Remembering Fancy-III

As I said before in "Remembering Fancy II" blog, Fancy's birth back in 1979 was a traumatic one. After her mother gave birth on the crest of a hill, the foal must've lost her balance and plunged down the hill and into the creek below. Luckily, from his bedroom my father-in-law heard Fancy's mother, Merry, whinnying and snorting. He rushed into the pasture in his nightie, shined his flashlight around, and after spotting the newborn foal in the rushing waters, plucked her from the creek and delivered her safely back to her mother.

Here is my description of our newborn foal right after her rescue from the creek. The excerpt is from my book, Touched By All Creatures: Doctoring Animals in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country:

Edgar lifted the baby into the stable where the floor was thick with good-smelling straw. In the light we examined and caressed our new furry wet gift while Merry nudged it protectively. Edgar, checking the sex, announced we had a baby girl, a filly, and we decided to call her Fancy, for, indeed, she was.

She stood on skinny, shaky legs, less than an hour old. Her body was thin but healthy looking, and she sported a shiny fur coat. But this young, freshly-made equine model looked, at the same time, old, for around her thin pink muzzle had grown long whiskers that resembled a grizzled old man. These hairs would help her feel for her mother's udder when she was ready to nurse.

Her eyes, big and set too wide apart for the size of her small head, glinted a kind of crystal translucent brown. She glanced curiously from her mother to the sides of the stalls, to the straw bedding, and to the three of us. She looked perplexed, and it was no wonder, for only moments ago she had been inside her mother's womb in darkness. Now she searched, inquired, and marveled at this new world, and we three, enthralled with this newborn's wonder at a world into which she was so rudely thrust, could merely watch in silence and awe.

She seemed as fragile as a china doll, as though she would crack if she fell against something. Even her fur had pale highlights to it, resembling the color of bisque. We knew, of course, that within a few months she would shed that coat for a new, more fashionable color, possibly bay like her mother or a rich mahogany brown like her father. . . .