At the Gate

When I made the decision to move to a place where the ponies would run on a very large pasture, I wondered how it would change our relationship.  Previously, for nine months of the year, they lived at home in paddocks where they saw me multiple times a day. They regularly greeted me at the fence when I came outside, usually to feed them.  The other three months of the year, they ran on a large pasture in a willow bottom with a river.  While they didn’t meet me at the fence on a regular basis, they did usually come when I called.  I wondered, when they are able to extensively graze all through the winter on a much larger pasture, would they still be interested in my company?

We have been in this new place just three months, but I have an answer to my question so far.  Before when at pasture, I only was with them twice a day briefly.  Here, I live at the foot of their pasture, so they hear my comings and goings easily.  And more often than not, when I show up at the barn to do morning chores, my ponies are at the gate, waiting to greet me when I arrive.  Other times of the day I sometimes see them at a distance, so I know they aren’t always at the gate and I know they aren’t always within view of the barn.  It is humbling to think they think enough of me to come in to be with me as often as they do.

The evening of this Christmas Eve, I was pondering that it is the first such holiday night that I have spent alone (by choice; I could have gone out).  Yet I have received emails and messages and texts from friends and family sending their love and care, so I haven’t been alone in that regard.  And tonight at dark when I went to the barn to feed the ponies in the paddocks there, my mares - who could have been elsewhere on that huge pasture - were at the gate.

© Jenifer Morrissey, 2019