Meet Pearl.

    She's a Tennessee Walking Horse (also a Spotted Saddle Horse). Pearl had an interesting introduction to our farm. The sellers were locals that we'd met through some other locals, and we had chatted with them a few times at local horse auctions we'd attended. They rolled up on our property with a truck pulling a trailer with a horse in it. They unloaded Pearl, and then asked us if we'd be interested in buying her (a most unusual sales technique). They explained that they had about a dozen horses, Pearl was at the bottom of the hierarchy in their pastures, and she was literally starving because the other horses wouldn't allow her to eat. We allow our Tennessee Walking Horses to free-range our 50+ acres, so they thought she might have a good life living with Fleck and Pete. Said she was 7 years old (several vets after the fact validated that she was actually over 11 years old).

    Pearl is our other good riding horse. She's also our most elderly horse with an estimated age now of about 15 years old or older. Pearl also gave us one filly in the autumn of 2020, a solid black Tennessee Walking Horse with a white diamond on her forehead named HF Pearl's Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops ("Dewps"). That filly began our farm's pattern of naming foals after songs by obscure bands that we enjoy.

Pearl is also known as Granny Tattletales. She wanders around with our other three non-Gypsy horses on the property, and any time they're doing things they're not supposed to be doing, she stands in front of our house screaming until we come outside to see what mischief the other horses have gotten themselves into.                  Unfortunately for her, though, our other horses sometimes like to play a game called, "Hide from Pearl," so sometimes they've just gotten themselves to a part of the property (having ditched Pearl) where Pearl can't find them. As much as she yells out to them, they never call back to her.

    Pearl's not a genius, and we pity her for that. If we drop food for her, and there are horses between her and the food, she doesn't even comprehend that she can "go around" the other horses to get to it. She's also not as observant as Fleck when riding, but, on the other hand, she is a very steady, compliant riding horse and has a pretty nice gait.