Barn Repair with Pony

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.

Cloudy

Cloudy was our first mini. He came from a farm in Oregon where the dirt was a red clay. Cloudy has an exceptionally oily coat for a pony and he must have rolled a lot on this reddish clay because when we bought him, he was a red and pink pony. We had to wash him several times in order to see his true colors, brown and white.

Well, most folk would call his colors brown and white, but horse folk have some fancy names for colors. Red horses are sorrel or chestnut. Golden horses are palomino. And little brown and white minis, like Cloudy, can be Silver Dapple Gray and white. I think that Cloudy appreciates that fanciness!

The kids trained Cloudy to pull carts for 4H competitions. They started training him in the spring and by the end of summer he was ready for the Kitsap County Fair. He collected a handful of ribbons and qualified for the Washington State Fair. The big indoor arena didn’t phase this little guy. The huge draft horses leaning over their stall doors didn’t bother him. His harness breaking in the middle of the show, just meant that he could hang out while the judge stopped the class and we hustled to fix the harness. Cloudy won Reserve Grand Champion in the Driving Pony Category. After that he pretty much always considered himself a champion.

Cloudy went on to be one of the first minis competing in local Combined Driving Competitions. Some folks looked askance at this little equine, they had doubts that he could complete the course. However, by the end of the events Cloudy had a fan club of folks who were impressed by his speed and his ‘can do’ attitude.

Cloudy is now retired as he is close to 30 years old. He hangs out in the barn or wanders the fields. I am sure, that in his mind, he is still the champion driving pony, pulling that cart with panache and precision, making those tight turns, zipping through the timed course, and hearing the applause of the crowd.

Rocky

A rather fine, if stout, pony. Rocky came to us as a young gelding who had lived on a farm with a lot of trees in the pastures. When we led him out into our pastures, he was unused to large open spaces. He tucked himself in under the trees along the edges and it took a while for him to venture out with confidence.

Rocky is curious and rather disdainful of the hotwire fences. If he sees something he wants to investigate on the other side of the fence, he simply lifts up the hotwire and pops under. The rest of the ponies watch this maneuver with awe, but luckily, they have not tried it.

Rocky is stalled next to Korik, our Fjord horse. The two tend to tease each other. Just this morning, I told Rocky, “You know, you two might get on better, if you stopped trying to nip Korik’s nose!” Rocky rolled his eyes at me and totally ignored my advice.

Rocky is trained to pull a cart and he looks quite fine in harness. He is a bay and white pinto from the Timer line and has lovely form and movement.