Horses

Its pissing down here now, has been all day, but earlier in the week, Keith mowed the lawn and got it in nice shape again, a never ending job. But whenever I see the neat and well kept lawns nowadays, and even more so back home, I can’t help but hear Uncle Luther grumbling with me and all kids to keep out of the grass. Not because it was neat and well tended, but because he didn’t want it trampled, and wanted it to grow to make hay for the horses.

I wasn’t all that old when he passed away, nor did people tend to keep horses much beyond my early teens as ski-doos and atv’s became more practical, but back then it was a summer chore of mine to turn the hay, and rake it in the evenings. Many days of back breaking labor were involved in cutting it down with a scythe. Those things were a chore in and of themselves as dad always had to keep a stone in his back pocket to keep it sharp. Dad may have been a bit of a perfectionist with it anyway, as he kept his sharp enough to shave the hair on his arm. Was always a worry when in the barn to not accidentally touch it.

Joe Baker with an old Hay Prong (Eric Cooper Picture)

On sunny days we’d spread the hay on the field to dry, and then turn it with the old prong (still seems funny to me how something with two large tines so far spread was used on something so slight as hay)about half way through the afternoon. Then rake it again into a stack in the evening and cover it with a bren (essentially bren bags taken apart and sewed into a larger tarp) weighted at the corners by rocks. Once it was dry, I can see dad in my minds eye now loading up a huge bren with hay and walking across the garden, and up the ramp to the loft over the stable. I can’t even begin to tell you how big it was, but it dwarfed him. I know hay didn’t weigh a lot, but holy god so much had to.

The hay was used to feed the horses in the winter of course, and I can still remember the smell of hay all over me as we played in the stable loft, heedless of the millions of sneezes that it caused to erupt from me.

With all the need we had for hay back in those days, I can hear them grumbling about lawn mowing now… they’d be savage!

Peter Smith

Raised in outport Newfoundland in a town of 65 people, I pursued a post secondary diploma in Information Technology right out of High School.

I’ve always been a geek at heart, but yet I love the rural life I grew up with. Fishing, hunting, camping and the great outdoors are still loves of mine, even if I don’t pursue them as often as I once did. Sports were always a big part of our lives, and I played many (badly) and loved them all.

I guess it was a simpler time, and a simpler place. Growing up in the 70’s in a town with a population of 65, and nearest large town about 20 minutes away, and that only having a population of a couple thousand, things were quieter. You didn’t lock your doors, you often left your key in the car. If you visited someone you almost always did, so that people could move them as necessary, or just take the most outside one.

A lot of people kept some sort of livestock, and a lot more kept a work horse, though for many, and my dad for sure, as much a pet as a work animal. In those days you kept your horses and livestock on your land in winter, available for use, and often let them roam free in summer.

Seeing a group of horses walking down the road as they roamed the island over the summer was a common thing, and we often knew which to avoid as there were always a few saucy ones. It was also not so uncommon to accidentally step in some stinky sheep manure, especially in patches of grass where you couldn’t see it. Sheep were especially annoying as if they saw a fence, they just had to try and get behind it, and of course, when they did, not being the brightest of animals, were nearly incapable of finding the open gate when you tried to herd them out.

Horse manure wasn’t as bad, being quite a bit larger. I can often remember in winter we’d use a frozen road apple as a hockey puck in our games of hockey. Dad had a horse, and I guess the name he gave her, Pet, showed that he thought as much of her as pet as a work animal. She had some Smith traits too. Stubborn for one, she could not pass one water hole when pulling wood in winter without getting a drink, no matter how often she had passed it, and no amount of coaxing got her to go till she was ready.

Pet was large for a horse back home too, larger than most of the others. I really have no idea if she was a Newfoundland pony or not, but was larger than most of the males. I assume this is why she never had a foal till she was very nearly 20 years old, nearly ancient for a horses, or at least those I knew. But this one summer, we had heard someone say she had one. We tracked down the herd near the brickyard near Snook’s Harbour, and sure enough there was a little black foal with her. We named him Frisky as he was a handful. We eventually sold or gave him away, he didn’t have the best of temperaments to my memory. But still the sight of a herd of horses, roaming free for the summer, stopping traffic on times, was a memory of growing up that I’ll always cherish.

Peter Smith

Raised in outport Newfoundland in a town of 65 people, I pursued a post secondary diploma in Information Technology right out of High School.