There’s an old pony in a big pen by the barn. He’s not flashy or useful in the way most horses are. No kids ride him, he doesn’t have a horse friend to trot alongside, and we don’t have any grand stories together. He simply happened into my life one day, by chance. I don’t owe him anything, and yet, every morning, when I step outside, he greets me with a soft, friendly nicker, as if checking in, as if saying, I see you. You’re here. And I’m glad.
He eats special food, the kind that even our younger horses eye enviously. A massive round bale of the best grass sits in his pen, and I make sure his water is clean, fresh, and even warmed in the winter months. I check on him late at night, topping up his feed and making sure he has enough for the night. And in the morning, after my first coffee, he is the first I care for.
It would be easier, of course, to send him away. There are people who might want him, who might pay a small price. But I think of his knees, weak and creaky with age. I think of the long, jostling journey, and the risk of him falling or being hurt along the way. I can’t do it.
And then there’s the calf in the scale house tonight. Small, sick, weak. His nose runs, his backside is messy, and he shivers in the cold. Tomorrow, I’ll feed him warm milk and try to tempt him with a bit of the pony’s special food. Bob, my partner, will clean his little pen, refresh his bedding, and make him warm. It would have been easier to leave him out with the bigger calves, to let him fend for himself. But we can’t. Not when it’s this simple to help.
There’s also a wild kitten prowling the barn. We suspect it jumped off a truck and found us by accident. He doesn’t have to scavenge in the cold—we leave food and water for him, make sure he can eat safely and stay warm.
Some might say we’re soft, maybe not real ranchers. But maybe kindness isn’t weakness—it’s a practice. As we age and our own bones ache, we’ve realized that caring, truly caring, is a kind of strength. Our purpose isn’t only the animals that earn their keep, or the ones that make money. Our purpose is the ones who need us, the ones who didn’t choose this life any more than we chose theirs.
These animals didn’t come to us because we sought them out. They came because they needed a place to land. And now that they are here, we do what we can. We work, we save, we buy the things they need—special hay, warm milk, soft bedding. Maybe the world owes us nothing in return. Maybe there’s no reward, no cosmic balance. But still, we do it, because doing the right thing feels like enough.
And as I step into the barn in the morning, coffee in hand, the pony’s nicker greets me. The little calf stirs, safe in his warm bedding. The kitten pads around, whiskers twitching, and I smile. We didn’t ask for any of them. They didn’t ask for us. But now, for however long they’re here, they’re ours. And we are theirs.
Kindness isn’t flashy. It doesn’t earn applause or money. It just exists in quiet acts, in the warmth of water for a thirsty animal, in the feed we offer to the sick, in the comfort of a bed for the lost and weak. And in those small acts, perhaps we find a little peace.
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