As anyone who has read the blog for more than a few minutes knows, I’m fond of cats and try to make my property a reasonably safe and welcoming place for them. I am, at least so far, not a whackjob about it… not a cat hoarder, nor do I try to provide for all the needs of all the cats in the region. Just a place where they won’t get chased and can get a bite to eat from time to time.
I’m a cat-guy. I’m not a horse-guy. Still, I have several acres of farm-yard that weren’t going to be used for farming, and I have several neighbors with more horse than property, so I have allowed my property to be used as a grazing/socializing/running-around spot for local horses. It’s been sufficiently successful that a half-dozen or more times I’ve been awakened late at night by the sound of a horse (sometimes a bunch of horses) running flat-out down the road out front and turning into my yard to go hang out back with the the others.
And so… today this Shetland pony was dropped off. The four horses that were already there had clearly never seen a Shetland pony like this before… they initially clustered around it like rubes at the freak show. Within an hour or so, they had all become friends.
UPDATE:
Well, THAT didn’t last. Within a few hours, the pony found one of the several gaps in the fence big enough to allow it to escape… and it escaped. But even though it made it over the wire, it stayed right there, communing with the Big Horses. A trio of local girls tried to round it up, with my dubious assistance. PROTIP: two feet is all a Shetland pony like this needs to build up a head of steam sufficient to plow into a sizable guy and knock him right on his ass.
Ow.
FURTHER UPDATE:
When the Smallest Horse On The Planet steamrollered me, the only bit of me that was hurt was my pride… it was slightly embarrassing to get centerpunched and pitched in front of three giggly teenager females. But no physical damage was detected apart from a small cut of no consequence. Until several hours later. My shoulder is now quite impressively painful. Apparently something got tore up. Yay. You’d think I’d learn… no attempt at a good deep goes unpunished.