A Muddy Pony Penning?

It's 7 a.m. here, and it's 57 degrees outside (with 65% humidity). We had multiple thunder and lightning storms yesterday afternoon and evening; this morning, it looks as if the tips of the Flatirons have fastened themselves to the heavy clouds. A little further north, one can see new snow that arrived overnight on several peaks. I saw birds, squirrels, a raccoon, and few other people out early with their dogs while I was walking this morning... While it is cool here, on Chincoteague at this time, it's 75 degrees and the humidity is 90% (according to NOAA). I have a feeling that Pony Penning is going to be a muddy mess at Memorial Park (where the ponies come ashore from their swim and the crowds are waiting for their arrival) - they received almost 5 inches of rain yesterday afternoon, and local flooding was reported.

During the past few days, the rounded-up Chincoteague ponies will have been looked at by the vet, hooves will have been trimmed, teeth floated where needed, and those ponies deemed unfit to make the swim will already have been trailered over to the carnival grounds on South Main Street. Right now, if you were on Chincoteague (and/or Assateague) you could see Chincoteague ponies in several places. [First, a word about Assateague Island... Assateague Island is over 33 miles long, and is located both in Virginia and in Maryland. There are Chincoteague ponies on the Maryland side of the island; they and their Virginia cousins are kept separate by a very well-kept fence. Those ponies in Maryland belong to the US Government via the Park Service; the ponies in Virginia belong to the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department, and are grazed on Assateague by a contract with the US Government. The numbers of the Maryland ponies are kept down by use of contraceptives. The Virginia ponies are allowed to breed naturally, and the foals and youngsters are sold annually at Pony Penning.] One could see the ponies in the holding pens on the east side of the Carnival Grounds on South Main Street, which backs onto Willow Street. One could see relatives of Misty, the pony who made the island famous, at the Chincoteague Pony Center, located on Chicken City Road between Church Street and Maddox Blvd (or Beach Road, as it is now commonly called). The Leonard family, who own The Refuge Inn on Maddox Blvd (just before the Assateague bridge), keep foals and mares in their east paddock (next to the only chain restaurant on the island - McDonalds). If a person lives outside the city limits, and has at least a half-acre, one can see horses and ponies in back yards. And, of course, if you drive over onto Assateague, and follow the road to the National Seashore, one will see the holding pens for the swim on the south side of the road beside Tom's Cove. There will be Saltwater Cowboys there, answering questions of the non-locals; and there will be locals there, checking out what mare is in which stallion's band, and what her current foal looks like.

Gee... do you get the feeling that I'd like to be there? I can feel the sun and the humidity; I can hear the calls of the gulls and terns; I can smell the sea and the salt marsh - and, off afar, I think I spy the spirits of Paul and Maureen Beebe, looking at foals for themselves... (Actually, Maureen still looks over the foals each and every year - but she's a very private person and avoids publicity. Unfortunately, one can visit Paul's grave in the Bunting Road Cemetery.)