Thursday's Threads: Valentine's Edition

 

Outfit Day! We're doing Valentine's a little early here at the farm. The horses only dressed up a little bit:

Their hats were a little smaller than I realized... Eros has a red one with little white hearts on it. Al has an arrow through his head, because obviously if one of them had that happen it would be Al, and Shiny's hat is pink with little lips on it. They're the cutest. And were very well behaved models today.

Here's what I had on:

Not much cuter than pink unicorns for Valentine's day!

Sweater: Modcloth

I mean really. Is there a cuter Valentine's sweater out there? I doubt it.

Belt: Equetech

I've done my candy hearts belt for the last few years, but this year, I went with this pale pink one instead.The sweater is pretty busy on its own so a plain belt seemed perfect.

Jeans: Flying Angel

I tend to avoid photos of my bum on the internet... But I had to share one this time because the heart shaped pockets are the reason I wore these today. I like the pink lace on the side too. 

Boots: Ariat

I know. You can barely see them. But these are the replacements for my old Ariat boots that gave up the fight recently. Unfortunately, these newer ones run smaller than the old version. They're fine on regular sock days, but when I wore my wool socks with them they were pretty snug. Kind of a bummer. Hopefully they'll stretch a little.

That's it for today! We're supposed to get quite a few days near 40 next week, so maybe we won't have too many more weeks of non riding outfits. One can dream at least! Happy (almost) Valentine's Day everyone!

What's Up Wednesday

 

I feel like this blog is very repetitive this time of year. It's cold, and there's snow. And then it's cold and there's snow. But, well... That's what's happening around these parts! 

Last Friday was a decent enough day. It was cold but not too cold. But then it started snowing Friday night. They said we would get 1-3". I probably got 4. So not the worst. But it was very cold after that storm came through. The morning wasn't terrible, it was in the teens so I got the horses out right away.

 The problem was the wind. It was really blowing out there, and bringing that bitter cold with it. By the time I brought horses in it was down to 10 degrees with a windchill of -8. Miserable. 

The gator wouldn't start, so I couldn't dump manure. Which wouldn't have bothered me that much (remember I bought more buckets last time I thought this could happen?) but I knew the next day was going to be worse. 

And it was! I planned to keep the horses in this day. I hummed and hawed about it, but the wind was absolutely howling, and despite all my layers I could still feel the biting cold. In exchange for having to stay in, they got some extra hay and a super long grooming session each. No one seemed particularly upset about no turnout for a day. Thank goodness. 

Once stalls were done, I kept trying to get the gator to start. Every 30 minutes or so as not to accidentally flood the engine of course. I did have enough buckets for one more day of stalls, but I also didn't want to leave all those full buckets for my worker on Monday. My attempts were mostly unsuccessful but after grooming the first horse I got it to turn over briefly before it quit. I had a tiny bit of hope that after the second grooming session it might come alive. It had warmed up to 12 degrees with a feels like of 0. It was a small grain of hope, but it was there. And guess what?!

It worked! It took some coaxing, but it came alive and stayed that way. I was smart enough to not turn it off until I was all finished and it was parked back in its carport. I had to make two trips because I had so many buckets. It was miserably cold. But I was glad to get that done. 

The good news is that this week it's been in the 30's! And it might even get to 40 today! Possible monster storm again this weekend... but it's more likely to miss us, so fingers crossed it stays away. 

As for the horses, I've been working on cleaning up their manes. TurnoutHQ asked me to make some braiding videos, so I need to get the manes in shape for that. I'm going to do hunter braids on Al (he has the best mane for that job), jumper braids on Shiny, and then training braids on Eros (his mane is a monster). I'll probably use Eros for the tail video too. I forgot to grab photos of Al's mane, but here's Shiny's before and after:

She HATES having her mane pulled but was actually pretty good for most of it this time. She did get in trouble though toward the end. I was doing the bottom section, which I don't need to pull because it's thin down there. So I was using a clipper blade to cut what I needed and that's when she decided she had to rear. Like, really? We get through all the bad parts, and now I'm just cutting, not pulling, not hurting her, and THAT's when she rears? Yeah. Not okay. Just for that I worked on her a little longer than I really needed to, just to make a point. She's a smart mare, she knew she was wrong. 

I had a moment with her on Sunday (a nice one I mean!) when I was cleaning her stall. I almost never do stalls with the horses in them. That's normally when they're outside. But Sunday I had to. Well. I could have crosstied them I guess. But I didn't. Anyway. Shiny's very aware of the pitchfork when you clean her stall with her in it. I strongly believe at some point in her past she wasn't treated nicely by a stall cleaner. The workers at last year's winter barn had mentioned that too, that she seemed uneasy about having her stall cleaned when she's in it. And at first she was that way for me on Sunday, staying as far away from me as possible, and moving away rapidly if I got too close to her. But when I was about 2/3rds done, she stood near my back. Far enough away that I wasn't going to touch her as I was cleaning, but still quite close. It was nice. She trusted me. 

Eros ignored me entirely and seemed bothered when I needed to move him. Al wanted to help. All of which tracks. Haha! 

Anyway, not too much planned for the rest of this week. I have to do Eros' mane still, and then I'll hopefully get started on the videos. There is definitely melting happening outside, so as long as winter doesn't turn too angry again, maybe I'll get to ride again before May! Fingers crossed! I miss it! 

What have you all been up to? Anything fun? How's the weather your way?

Truthful Tuesday

 

Today's confession is that I have a new understanding of cold. I always believed that anything under about 15 degrees just feels the same. But that is very much not true, and I have learned that this year. You see, I experienced -8 for the first time the weekend before last that most definitely feels colder than say 10 degrees in the positive direction. VERY DIFFERENT. Trust me. But here's something even more interesting that I learned this past weekend. I will preface this by saying I understand wind always feels colder, but I always believed if you're out of the wind then it doesn't affect the feel. I now realize that is also not true. Sunday morning at breakfast time it was 0 degrees out which is cold. But the wind chill feel was -20. MINUS TWENTY! I don't even understand these words. I can assure you, it felt much colder than -8 real temp did last weekend. 

So that's today's confession. Despite my intense disdain for cold weather, I was very ignorant about it. I am now better educated. And my disdain has grown.

Thursday's Threads

 

Another week out of the saddle means another grooming outfit today. I reached into the archives today for a fun bandana print theme. Here it is:

I've been avoiding jeans with distressing on them because it's been THAT cold out. But this week we made it just above freezing for a few days so it was okay this time. Plus these holes are patched. 

Sweater: Madewell

I'm not usually a red person, but I make exceptions here and there. Bandana print and buffalo plaid are favorites of mine, and I also allow it for Valentine's day sometimes. Though pink usually wins out there.

Belt: Lucky Brand

Isn't this cute? I've had it for ages and wear it a lot. There is a Lucky Brand outlet nearby which is where I found it. 

Jeans: Judy Blue

Aren't these cute?! The patches behind the distressing are bandana print too. They're a little brighter red than the sweater, but whatever. Close enough. 

Boots: Ariat

Yep, still wearing these. Sad news though, they have rotted through at the crease near the toe. I found a pair on clearance though that should arrive this weekend. I didn't want to have to replace these until next year, but I need shoes without holes to go traipsing through the snow on chore days. So here we are. 

 And that's it for this week! We have arctic weather coming in again this weekend as well as an inch or two more of snow. So I imagine we'll still be donning grooming clothes next week. I have seen mid thirties in the ten day forecast though! It's funny, I did get to ride some mid January, so it's only been a few weeks since I've been on a horse. But it feels like AGES! I hope we all (me and the horses) remember how to do the horseback riding when spring gets here. Haha! 

What's Up Wednesday

 

Negative temps is what's up over here. Sheesh. Winter is really wintering this year. I was SO relieved that the latest storm went north this time and didn't clobber us with another nor'easter just yet. That was giving me a real panic when I heard about its potential. So let's see... what have we been up to?

This seems unsafe

Last Wednesday night I actually left the house and went out in public! I went to see Suffs which was FABULOUS. Highly recommend if it's touring in your area. It gelt particularly poignant given the current political climate. 

As for the horses? We're just doing the best we can over here. They really aren't doing much of anything other than turnout and grooming, but none of them seem particularly bothered by the lack of enrichment. Which is a relief! 

A few things I was stressing out about was getting my manure bin emptied and my hay delivery with all the snow and ice everywhere. For both things, a relatively large truck needs to back down a narrow driveway that pitches down hill. Prime conditions for a truck to get stuck, especially once it's deposited its load. To further complicate things, I can't really take a hay delivery until I've pretty much entirely used up what I have because the full load fills my hay barn completely. I am fortunate to have one of the greatest hay suppliers though. I had reached out that I had about a month left a few weeks ago. So when he got an order from my neighbor, he offered to drop me off 50 bales while he was in the area to get me through the worst of winter. 

This was a perfect solution! So that happened on Saturday, and I'm happy to report he did not get stuck. Which was wonderful because my dumpster guy was being a real weenie about the driveway. He was so sure he'd get stuck. But since I had proof that my hay guy with the exact same size and type of truck didn't get stuck, it was easier to convince him to give it a go on Monday. And he also was able to get in and out with no issue. The only trouble there was that the bottom half of the bin was frozen solid so he was only able to empty the top half. Better than nothing though. It will also get me through the rest of winter, so the next time they need to come we should have a clear driveway again. Remains to be seen if I get billed the full amount for the empty... I can see both sides of the coin. He did the same amount of work, but I used up only half the space at the dump site. I mean, I'll pay whatever the bill is. But it would be nice if they discounted it a little since I'll need to have it done sooner than usual. 

I'm feeling much less anxious about the rest of winter now that those things have been attended to. Which doesn't mean I don't hope it's over really soon. Early spring would be lovely! (Eff what the ground hog says, what does actually know?) 

The weekend was brutal. When I went out to feed Saturday morning the actual temp was -8 which I've already told you yesterday. I've just never seen that number on my thermometer before! It's crazy! Fortunately, it warmed all the way up to 17 that day which felt pretty nice. Sunday at least never went to negative degrees so it was a better day. Plus I already told you about my non stop dance party. Great day all around.

We've actually made it just over freezing the last couple of days and will again through Friday. But then it all comes crashing down. They're expecting wind chill temps in the negative 20's for Saturday morning. Like.. really? I just ordered myself some fleece lined jeans and more wool socks. I'll probably do what I did last Saturday and wait to turn the horses out until we get above zero for the actual temps. When it's that bad out, I've been layering their heavy turnouts over top of their heavy stables, and they seem content that way. It's 900 grams of fill total... which seems like a lot. But Al and Shiny had a fun romp just before I brought them in last weekend and neither was sweaty. So I think it's a solid set up for this insanity for them. They're all shedding like crazy, so they aren't especially hairy. 

That's about it from here. We're just doing our thing over here, trying to stay warm and sane. So far we're doing okay on both. Let's see how long we can hold on for!

Truthful Tuesday

 

Today's confession is that I stepped away from the real world for a few hours on Sunday. I stayed off socials, didn't listen to any news, and just spent the morning with my horses. I had made a new playlist Saturday night specifically to have an enjoyable day in the barn the next day. Saturday was a challenging day of chores as the actual temperature was -8 when I went out to feed. Not the wind chill. The ACTUAL temp. It was stupid. 

My playlist was comprised of only songs I knew the words to so I could sing along and have a dance party ALL morning. The vast majority of the songs were real bangers. I'll probably make a more mellow version for summer when it's too hot for dance parties. The playlist spanned the decades too. Music from my childhood all the way up to now. SUPER FUN!

So yeah, while the horses were out doing their thing in the snow, I was inside singing and dancing like no one was watching, and it was great fun. Put me in a great mood! Got me all pumped up for when the horses were back in and I had to go treasure hunt for all the poop buried in the snow. My last area to hunt was up on the hill in Shiny's paddock. Once I had picked up the frozen poo balls up there, I took a good look at that little hill... It's very steep. And very covered in snow... I had snow pants on... So I made a childlike decision. I threw my pitchfork down to the bottom of the hill. Sat down. Put the poo bucket in my lap.... And slid down the hill on my butt! It was delightful! 10/10. Highly recommend. As long as your'e properly attired of course. 

So that's it! That's today's confession. I unplugged and acted like a child for a few hours this weekend. And then I was ready to face the collapse of civilization once more. 

Thursday's Threads

 

We've reached the point in winter in which I have no idea what day it is. Thus, for today's non riding outfit I needed something to help me keep track of that. Here's what I wore today:

I took pics in the house because I wasn't shedding my layers for barn photos today. 

Sweater: No label

During the pandemic I invested in a sweater for each day of the week, and honestly they still come in handy when all the days start to feel the same. Each sweater is a different color, so that's fun too. 

Belt: Levi's

This bad boy is vintage. I think I got in the summer of 2000, but it may have been a year before or after. It's fun, each of the little leather sections is a replica of the leather label that Levi's jeans have on the back of them. It's fun! Funny story though, this technically isn't my belt. One of my barn friends and I went shopping at the Levi's outlet in Vermont when we were at the horse show and I saw these belts. I got one that was blue and white check with brown leather tabs similar to the ones on here. My friend really liked it and wanted to get one too, but when we went back they didn't have any left so she got this one. At some point she wanted to wear mine so we traded temporarily but then we never switched back. I kind of miss the actual one I got. I keep checking poshmark and ebay now and then in hopes that I might find it again some day.

Jeans: Kensie

I have these in two colors and I thought these were not the same ones I wore last week, but turns out, they're the same ones. I did laundry on Tuesday though, so at least they're clean!

Boots: Ariat

I'm pretty much wearing these exclusively at the moment, unless I have to traipse through the snow in which case I need something considerably taller. 

That's it for today. The horses are wearing the same thing as last week since we're not doing anything exciting these days. Short and sweet blog post today!