Two Chain Wind

I am told that the windy weather we’ve been having this month is unprecedented for our location. Being told that by someone who’s lived here for nearly 50 years, I’m inclined to believe it, even though wind is usually synonymous with South Dakota.

Today began with the discovery that a gate that has been chained shut for more than two years was blown open. An advantage of the fresh snow on the ground was that it was easy to see where my Fell Pony mare herd had gone. An advantage of it being April and it being warmer today is that there were wind-blown gaps in the snow, so the ponies hadn’t gone far because of the distraction of fresh green grass.

Stallion at left; mares in cattle feed bunk, center; young dog thinking he has work to do, right.

One of the things on my day’s to-do list was to tease mares. They checked that off my list by stopping at the stallion pen, showing me who was in heat and who was not. Handy! And I was very thankful for the stout fence that surrounds the stallion pen since ponies on both sides of it were testing it with their excitement.

I had been wanting to put cattle hay left in a feed bunk to use in some way, and that too proved a distraction for the herd from traveling too far. It also meant that when I took pony hay into the corrals, nobody followed me like they often do. I did manage to get two ponies, uninterested in their hormones, into the corral, but when I went to get the mares in heat, they took off back toward the gate they had come through, somewhat motivated by my young dog who couldn’t help but try to push them where they wanted to go which wasn’t where I wanted them to go. He was quickly leashed and then kenneled. And I was immediately sorry I had shut the pasture gate, since it’s likely the herd would have put themselves back in their pasture had I left it open.

The mares may have been trying to go back through the red gates that they had come through, but I had shut them. Green grass under the snow, though, kept them close by.

Another gate open that wasn’t supposed to be, so these three were missing from my roll call but quickly returned to the herd.

Eventually I got the rest of the herd behind the fence where they belonged and we headed to the corrals to get everyone back together. Once reunited and gates shut, I went to get hay, as is my habit, only to discover upon returning to the corral that what I had previously put out had not been eaten. I also was missing three ponies. Investigation found another gate open that shouldn’t have been, so I straightened that out before heading back to deal with the gate that had been open to start this rodeo.

About a week earlier, a double gate at a cattle pasture had blown open, so I had begun double-chaining it, and we hadn’t had loose cattle for that reason since. Before that, the stallion pen double gates had blown open when only shut with a single chain; they are now double-chained. The double gate on the pony pasture fence had only ever had a single chain since the gates were put in two years ago. That in itself suggests that the wind we’ve had recently has been more significant than the past two years.

Top image: only one chain; the second chain is still welded to a pipe as when the gate was purchased. Bottom: gate is double-chained. Young dog is being truly helpful (keeping me company) now.

When I checked the double gate at the cattle pasture this morning, the tails of both chains were flipped up and over a pipe and close to coming unlatched. I immediately thought of the story about monkeys and typewriters and eventually the works of Shakespeare being written. Given enough time, I could easily see how the wind would batter those gates back and forth and the chains would work loose. I’m counting on it taking twice as much random activity and wind for two chains to be worked loose compared to one.

I got my tools and put a second chain on the pony pasture double gates. I hope I never have to experience a two-chain wind. One chain winds are more than enough.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2022