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?
