nap time

Major is an exceptional creature. He is the best napper at the whole barn. In the beginning the barn owner thought something was wrong with him, but now we know he just likes a good afternoon nap in the sun.

not even bothered by riders in the arena (photo from my friend!)

I get sent pictures of him flat out while someone rides in the arena (his pasture shares a fence line), or curled up in his favorite spot. When he is naughty I tell people they should wake him up and make him run around. But he is very good at conservation of energy.

shhh, the pony is sleeping

disturbing his beauty rest, total bed head

When I arrived the other day he was flat out sleeping. He heard my car and sat up, but I was obviously disturbing his beauty sleep. He groggily walked over to the fence, knowing I am the carrot woman.

Major really is the epitome of Newton's first law of motion: a body at rest will remain at rest unless an outside force acts on it, and a body in motion at a constant velocity will remain in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force. (borrowed from the NASA website)

I'm the outside force in this equation, working on Major to slow him down, to make the "constant velocity" less than a 12mph trot.

Today on a short, windy ride it worked. We headed out with his buddy Friday in tow, the lake trail didn't seem too windy at first, but it was gusting pretty hard soon enough. Major was being a bit silly with the wind (regular rocks are not scary, and do not give that log you're seen a million times the hairy eyeball look!) but we kept everything in check, and had a reasonable speed day.

We also did plenty of (to Major) annoying things, including walking big hills, and practicing slow "pole bending" on a row of fence posts, backing down and then back up a small ditch and putting a foot on the deadly manhole cover (clowns live in there you know, I almost can't blame him, I was scarred for life by Stephen King's "It".)

We came home the right way: with coming everyone reasonably happy (though there are never enough carrots distributed for true happiness).

not stealing carrots

not going to knock this over (does this angle make my butt look big?)

no really, I won't knock it over with someone's saddle on it!