Yes, this could be a still life picture titled – Barn Repair with Pony. It’s a classic moment that every horse owner knows. Horses are tough on barns. They chew on the walls and doorways, they push down fences, they bend metal gates. Barns may be their shelter, but horses (particularly ponies) are always nibbling and fiddling with whatever they can reach.

So, every few years, we get to repair and rebuild. This year, we are installing Dutch doors between the stalls and the paddocks. When the weather turns truly awful, we can close the doors and keep wind blown snow out of the stalls. But before we can mount the new doors, we had to rebuild the door frame. And Cloudy, our oldest mini is helping out by supervising and picking up any tools that are left on the ground. This morning we plan to finish mounting the new door while Cloudy is out to pasture. We don’t need his curious little nose poking into bags of screws or nails.