Where the Rising Sun Hits First

Living in a steep-sided valley, I am very conscious of how the sun rises differently with the seasons.  In the summer, my house gets very early morning light because the sun rises in line with the valley.  In the winter, the opposite is true.  The lower sun must make its way over a high southern ridge, slowing the arrival of first light.  My neighbor gets winter sun nearly a half hour before I do because his house sits higher and where the valley is broader. 

Several people have shared with me that their ponies come when they’re called.  These comments have been made to me in response to seeing photos of me with my ponies high on the hill of the pasture and hearing stories about bringing them down to the barn.  There have been suggestions that I need to train my ponies to come when they’re called so I don’t need to walk and climb after them.  These suggestions have caused me to think about why I don’t do that.

One reason is that I don’t need to train my ponies to come when they’re called; they already do that (usually!)  I just don’t call them in very often, so I had to ask myself why that is.  The answer is that I like to see what they choose to do without direction.  To some extent it is feedback on my leadership and the patterns I’ve established for what I expect of them.  And to some extent it is information about how they live the many hours of the day when I’m not with them.  I then use that information to enrich the time we do spend together.

One of the things I notice this time of year is that they are usually at the barn when I get there in the morning.  Then there are the occasional times when they are not.  What I have noticed is that they are at the barn of their own volition when the night has been cold and the sun has risen and warmed the barnyard before anywhere else.  And they are not at the barn when the sun isn’t out and the weather is inclement or if the night was warm and they don’t need a morning sunbath.  They have shown me that the rising sun hits the barn first this time of year.

I have used this information when working with my young filly.  I’ve been continuing to build her foot handling skills and doing preliminary farrier work.  We are working at liberty (she stands untied,) and some mornings she is more cooperative than others.  What I have learned is that those mornings when the herd has come to the barn on their own are when she is most compliant.  If I introduce a new variant of our foot handling routine, then, I do it on those sorts of mornings.  I wouldn’t have necessarily known to do that if I had made a habit of calling the herd in rather than let them show me what they prefer about sunbathing on cold mornings.

So while it is very possible that I could save myself some walking by calling my Fell Ponies in each morning, I choose not to call them because there is so much I can learn about them if I let them naturally join me or not.  At this point in my stewardship of my ponies, I prefer that sort of dialogue about behavior.  I like that they get to teach me, not just the other way around.  I like that they showed me where the rising sun hits first.  When I learn something like that, it enriches my life and, I hope, theirs. 

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2020

You can find more stories like this one in my book What an Honor, available internationally by clicking here or on the book cover.