It was quite windy and stormy last night. As I lay in bed trying to fall asleep, it seemed suddenly that someone was throwing gravel at my windows, and I realized we were getting small hail. I always think of the horses. Wonder if they are alright, reassure myself that they all have shelters they can get into, hay to eat if they get chilled, and friends to huddle with. A few even have rain sheets on, something I never used to do, but as our springs become longer, colder, and wetter, some of my horses that are older and thinner do get them in an effort to keep their weight up, after what was a HORRIBLE year for hay, ANY hay, not just good hay.
Though it is still windy and cold, the sun is out. After feeding the dogs and grabbing a cup of coffee, I take the big dog and walk up to check on the horses. I held in my own hands just about every board that makes up these fences. I’m proud that their placement gives me a decent sightline to just about all the paddocks, within a few steps. I’m looking to make sure everyone is up. That all the horses are standing and no one is lying down or shivering. One of the hardest things for people to understand is that I would rather have a 5 degree day, than 36 and rain. Horses are actually sub-arctic animals and do just fine in the cold. But get them WET and chilled and you can have a dead or sick animal much quicker. As long as they can ‘loft’ their fur/coat they can stay warm. But if it rains so hard and long and they can’t get out of it, if their fur lays down on them, causing the loss of that layer of insulation, they can be in trouble. Lucky for me, everyone was up and happily eating hay.
As seems to be my habit, I stopped by the paddock with the ponies, mini horses and mini-donkeys. Because of their diminutive sizes, it’s possible for some of them to disappear, by either being on the far side of the round bale, or being tucked into one of their shelters. I couldn’t lay eyes on 2 of them, and while I wasn’t hugely concerned, I did walk closer. The ‘missing’ donkey peeked at me from behind the bale, and I found Killian standing in a shelter, out of the wind in the full morning sun. He is a beautiful shade of rich light brown, with a bit of a tan dapple. I don’t know if that color has a name, but I remember it from ponies of my childhood, when I longed for even 1 of the poor beasts hitched to the wheel of the pony rides. He is most likely a Shetland mix, with a mane that refuses to lie flat and stands up from his neck to blow in the wind like all the horses in a little girl’s dreams.
He stands unblinking in the strong morning sun, framed by the shelter, with his head cocked as if he is listening for something, and he is, for Killian is blind.
Killian’s journey to live here at the Farm is long of timeframe and short in distance. I no longer remember if it was spring or fall when a man walked into the barn while I was giving lessons and asked if we were missing a pony. We weren’t. “Well there’s a pony wandering up by 7 Mile Road” so I told one of my volunteers to grab a rope and some grain and go with the guy. Cars and trucks fly down 7 Mile Road, no matter the 45 mph speed limit, BIG trucks. I went back to teaching the lesson . About half an hour later, my gal reappeared leading a brown pony. One look into his milky white eyes and I knew he could not see, but he was in good shape otherwise, and thankfully was wearing a halter. He called out a high pitched whinny, and a few of my horses answered. I put him in a paddock with some hay, and Pasha. Horses dislike being alone, and I knew a blind horse would like it even less. Pasha was old even then, but has always been a horse I could put in with others because of his gentle nature. By this time it was getting dark, so I planned to look for his owner in the morning.
I drove to 7 Mile road, figuring to start where he was found. How far could a blind pony travel, I thought? Then I looked for places that had horses, or looked like they could have. It must have been a weekday, because I encountered lots of houses with no one home. I finally turned my attention to 6 Mile road and continued my quest. At the house of an elderly man, I was greeted by a barking dog, but after saying hello(to the dog) I asked the man if he was missing a pony. “Yes!” he cried “I was just out looking in the ditches because I figured he had been hit by a car.” “He hasn’t, he’s just fine and he’s at my farm.” The man was overjoyed! He told me he would hitch up his trailer and come to get him immediately, and about an hour later a truck and trailer rolled up to our barn. Inside the trailer were 10 bales of (very nice) hay. Payment for finding his pony and keeping him safe.
About a year later my phone rang, and it was the elderly gentleman. “He’s gotten out again!” and I promised I would be on the lookout for the brown pony. After finishing my morning chores, I thought I would go for a walk along our property line, and look for the animal. Like my gal from the previous year, I took a lead rope and a bucket with some grain. A bucket of feed is a good way to catch any loose horse, but in this situation it was invaluable because I could shake the bucket of grain, and the blind pony would hear it. I started walking toward the tree-line and realized I would have to find a break in it, to get into the next field. As I approached a likely spot, there was the brown pony. His head had come up as he heard me, and he started to move off, but I shook the bucket and called out, “Hey dude, it’s just me. Let’s get you home.” Thankfully, he stopped moving away and let me clip the lead to his halter. I fumbled for my phone to call his owner, “I’ve got him!”, and we started walking back to my barn. This time, as he got out of his truck, the man had a question for me. “I might be going to live with my daughter, would you be interested in taking him, if that happens?”. “Of course.” I answered, without giving it any thought at all.
I’m not sure what image people get in their heads when I say that I rescue horses. It doesn’t usually look like those sad commercials with the dogs, and often it isn’t a case of some ‘evil’ owner starving or abusing an animal. Sometimes it’s an elderly man with a blind pony that he cares about. His situation was about to change, and his options were few. There is no market for a 20 year old blind pony, so he couldn’t just sell him. Euthanizing a horse can cost between $300-$500 and then there is the cost to have the body hauled off, which is another $300(depending on weight). Most rescues rely on adopting horses out, so again we run into the marketability of a blind animal, and most people cannot afford to keep a ‘Pasture ornament’, a horse who’s only use is to look pretty. I suppose that technically, we are a sanctuary. The horses that come to us seldom leave, except to cross the Rainbow bridge. We rehab and retrain if necessary, and they become “program horses” that give riding lessons, or work with people on the ground to overcome whatever difficulties they are experiencing in their lives. But they stay with us, are cared for, loved and part of a family.
We renamed him Killian, which is both Celtic and Latin for blind, and in Irish means Strife, small battle or fierce, all of which I think describe this beautiful boy, standing in the sunshine on this cold morning