricket is supposedly white/light gray... however she typically looks like a brown/green/black pinto. This only bothers me, it does Cricket no harm.

The second area of mud addiction issue has manifested itself with her DIGGING her own mud hole in her run. She couldn't settle for keeping her run a nice, level, gravel, easily drained place... so she dug a mud hole! This hasn't helped her cleanliness problem. 

The third area of mud addiction problem is her love of ROLLING in the mud. In her zeal of rolling in the mud, Cricket has neglected to notice the little issue of the fencing that surrounds her. Both this year and last year, Cricket got cast (for you non-horse-folk that mean she rolled to close to a fence/wall and got stuck). So last year, rolling in the PASTURE Cricket found her ideal spot RIGHT by the fence --it looked like she took a cheese grater to her legs. This year, she got a bunch of scrapes on her hocks (back knees) and strained her hock rolling in her run.

Last year, when she rolled into the fence, my vet said, "Cricket, that is embarrassing! You are too old to do something like that." This year, he didn't issue such judgement. I suppose he is not longer surprised my her mud loving antics! I hope you enjoyed this photo diary of my icky-icky-icky pony, who I LOVE!!!