Remembering Tiny

That's Tiny and little Annie

Yup, Willie even enjoyed Tiny.

Just finished sending greetings to all the June 6 birthday folks on my Facebook list, and I couldn't help but think of my buddy, Tiny.  

She would have been 49 years old today.

This Arabian/Morgan/Saddlebred mare been gone since she was 28, but she still lives for me as my supreme maker of memories with horses.  

Tiny aka Gay Warena was the first horse I really ever owned.  

She was born at our North Boyer farm June 6, 1963.  Her mother was Largo; her dad, Waraff.  Waraff was a beautiful flaxen-maned chestnut Arabian stallion owned by our friends, Gene and Etta Balch.

The other day I mentioned in a blog post that Largo had an ugly head.  Well, Waraff's blood fixed all that in Tiny.  She had a nice intelligent, refined Arabian head.

We were in Michigan when she was born, but Harold told us by telephone that Largo had foaled, and she was tiny.  The name stuck.

Tiny was what most folks would call a sorel when she was born, but when she shed her baby hair, it turned chocolate aka liver chestnut.

Overall, Tiny could be called the "bomb proof' horse.  

She was a bit lazy for riders, which, over her life span,  included younger family members and 4-H'ers.

Any day of the week, Tiny would rather jog than walk.  Her walk, when she did it, was oh so slow.  Of course, that was most noticeable when Mother and I would go for rides on Tiny and her tall Cricket. 

Cricket had long legs; Tiny, short.  So, I was usually hollering what I had to say up to Mother who was usually at least 50 feet ahead of me.

Sometimes I gave up and just let Tiny jog. 

Among our herd of horses, Tiny had a reputation for being an accident looking for a place to happen.  

I think she was the one who ripped part of her back pastern/coronet off when she stuck her foot in a spring-toothed harrow.  

She also got shot in the chest with a BB gun.  We never did figure out which neighbor kid did that.  

But I do know that we spent months washing and draining the wound before it finally closed.

One time Mother found Tiny in the hay mow of our old barn.  We never did figure out how she got in there, and for a while, Mother thought she was gonna have to shoot her to get her out.  

But Tiny was also an escape artist.  

As I said earlier and, in spite of her accident-prone tendencies, Tiny and I created a lot of good memories. 

She was my 4-H project the year I won the championship trophy for fitting and showing.

We went on overnight rides to the mountains.  One time Peggy Watts Shadel and I teamed up to go on the Pend Oreille Trail Ride, an annual event founded and organized by the Hawkins family of Litehouse, Inc. fame.

Besides riding the mountain ridges overlooking Lake Pend Oreille, we were treated to attempts at gourmet cooking.  Actually, I use the word "attempt" only because on the night we spent camping at Lake Darling, the food arrived well after dark. 

Of course, the mosquitoes were so thick, we could have dined off from them in lieu of dinner. 

Another time, Tiny and I went on the Gold n' Grouse 4-H Club ride and stayed the night in Boulder Meadows.  Food turned out well that night, but my sleeping arrangements didn't.

This story had been tucked far in to the recesses of my mind until Woman of Wisdom Virginia Wood resurrected it during a recent lunch. 

She was chuckling about Marianne awakening in her sleeping bag out there in the meadows and commenting on the aroma in the air, which was not breakfast.

The aroma was emanating from beneath my sleeping bag, which, along with me, had been resting on a great big cow pie.  Not Friday fresh, of course!

On that ride, I learned a bit about high mountain horsemanship when Tiny and I had to go up a hillside still deep with snow. 

Virginia's son Leonard told me to get off Tiny, wrap the reins around her neck and hold on to her tail as she walked upward through the snow.  Pretty neat strategy.

One other time, with the Wood family involved, I rode Tiny on part of a 40-mile competitive trail ride.  

Not too far into the ride, I realized she had not been conditioned adequately, so when we found a turnaround spot, headed back and cut the ride short.

Tiny was a good friend, willing to put up with just about anything and happy to be the babysitter horse that any kid could climb on and ride.

Those kind are hard to come by these days as opposed to the good ol' days when farm kids did a lot of sneaking behind their parents' backs and found ways to get the barnyard nags broke enough to provide some fun and "illegal" joy rides. 

Things have gotten sophisticated these days and kids just aren't as precocious or industrious as they used to be, it seems. 

Anyway, this date June 6 has provided me a nice nostalgic trip to the fun moments spent with a good horse and a great equine friend.

Tiny, you were something special.