Anointed Zephyr Wind
Ila of Rohan
Ila was born on April 14, 2003, at 3:40 am.  She is a full sibling to
RH Ishmael , RH Israel, and RH Independence, all class A show
halter champions.  RH Israel is also an East Coast Halter Champion
and Regional Champion in both halter and performance.    We have
great plans for her.  You can find the Birth Announcement we sent
out below as well as an assortment of pictures including pictures of
Impulse before and after the baby was born.    Enjoy!
It's a Girl!
Ila of Rohan
Born 4/14/2003 at 3:40 am

Ila was born this morning after keeping us humans up for five nights.  
Impulse, her mother, had been waxing since Wed. Night.  Ila is a sweet
little girl who is very alert and interested in the world.  So much so that she
wasn't interested in eating for the first two hours or so. All she wanted to
do was figure out how her legs worked and listen to all of the interesting
night sounds.  Hers was a fairly simple birth, though Impulse did get up
and down a lot prior to her actual birth and even when she was delivering.  
I think Ila was not quite in the right position, and Impulse was trying to
move her around a bit. Things got easier for Impulse when I was able to
move Ila's legs into an even position.  One of her front legs was fully
extended, and the other was bent a little.  I straightened out the slightly
bent leg, and then the Impulse was able to push her right out with out any
more need to get up and down again.

The rest of the morning was spent drying off the baby, keeping her warm,
treating her umbilicus, giving her an enema, cheering when she pooped,
checking the afterbirth, and waiting for Ila to figure out were the milk was
located.  She successfully got up and nursed on her own about 6:45 am. Ila
seemed excited about that, Impulse looked relieved.  (So was I.)

Ron did a great job of playing nursemaid's assistant.  He handed me
towels, iodine, blankets, etc when requested, cleaned out the stall and fixed
the bedding, and took the pictures of her first steps. All without
complaining, even when I was ordering instead of asking. (Thank you,
Honey!)

Jenny Kamentz, Impulse's owner and breeder, came out when we called
her to let her know Impulse's water had broke.  She arrived just after the
birth as we were in the midst of drying Ila off. She determined we had a
little gray filly on our hands that reminds Jenny of the filly's maternal
Grandam, BA Starr Fire. We  were actually pleasantly surprised that we
got a filly.  Impulse tends to birth two boys for every girl, and her last baby
was a girl. The odds were not in our favor for a girl. Since I was expecting
boy, I mistakenly thought we had a boy when I first took a look at her,
however, upon closer inspection, it was determined we had a girl. (Ronl
has informed me that when we have our own children, the doctor will
determine the sex of the child, and not me.  Ya, whatever....  I claim sleep
deprovation.)

I want to thank everyone who has been so supportive during all of this.
From the volunteers who came over to help build the stall, to the friends
and family who've put up with my "nesting" for the past few months.
Thanks also to my backup at work, Ella, who has been covering for me
while I was on "foal watch".  Thanks for taking care of Miguel for me. I'll
be back tomorrow. Most importantly, Thanks be to God! May He bless
her with a long and healthy live with lots of pretty babies of her own.  
She's a beautiful foal. Ron and I are very happy.
Love, Mel
(4/14/2003)
Click on picture to see
larger image.
Photo by RLH
Photo by RLH
Photo by RLH
Photo by Mellinda Hansen-Holloway
Photo by Mellinda Hansen-Holloway
Photo by Mellinda Hansen-Holloway
Photo by Mellinda Hansen-Holloway
Photos by Mellinda Hansen-Holloway
Photo by Mellinda Hansen-Holloway
Photo by Mellinda Hansen-Holloway
Photo by Mellinda Hansen-Holloway
What's in a Name?

We've had a few people ask us how we came up with Ila's name.  Well, there's a story behind it.  
See, Impulse's owner/breeder, Jennifer Kamentz, had various naming conventions for her horses.  
For those broodmares that she has breed, all of the resulting offspring are to be named words
beginning with the first letter of the mare's name.   Impulse's babies are all named something with
"I". Octovia's babies are all "O",  etc.   Ron and I have spent the past year trying out different "I"
names.  The boy name was easy.  We picked "Isaac".  It only seemed appropriate with Ishmael
and Israel out there. The girl name was harder. My grandmother, Iris, finally came up with the
suggestion of "Ila", the  name of her childhood girlfriend.  It was the first girl's name that Ron and I
both liked, so it stuck.  I have since done some research on the name and discovered that it means
"earth" or "land" in Sanskrit .  Ron and I thought that the meaning was utterly appropriate as the
Jenny's naming convention for mares includes putting "of Rohan" after the name. (Boys get the
farm initials before their names. Ie RH Ishmael.) This means that Ila's name literally  means "land
of Rohan".  Jenny's farm, Rohan, is named after the Land of Rohan  in J.R.R. Tolkein's  The
Lord of The Ring's Series.  Cool, eh?
So, now you know.
Mel
Here is a picture of Impulse on Sunday afternoon, 4/13/03, just before
she foaled.  She was huge.  Poor thing. I probably should have
cleaned her off a bit better before I took the picture, but I did take the
picture of the cleaner side...  the other side was covered in mud!
I've had a lot of people ask me. "What does 'waxing' mean?" So I took a picture of
Impules' s teets as she was waxing.

Basically, waxing is a little bit of the colustrom (first milk full of anitbodies) that dries on
the end of the mares teet. It looks kinda like someone dropped a bit of wax on the mare's
teet.  Gennerally, a  mare will foal 24 - 48 hours after she waxes, though some do hold
out longer.  (Last year, Tehitti waxed for 12 days... talk about no sleep!)  This picture was
taken the afternoon before Impulse delivered.  She'd been waxing for five days at this
point, but this was the first time I saw both teets involved.  Actually, the left teet in the
picture is waxing.  The right one is actually driping colsutrom.
You can click on the picture to see a bigger version of it.