Four-Legged Love

Sharing the love is a Masterton tradition, so when Domino started to get a little lonely after Palo's quick departure and her long face seemed to get even longer, Nikolai got into match-making mode and scoured the neighbourhood for a suitable four-legged suitor.

After only three days of stall-mucking and dung ducking, Nikolai found the perfect stallion, Pharoah.

Fortunately Domino didn’t mind the fatherly interference in her love life, and with a hair flick and eyelash flutter, Pharoah was under her mystical spell.

Domino and Pharoah sitting in the tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

First comes love,

Second comes marriage,

Third comes the baby lying in the carriage!

And that, my dear friends, is how pretty little Koa came to be!

While the sweet little foal spent her days playing with Domino, the Masterton clan ushered Hunter through the beckoning doors of childhood.

Hunter really couldn’t see what the big deal was, he was just happy that they were all busy enough with the babies and the foal to leave him with his favourite friends, the characters in his well-worn, dog-eared Huckleberry Finn book.

The only one who had the charm – and the childish tendencies – to pull him away from his treasured stories was Niamh. Hopscotch was the addiction of choice whenever  his books left his grasp.

He rather fancied that Niamh looked like a one-legged frog with balance issues when it was her turn to hop, jump and skip.

Even though he likened her to a slimy, unbalanced amphibian, Hunter loved Niamh probably a little more than most of his siblings.

So when her birthday was coming up, Hunter snuck out of the house and used the spare change he had squirelled away when it had fallen from Nikolai’s pockets to buy his big sister a special birthday present.

It was the sweetest thing that any of her brothers or sisters had ever done for Niamh. She never would have embarrassed little Hunter by telling him that the pretty sapphire rings he had bought were actually wedding bands and not just lovely jewels from an exotic place where adventures were had and treasures found.

I mean seriously, how cute can you get!

Hunter’s timing was right on cue though, because that very night Niamh farewelled her teen years and grew into the beautiful woman her parents knew (okay, so hoped) she would be. 

A bit of fine tuning and the Masterton’s turned out another stunner!

And her family weren’t the only people to notice Niamh’s transformation. A young man by the name of Amit suddenly started hanging around the house a whole lot more than before. Each and every day he showed up bearing flowers and chocolates and teddy bears and truffles, oh my!

At first Niamh rebuffed his chivalrous gestures, but slowly and surely – with a wealth of handy advice from Nikolai – Niamh started to see Amit in an entirely different light.

Alas, love had claimed Niamh within its silvery web.

Soon enough it was Koa’s chance to join Niamh in adulthood and her pretty features bloomed into something magnificent.

But as with life on any ranch, when adulthood beckons it means that life is moving on and it was no different for Niamh and Koa. A sweet little girl by the name of Carrie became the lucky owner of Koa, thanks to her cashed-up parents, whilst crazy-in-love, Niamh and Amit blitzed the housing market and snapped up a sweet little cottage by the river.

And that wasn’t the only surprise …

Busted!

A leisurely trip to the grocery store revealed that little Niamh was sporting a little bump of her own. Barely two months later, a squalling baby girl named Tami joined the Niamh and Amit in their bubble of happiness.

With so many of their grown children moved out, Evaline and Nikolai were feeling a little left out of their children’s lives so they did what all parents do – they went visiting, meeting all the newest additions to the clan! Hours of delighted grand-children and worn out adult children later, Evaline and Nikolai were far happier and stickier than they’d ever been, and that’s saying something.