There was a time, back in the sixties, when ponies were very valuable. During that time Fair Meadow Farm (aka Nash Farm, as it is known today), had a herd of about fifty ponies. Some of the stud ponies were valued in the thousands of dollars, while the average pony brought a very good price, making the ponies profitable. I don’t know pony breeds but there were some of the flashiest looking ponies in this herd than you will ever see. As a farm hand I assisted in caring for the ponies as well as the cattle.

  The farm was laid out, much as it is now. The five pastures were connected by a lane which led back to the barn. There were no good catch pens for the ponies and most of the sorting for training and care took place in the lane. When someone wanted to buy a pony, the stampede was on. The oval shaped area below the house was the location of the pony ring. This ring is where the ponies were trained to ride or to pull a cart. They were not hard to train but they were very hard to catch to begin the training.

  The cattle were fairly easy to round up. Sometimes horses were used, but many times they could be driven from the pasture into the lane by farm workers on foot. From here they would walk down the lane to the corral, where calves were weaned, cattle were wormed and vaccinated, and everything else that goes into caring for cattle.

  The ponies, on the other hand, could not be rounded up in the same manner. They refused to cooperate. They could outrun and out maneuver the horses. Rounding them up on foot was impossible. Just when you thought they might go into the lane, they would cut back or swim across the lake to avoid the lane. If they accidentally went into the lane, they were still hard to work. Many times we had to rope the ones people wanted to buy. Not to be confused with calf roping. If you swing a loop over your head around a herd of ponies, they will panic and exit as if someone pulled the fire alarm. The loop has to be flipped over their head as they rush by you.

  After a time or two we learned that if we would turn out a particular stud, he would run down the lane into the pasture and the entire herd would follow him. He would then take them into the lane and back to the barn. All we had to do was wait for them to arrive. We still had to deal with the stampede that occurred in the lane, but our pony dealings became much easier.

  Not long after this, the pony market crashed and you were lucky if you could give one away. I have not followed the pony market, so I don’t know where it is today, but I doubt that it will ever be like it was back then. So I add these experiences to my resume in the category of skills that are no longer in demand.