Missing in the Cold

When I arrived at the barn, the ponies were not there. I have learned, because they have shown me, that when the weather is coming from a certain direction, the barn doesn’t have any good cover, so the ponies will await my appearance from afar, where they can see me arrive but from a more sheltered place. It makes me wonder if the weather directions are different than when the barn was built in the 1940s.

That morning, it was below zero Fahrenheit, and with the wind blowing it was pretty bitter, so I put out hay and took shelter for a few minutes in the shed area of the barn. My ponies had indeed seen my activity and came at a trot through the falling snow to tuck into the hay before it was covered with white. I smiled in appreciation, watching them from the barn, and then I paused. I counted and then counted again. There was a pony missing, and then I realized it was one of the pregnant mares. I immediately became concerned.

I stepped back out into the weather and began calling for her. I looked in the direction from which the herd had come, and I didn’t see her. I called again, probably with a little more urgency in my voice. She still wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I called again, louder, and then I saw her. She had emerged from one of the foaling sheds to let me know where she was. I yelled my thanks and went to prepare vitamin buckets for the herd, thinking she would come in when she heard what I was doing.

I finished the bucket preparations, and she still hadn’t arrived. This raised my concern again, so I distributed the buckets to the rest of the herd, picked up her bucket in one hand and put a wad of hay under my other arm and began the trudge through the snow, down into the ravine and back up toward the foaling sheds. I could barely see her; she was back in the shed where it was most protected. She didn’t emerge as I approached, so my concern stayed high. But when she saw I had her bucket in my hand, she stepped out of the depths of the shed and eagerly stuck her head in it. Relief flooded through me. And when she finished the bucket, she started on the hay. I could see she was shivering lightly, but I knew the hay would help.

On my trudge back to the barn, I realized that as low pony in the herd, the others had taken all the prime real estate in the sheds, leaving her on the margins. When they all left for the barn, she finally had the shed to herself, and she wasn’t about to emerge from it! Later in the day she appeared at the barn with the rest of the herd, so the last of my concerns were put to rest.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2023

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