Po-Tato Pony, A Solstice Story (2025)

23/11/2025

Happy Sunday Po-tato family,

I know Po loved us all and I hope he knows how absolutely loved he was by all of us ❤️. This was a great memory to see today, I hope you enjoy it as well 🥰. - Tara

Good morning friends!

I'm a complicated guy and some would say I'm a bit demanding. Now that I have decided that these humans are not going to let me down, I really make them work 🤭. Sometimes I want a brushing and sometimes I don't. Do I want a blanket tonight or not? I am tired of eating in the corner feeder, I want to eat like Bruce. No, not in that bucket. Some days I have my caregivers, like Fran here, running in circles. 😜 But the crazy thing is, they do whatever it takes to make me happy and it's the best feeling to be loved ❤️.

I hope you all know how much this Po-tato loves and appreciates all of you!

Love, Po
🥰🥔🦄💜🎉🥔🥰

19/11/2025

Good morning Po-tato Family,

Today I am thankful for the time we had to shower Po with all of the love we could! When he arrived, he was so sick and so shut down we worried every day that the tiny light ✨️ left inside would extinguish at any second. My vet prepared me for the worst, but helped me hope for the best.

Over the course of days that became weeks, the dread slowly faded. As those weeks became months, it felt safe to become hopeful as the little light began to shine brighter. All of our tears of dread finally became happy tears of joy as his tiny light exploded into a fire 🔥 of personality and expression. He had finally become the spicy Po-tato we had all hoped and dreamed he would be.

From that point forward, he would live the absolute best life we could give him and he'd become the spicy potato 🥔 we all know and love! His time with us was cut far to short, but considering we didn't think we would get more than a few weeks, it was miraculously long. Our hearts wouldn't hurt so much if we didn't love so hard. But I know we would all brave the pain of loss to do it over, because of the love we got to experience with Po-tato. In healing him, so many of us healed parts of ourselves.

Here's to the love that burned bright enough to light the darkness 🔥✨️💜.

Yours in love ❤️ and light ✨️,
Tara 🍉 🥔 🌈 🦄 💜 🎉 🌈 🥔🍉

17/11/2025

Good morning Po-tato family,

Today I'm thankful for way Po stepped into his job as an outreach ambassador. When we found Po, I had hopes that he would become a key 🔑 part of out outreach programs, but when we finally physically got our hands on him, we realized he was so much more sick 😫 than we could ever imagine.

Not only was he sick, and required emergency ⚠️ stabilization and ongoing care, but he was so emotionally defeated and withdrawn. We made a decision that day, walking him in to the hospital 🏥 to drop all of our preconceived ideas and plans and just accept him as he was and do the absolute best we could for him.

Over the course of the next year, as his health improved and he found friendship 🥰 and learned to trust us, his quirky personality began to emerge. He found his own way in the sanctuary to contribute to our programs. He became a favorite among visitors. He was always quiet and gentle, allowed kids to pet and brush him, took treats gently and posed for hundreds of photos 📸. He dressed in costumes and delighted guests with his gentle and comical interactions. He helped boost our Horse Discovery Program goals by offering countless guests their first experience touching or interacting with a horse. He did that. We didn't force him to. He just grew into the role, providing his own contributions to the farm.

There are a million things to be grateful for regarding our cherished Po-tato. His time with us was painfully short, but his impact is enormous. We will forever be thankful for him 🥹.

Yours in love ❤️ and light ✨️,
Tata

13/11/2025

Good morning Po-tato family,

Today is World 🌎 Kindness 🥰 Day. This day was first introduced in 1997 when several humanitarian groups came together and made a Declaration of Kindness. The goal 🙌 of this movement is to practice and celebrate kindness, which is something we do here at the farm each and every day!

I do believe Po was the culmination of all of our efforts to be the good we want to see on the world. A single act of kindess in our choice to bring him here and shower him with love both healed Po and brought our community together. Kindess matters and in Po's case, it was the literal difference between life and death. Because we chose kindess that day, we gave Po four years of love and life.

You can celebrate Po by pledging to do at least one intentional act of kindness today to benefit someone else. It can be as straightforward or as involved as you like. No matter what you decide to do, your act of kindness will unite you with others dedicated to changing the world one kind act at a time.

Supporting our organization ( The Big Purple Barn, A Sanctuary ), our mission, animals and programs is just one way you can show kindness today! Small acts of kindness ✨️ uplift our community and make the world better.

The world needs all of the kindess we can do right now. We can do it for Po, honoring the legacy of kindess he left us.

Yours in love ❤️ and light ✨️,
Tara

11/11/2025

Good morning Po-tato Family,

Today im thankful that we provided a place for Po to feel loved and important. He truly made an impact on the programs here and embraced his job as an outreach ambassador to our community. Once he discovered how important he was and how supported he was, he really thrived meeting new people, greeting guests and participating in the myriad of programs we had. He was especially awesome at spearheading our Horse Discovery Center program! This post from last year really sums it up, and coincides with our fall festival coming up this weekend! We truly miss him and feel the void he has left behind, but we will continue onward, carrying his contributions forward as we grow and prosper in our community.

Here are Po's words:

Today I'm thankful 🙏 to be a spokespony here at The Big Purple Barn, A Sanctuary ! I never imagined having a voice and making an impact on my community ❤️. We are not only a community based non-profit organization, we are also a licensed and certified Maryland Horse Discovery Center! That means our farm is especially welcoming to people new to experiencing horses!

My job is to help give people a great first experience and my humans then connect them with programs and resources to get more involved. It's really important work, and I'm definitely the right pony for the job 💪.

This weekend coming up, we have our fall farm festival and it's an open event for our community with donations greatly appreciated 👏 at the gate! It's a fun way to meet me, my horse and pony friends AND our other farm animals. We will be raising money for the upcoming winter months and working to secure sponsors for all of our residents!

✨️ If you can, please join us! All of the event information is on the barn page I tagged. If you can't join us, you can donate or check our website to learn how to sponsor!

Happy Monday!

Love, Po
🍉🥔🌈🦄💜🎉🌈🥔🍉

10/11/2025

Good morning Po-tato Family,

This has been a tough year. I know I say it a lot, but it's true, and I am still in the midst of it all. This post from Po popped up today, and it's honestly like he speaks to me from beyond, to remind me of the important things at just the right time. He was able to do that in life, and he seems to be able to continue inspiring me from the rainbow bridge!

While there will always be sadness when a resident passes on, there will always be those that come together and lift up the farm in love. And there is always the thankfulness we carry for the contributions each and every animal makes to the very fabric of our farm and our story.

Today, I'm especially grateful for the threads that Po weaved into our farm and way he paved a way for future residents to experience the same love and care that he received.

Here are his words:

Good morning friends!

This weekend had a lot of sadness, but we always come together to share love and light and happy memories and reflect on the immense journey we are all on and how the lives of each and every animal here open doors for future animals to find sanctuary here.

Today, I'm thankful to share in those memories being made and to benefit from the lessons taught by the animals that came before me! Each of us weaves a layer into the complex fabric of the story of The Big Purple Barn.

Have a wonderful Sunday friends!

Love, Po
🍉🥔🌈🦄💜🎉🌈🥔🍉

07/11/2025

Good morning Po-tato Family,

I feel like Po's messages of thankfulness from last year resonates today and is appropriate. I will always be thankful to have created a space where ponies like Po could find healing and love, and to continue to provide that into the future. We make a difference here. Every animal here makes a difference. YOU make a difference! Let's continue to make a difference together ❤️ and BE the change we want to see in this world.

Good morning friends!

Today I'm thankful to be in a place where I can make a difference and where I matter. In fact, YOU matter here too! 🫂 And I'm also thankful for that 💜.

I may be a pony, but I have a lot to contribute and I'm finally in a place that allows me to do that. In the collective here, we will continue to do good work for our community.

While we cannot do all the good the world needs, the world needs all of the good we can do! Thanks for being on my team and helping me do good work!

Here's some more of my love 💜and light ✨️ to share🌟.

Love, Po
✨️🍉🥔🌈🦄💜🎉🌈🥔🍉✨️

05/11/2025

Good morning Po-tato Family,

Today, this memory about hay🌾 popped up. It is kind of crazy that it coincided with a recent pick up of 70 bales of hay, and a post I made on The Big Purple Barn, A Sanctuary page regarding Honor and changes today. Honor took the stall space left empty after Po passed and it heralded a dramatic shift in a lot of ways. One important way was the change to our hay 🌾 consumption and budget 💰.

Po was a small boy, and he maybe, on a really good day, consumed about 2 entire flakes (biscuits, pats, portions) of hay a day. His consumption shaped the hay budget for 4 years. Honor, on the other hoof, consumes about 4 times that amount! He routinely gets about 4 to 5 portions in his hay net for stall time and an equal portion set out in the field for turnout. We upped our total hay use by one bale per day! That's an additonal $10 per day or $300 per month! That's a significant difference and additional to our hay budget!

Today, we thankful to our local hay suppliers, especially our community partner Palmer Farm Hay 🚜 🌾, for providing us with the bulk of our annual hay supply. Farming is hard work and our farmers typically go underappreciated, and overworked. Today, this thankful post is a poignant reminder of how we are all interconnected and need one another to flourish. I'm thankful to Po for helping me remember these important things 💛.

You can continue to support the work we do here, an honor Po, by continuing to help us feed the animals and continue our mission to provide sanctuary to those souls in need of our care.

Here are his thoughts:

Good morning friends!

Today I'm thankful for a full belly! We got a delivery of hay this weekend from our local hay grower Palmer Farms. My farm family partners with local, family owned and operated businesses to strengthen our community ties.

Here, I am never without the things I need, like hay for my little belly furnace that keeps me warm in the colder months. I remember a time when I didn't get to eat regularly and I didn't get all the hay I needed. Now, that's never a problem! We all get what we need here thanks to the humans that donate to support my farm family 💜.

You can help too! A donation of $10 buys one bale of hay and we use about 6 bales per day. Hay is the staple of our diet and we need it continuously throughout the day and night!

Love, Po
👏🍉🥔🌈🦄💜🎉🌈🥔🍉👏

02/11/2025

Good morning Po-tato family,

Today I'm bringing you some thankful thoughts from Po. He was thankful for Mia, and so am I. She is the one who helped me bring Po out of his shell. She is the one who taught him that her humans weren't so bad. Po also gave her the gift of a companion for her last years. I couldn't be more happy that they had each other. It was the literal culmination of that time of my life's work.

Mia was my first horse, and the lessons she gave ME over the 30 years we were together are innumerable and immeasurable. I'm also thankful she was at the rainbow bridge to welcome Po. It honestly gave me such a sense of comfort to know he had someone that I knew loved him, waiting on the other side.

Here are Po's words:

Good morning friends!

Today I am thankful for Mia! I owe a lot of my transformation to her love and guidance. My humans worked so hard to help me overcome my sadness and find a friend when I was determined to NOT have friends. I was so sad and so tired of losing everything I knew, even though it wasn't that great to begin with. 😔

When I met Mia, I was determined not to like her either. But she had lost all of her good friends too. Even though my humans had loved and cared for her over 30 years, she had watched so many friends leave her for the rainbow bridge and it made her sad too. Together, we were less sad!

She taught me that the humans would love and care for me too! And when she passed to the rainbow bridge, the humans surrounded me in love, just like she said they would. And they found me a new friend and wouldn't let me be sad and alone.

Friendships are wonderful and I'm forever thankful that she was my friend 💜.

Love, Po
🍉🥔🦄💜🎉🥔🍉

01/11/2025

Good morning Po-tato Family,

Halloween 🎃 2025 is a wrap, and its the first without out beloved Po-tato. Here is the last costume Po wore 💜. He was the Mystery Machine and his friend Fran had dressed as Velma. As always, he was gracious about his costume and entertained the masses at that Halloween event.

Today is November 1st and typically a time when we try to reflect on things we are thankful for. As I look at Po's messages each day, it brings me both sadness and joy. This month I'll bring a combination of Po's thoughts on thankfulness and my own. And I'll start off simply by saying how thankful I know each of us are for the very gift of knowing Po-tato and loving him for four whole years. He was definitely a beacon of hope in a dark time, and while we could sure use his light now, we will carry on for him!

Yours in love ❤️ and light ✨️,
Tara

31/10/2025

Good morning Po-tato family,

It's Halloween! It is definitely a favorite holiday around the farm, and the way Po-tato embraced it with us made it even more special. He loved the inflatables, he loved the visitors and he tolerated the costumes like a champ! He really added to our joy 🥰.

The time we got with him wasn't enough, but it's all we have, so we will remember that time with love in our hearts and a smile on our faces. Today, I'll share 3 of my favorite Halloween pics I took with Po. My absolute favorite was the 2024 Po-siedon costume. He was quite the mighty God of the sea 🌊💙. He had such an amazing group of people who loved him always and came together to create looks for him each year.

We are forever thankful for you Po! We hope you're having an amazing Halloween with your friends at the Rainbow 🌈 Bridge!

Yours in love ❤️ and light ✨️,
Tara

1. Mr. Po-tato Head
2. Pirate ☠️ Po
3. Po-siedon

30/10/2025

Good morning Po-tato family!

So you have seen that we have a whole pirate themed area just for Po in our Halloween inflatables. We all know how much Po adored inflatables after his first few months with us. After he had his eye removed, we enjoyed calling him the pirate pony, and the next year, we began work on the Po-tato Pirate ☠️ inflatable display.

So I honor of our favorite Pirate ☠️ Pony, here he is in his pirate costume with his good friend, Fran. He will continue to be an inspiration to us all. ✨️

Yours in love ❤️ and light ✨️,
Tara

Po-Tato Pony, A Solstice Story

23/11/2025

19/11/2025

17/11/2025

13/11/2025

11/11/2025

10/11/2025

07/11/2025

05/11/2025

02/11/2025

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