One of the coolest things that we have accomplished this year, is the slow yet amazing integration of pony power on the homestead!  It’s amazing what a little bit of wood, some chains and a willing pony can do to help you out and how incredibly rewarding it feels to work with horsepower.

 

We had a big pile of rough slab lumber that our neighbors so generously gave to us.  About half of it went to reinforcing the salad bar pasture fence up front.  But the rest of it, I had an idea.  I wanted to build a little paddock off the sheep barn so that this winter the sheep could be kept in a relatively smaller area  and still have outside access when they wanted it and barn shelter when they needed it.

Sure, we could have toted all that lumber to the back of the middle yard.  Maggie and I have done a lot of that sort of grunt work the last 18 months here at the farm.  I can’t begin to tell you just how many hundreds of 50 pound feed bags we’ve lugged here and there.

But now we have a helper.  Cody Pony is fantastic under harness.  It’s clear that he was trained well at some point in his mysterious career and that he doesn’t seem to mind it at all.  In fact, he’ll trot over when I bring out the harness and stands waiting to be buckled in and all.  If he hated it, he would run off and be a little snirt.  And trust me, he can do that at times!  Haha…  However, he really doesn’t seem to mind the harness at all.

Now, since the bridle and bit set I got is a little old and kinda rough, I don’t use it.  He’s very eager with just his halter and lead, so that’s fine.  Why work with something that just is the most unpleasant part of the whole get up… that cold steel bit over his tongue is just annoying for the most part.  He’ll take a bit, but he does spend a good amount of the time adjusting and fidgeting with it in his mouth.  I’d rather have his eager and focused on the task.

 

Each of the slabs weighed at least 30 pounds and some were more like 50 or 60 pounds.  The longer ones were very heavy, and not just little boards.  They dug ruts in the yard as we pulled them!  Maggie and I would lift and figure if the load should be one or two slabs and then we attached them with a heavy lead as a tug strap.  The singletree works great and balances out the load for him.  What was so amazing is that after just one trip, Cody knew what we were doing and had the routine down.  It was so neat to see him wait patiently as we got it ready and the minute we were done and said “walk on” he would draw a big breath and just lurch forward with this load like it was nothing.  He would put his shoulder into it and knew the path and destination.  A couple time, he would get a good head of steam on and almost trot with a load!  We would encourage him not to do that and walked beside him, giving him a good steady stream of encouragement and “atta boy” pats.

 

When we went back up front to get another load, I’ll be danged if that pony wouldn’t eye up the next load and then back up to it and stop, waiting.  If it took us too long, he would peer back and put his ears back as if he was disappointed and had somewhere else to be later on.  He just wanted to get his work done so he could take a nap!

We gave him a rest after every couple loads, and offered him a drink, but he didn’t want one.  He wanted to get his job done.  Once we had all the lumber hauled, Maggie untacked him and I got him an apple for his reward. He was a little damp under his harness pads, but not winded.  He had worked hard, for sure.  Just a rough estimate put the haul at least around 800 pounds of lumber hauled.  Sure, it wasn’t like 3 miles uphill or anything like that, but it was sure a lot more fun than busting our backs on the stuff or trying to load it on a wobbly wheel barrow or something.  It was a joint effort of gals and pony.  I swear, this little pony is the best little timber pony I’ve ever known!

Of course, he’s the only little timber hauling pony I know but hey, he is awesome.

I loved how he hung around afterwards, crunching his apple and taking a little nap while we started to plot out our digging holes and where each pair of slabs would go in our plans.  It was almost as if he was enjoying watching us lift and tug those heavy wood slabs around the area.  He’s like a big dog, for sure.  If you ever come out to our little homestead, you will find that our little stud muffin is always involved with visits!  He is so well behaved, we let him have pretty much free range around the place, in the various yards and pastures.  It’s only when we have several guests that we will park him in one yard or another, just to be safe and all.

 

 

Cody tests out the new paddock area.  I think he approves.  It will be off of the sheep barn and sort of a triangle shape so that it connects the poultry barn yard and the ram shack paddock over to the far side.  It will be a nice little outside yard for the barn, great for keeping the herd in one area for winter feeding, and so they don’t destroy all the bark off the trees.  Once the grass is pretty much grazed away, they like to nibble bark in the winter.  And I really don’t want them killing all our nice trees.  Plus it will be a good way to keep an eye on the ewes in later winter when they might be heavily pregnant.  (We hope!!)

 

It will be a nice sized area, about 60 feet from the poultry barn yard post on the right hand side of this picture over to the edge of the ram shack paddock on the left hand side.  We’ll probably have to reinforce the pallet fence in a few places, but that won’t be too hard.  It will encompass an area of the yard that is a bit rough and worn out already, so once we start to put out hay and straw and they use the yard for their potty, it will actually start to sort of reclaim the area a bit with good organic material!  Yeah compost!

 

However…  the area over there is full of rubble and concrete for some reason.   I think there might have been some buildings closer to the ram shack, as we have hit some old foundation work here and there.  I had to adjust my fence line half a dozen times as we would strike hard concrete just six or eight inches down!  But I’m a determined post hole digger and I just keep at it.  Right now I have about half of my holes dug down nearly 2 feet and will concrete the posts into place with a little quick-crete.  Five more holes are about a foot or so and I am hoping to have a little time tomorrow to really finish them up.  Hopefully!!!

 

Gideon will like the companionship of the flock nearby and I’m also planning to build a dual hay feeder for the two paddocks to make it easy to winter hay them.  Just drag out a bale and give 3/4 to the ewes and a quarter to Gideon and everyone can nosh in close proximity.  The fence between the two paddocks will be reinforced to keep head butting to a minimum.  Angus and Fergus like to head butt the old man through the wire fence.  That just seems to be a problem in the making, don’t you think???  I think a couple of those lovely long pallets I can now get will be perfect to create a little no-head butting area!  And will probably work into my hay feeder design too!!

It’s so fun to design and plan with what you have on hand.  We call it hillbilly engineering.  I call it economical and a good thing.  Sure, you can run out and get super nice cut lumber for every project, but that stuff is expensive.  I can’t believe the cost of a good board these days!  And a 4 x 4 post?  Shesh!  They are like $10 each!  You start adding latches and fencing and all sorts of things and you pretty quickly hit a hundred dollars in no time.  Or more.  We always like to try and work with what we have on hand first.  It’s just so much more rewarding.   We can use money for other important things.  The sheep really could care less if I use slab wood or milled fancy lumber.  A fence is a fence.  As long as it is safe and secure, it’s good for me.  We can always upgrade things as needed.

There is a old falling down barn about a mile west of the village and I keep thinking I need to go and stop by, see if I might be able to get some of those old sturdy timbers for a decent price.  I realize that people do sell old barns for their wood and they might be considering deal, but it’s been there for nearly two years now without any action.  Won’t hurt to ask.  Heck, I’d take whatever cast off wood they don’t want.  Smaller pieces are fine, the less desirable stuff would make good siding and decorative wood here and there and worse case, it will make good campfire wood!  Cody might have a bunch more wood to haul back to the big barn for storage!!!  I’d like to build a little sheep shelter for the big back pasture when we get it all fenced in!  Always have ideas!!!

In the meanwhile, we are going to try and put together a little wagon for Cody to pull.  Something we can load up with feed and hay bales that he can haul back to the big barn for us.  The menfolk are already anticipating Cody’s help when we get the hogs ready for freezer camp.  We can’t get a pickup all the way back to the big barn without taking down a fence.  So we need to get them from the barn to the tube gate about oh, 50 feet or so.  Sure, we could all grab a leg and tug, but I think having a little equine help will be rewarding.  We’ll find out.  He might be unsettled by the dead hog, but I think that he will be fine.  He hangs out at their fence and is comfortable around them.  I don’t think they will be that different, just shot and hauled the distance.  We’ll find out in a few weeks!

In the meanwhile, it’s awesome to work with an eager little equine companion!  I can’t wait to get our little wagon working and I’d like to try and build a little sledge for him when the ground freezes up.  It’s like a sled,  that you see the heavy pulling horses work with.  You wax up the runners really good and you can take heavy loads over the hard ground easily.  Jr. tells me there is a huge pile of nice rocks at the edge of my neighbor’s field nearby and he’s certain that we can go and fetch some to decorate with.  Of course, I’ll ask, but won’t that be a fun trip with my little pony pal and our little hauling sledge!  I’m pretty sure Cody will enjoy the task and the outing.   And of course, his apple reward at the end of the day’s work!

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