A few days ago, we had a little work day and a couple young men friends of ours came over to help out.  We love that, they are both great young men, Ray and Daniel and together we are all a formable little army!  4 teenagers and one old lady!  haha..  But this day, we decided to have Cody Pony lend a hand… er a hoof, and see if we could manage to improve our yard drag!

 

It was way cool how much Daniel was really getting into the whole equine power system.  He learned all about the parts of the harness and how to handle Cody, how to be safe with our little guy in harness.  It’s very important not to step in behind him, and through any sort of rigging in case he would startle and bolt.  This could really knock you off your feet for sure!  Cody may be little but he’s strong.

 

After every adjustment and design modification, we would unhitch the singletree from the drag and I got to have a little snuggle time with my favorite little pony.  He just loves attention and fussing.  He’s smiling there, and I really think he likes helping out.  He was a little confused at times with the “hook up, drag a few feet, stop and wait” procedure, but when something was apparently not going to work like we wanted, what was the point in tiring the little pony out?

 

Jessy was taking pictures of the event, and helping to load and unload sticks from our pile.  It was left overs here and there from the three trees we had taken down…  you just don’t know how much branches and junk comes off a HUGE big tree!  Times it by three and you suddenly understand why a single tree can make a small house!  Wood everywhere!

I just like when she takes pictures because it’s from a different angle and perspective than mine.  I love seeing them after we are all done.  I love that picture of Cody and I…  it’s hard to express how much I love that little guy, and how much of a lifelong dream of equine togetherness I have had since I was a wee girl.

Maybe someday we’ll have another bigger pony or even an older horse or something, but right now, Cody is just everything I need in that department!

 

 

“Hey Humans!!!!   Come clean out the water trough!!  Baaaaaaaaaaaa   Nooooowwwwwwwww!”

Noel and Holly are picky about water trough cleanliness.  They really like running water.  We clean the trough every week, sometimes twice a week.. scrub it clean.  If you don’t it can get pretty yucky from all the slobbering grass eaters.  Cody is the worse.  He drinks with a mouth full of whatever and slobbers it all over. He’s just a messy drinker.  The sheep always look disgusted if they have to drink after him.  They would like one of those running water cat watering stations, only sheep sized.  They can only dream….

 

Daniel is tall and that sure makes Cody look dinky, eh?    He’s a family member of our neighbor’s wonderful clan of family.  We like his friendship and he’s a super hard worker.  He likes doing all this farm stuff!  (And it doesn’t hurt that he likes the video games and all the girls like too!  We work like mules outside and then when we are done, the youngin’s all hook up the game systems and have a good time!!

 

Ray’s heading off for the Army in less than a week!  We are sure going to miss him!  He’ll do fine, though, he’ll have a good time and earn some cash and learn some good stuff and have the adventure of his life!   And something to talk about when he’s older!

We’re trying out yet another idea.  The thing is, we’re trying to devise some sort of small, yet effective drag that will pick up the zillions of sticks all our trees drop.  And will also help to distribute sheep and pony doo doo that is here and there in the yard.  We took a board and drilled holes for bit 6 inch nails to go in.  They stick out about a couple inches and are very effective on breaking up manure, but not so good at catching the sticks.

We  tried first to just drag the board, but that didn’t work.  Too wobbly and all.   So now we are adding these longer drawing boards to hopefully keep it more stable.

 

Cody likes Daniel…  he really liked how he talked to him and watched out for him as they were walking.  And best of all, he liked how Daniel would pick a crab apple for him to much when they went by the tree.  Ponies love to play draft horse pulling when crab apples are involved!

 

 

Okay, just the boards and the nail drag didn’t work so great.  It needed a little more weight in the back and also something to snag up anything that got under the nail board.  So we tried adding a bit of log and a little chain link fence.  Part of the deal is that we don’t want to make it so heavy that it’s hard on Cody.

 

Cody was such a drama queen…  he wouldn’t drink from the trough, but he would gladly lick water from Daniel’s hand!  haha…  We made sure that Cody had lots of breaks between modification times and pulling, because he’s kinda new at all this pulling and working stuff.  He’s had at least six years off from any manual labor.  He has such a little willing heart, there’s no way we want to abuse that.  I’m pretty sure that we could probably pick up the sticks faster on our own, but once we figure out how to make this drag work, it would be pretty neat.

 

Mamma Noel approved of the effort.

Doesn’t she look like a pirate sheep with her cute number earing?  I like those better than the big plastic ear tags that the others have.

 

We took a little lunch break and put Cody in the courtyard instead of unharnessing him all the way.  Being in the courtyard is a huge priveledge and the sheepies were ticked.  Cody was thrilled and I knew that he would just graze contented.  We hooked up all the long lines and the traces so that he could not be tangled in anything.  Someone was always watching him as well.  We had hot dogs on the grill in the sunporch.  You gotta eat good when you are working and designing stuff.

 

Jessy was taking some pretty shots around the place…  it was such a nice day, just in the 80’s, nice breezes, and sunshine!  Perfect working day!

We like to plan our work days around good weather.  I guess that goes without saying, but there are some days that it’s just way too hot and humid to really work well.  We avoid crazy projects on those days and watch the weather report for perfect work days like this one.  Just enough to break a sweat and enjoy the breeze, but not so much that you feel like croaking.  That is not a good thing.

 

After lunch and waiting while the guys made yet another change…  Cody gets a little T-spot massage and sweet visit time with his Mom.

Did I mention how much I love this pony?

 

 

Yeah, I do.  He’s the absolute best pony in the whole universe.  I feel bad for all the other ponies in the world, because they have to be second best to Cody.

Well, we dug out some wheels because we found that the nail board, though effective, was also, ah, ineffective because it dragged into the ground a little too much.  At one point we tried putting Ray at the end, sitting on the chain link and Cody took one step and stopped dead.  We tried to urge him on but he was not having any of it.  Then we realized that Ray had made the nails dig in like a plow!  haha… Smart pony!  Once Ray got off and we pulled the board out of the ground, Cody was happy to pull along, no problem.

He is the best pony in the universe!

 

You know, one of the things that I really love about this farm is how much it pushes the young folks around us to think and learn and experiment with things.  Building and making things better.  It’s so easy to think sometimes that our next generation is only concerned with electronic gadgets and games, and sure those are appealing, given the chance and an eager little pony, they start to really enjoy figuring things out and using their noodles.  It was marvelous.

The farm has given us that opportunity ten fold.  None of us are farmers.  We haven’t been raised on this all.  We’ve read a lot, but there’s nothing like practical experience to really get you involved and learning.  Sure, there are farm implements out there for ponies to pull, but they are expensive.  And where is the fun in that?  We had a great afternoon working on this idea, taking turns with other chores and adding our two cents over and over.  I’m very proud of these young people in my life.  I love to see them learn and grow in their wisdom.  And I think it’s awesome for them to work with Cody, even if he is just a little pony, they are learning a lot about how to work with an animal.  It’s a good thing for sure!

 

Cody let me braid his mane.  He loves when we fiddle with his mane and all.  Just not his forelock.  He likes that all loose and covering his eyes.  It’s a pony stallion thing.  I guess.

 

Almost there…  wheels in the back, much more streamlined chain link catcher…  almost working…

 

And Houston!  We have liftoff!!!!  Yah!!!!   Moving the wheels up front gave it just enough lift that made it SO much easier to pull and manueaver and it really seemed to work a lot better!  In no time Daniel and Cody were tidying up the yard!  And the best part is that it was a lot lighter, so that was good and it caught a good deal of the sticks!

We all cheered and it was cool!  Next design is a little hauling sledge, like a sled, that we can layer up hay bales or feed bags on, and Cody can help take them to the back barn.  That would be super helpful!

Doesn’t Cody look dapper with that lovely new pulling pad that I made for him out of nice soft fake lambskin?  I looked at the feed store and those pads were more than the cost of the harness!  And I thought, heck, I can whip one of these up on the sewing machine.  I even made it with velcro on the outside, so I can easily undo it and keep it clean.  And it really helped.  I know that he really should have a over the head pulling collar for anything too heavy, but even just pulling a drag, that thin leather breast strap with just not that comfortable looking.  This new thick pad really helps to spread out the weight and pull again his chest.  I hope he likes it.  He must have, because he was eager to pull, pull, pull!  I think even animals like to do something different, even if it is work.  He seemed to enjoy all the attention and all the Mom time for sure!  And he got crab apples and courtyard grazing time… hey, life is good for Cody pony!!!

 

Our cable wire table was our working laboratory!  We had quite a few tool out to make everything work right…

Including a nice tall glass of ice tea!!

 

And look at all the stick and junk we all gathered up!  Time for a big campfire soooon!!!

 

 

 

Pin It