The Blizzard

Oh my but did we ever get hammered with a doozy of a blizzard. I rarely ever shut horses in their stalls. But I knew I was going to with this storm. With the high winds, if the stall doors were left open, I'd be shoveling snow out of the  barn for days. But, it wasn't as easy a plan as I thought it would be. Fanny and Coal share a stall normally. It has a door on each side so no one can get trapped in if the other get's a hair across their butt about something. Horses being horses and all. I can close a divider in the stall to separate it but in an effort to give them the most room I figured I'd just put Fanny in the spare stall. HA! NOT! She was having no part of that and pitched a complete fit when I put her in there. Ok, on to plan B. I switched her and Coal. Nope, Fanny was having no part of that either as she could not really see Coal well in the spare stall. Coal was ok at first but after Fanny fussed long enough, he started to get worried. Ok, plan C...... I put Tinkerbell in the spare stall and Coal in Tinkerbell's stall. Tinkerbell was perfectly happy in the spare stall. Coal was happy in Tinkerbell's stall. Fanny was still not thrilled but now that Coal was right next to her in full view at all times, she decided she could deal with it. She did, however, keep herself glued right to the wall between them. Marie had to stay where she was as she lives with Thistle the goat and I'm not sure any of the other horses would be ok in a stall with her.

When I got up Monday morning, the storm was in full swing. I headed out and the snow was not too deep, the wind was bad and it was snowing hard. I had no trouble getting out to the barn. All was well with the horses, goat, cat and the one lone guinea hen that had come down, or been blown out of the tree they perch in at night. I cleaned the barn putting each horse on the cross ties as I cleaned their stalls and was able to get out to the manure pile to empty the muck buckets. I am so thankful to have water in my barn after so many years of lugging it from the house. I went back to the house when I was done thinking the storm was not such a big deal. I went back out again around 3:00 pm. My feelings about the storm changed real quick. It was not letting up at all and now the snow was getting deep. Very deep where it was drifting. I waded out through the snow and managed to get to the barn. Again, the animals were fine and I cleaned stalls again. I did not even attempt to get to the manure pile and just left the filled buckets by the back door. I went out one last time at close to midnight. The snow and wind were finally letting up the the snow drifts were so deep it was quite a chore wading through them. I had to stop to catch my breath at the gate. I cleaned stalls yet again but needed to dump the manure. I knew the wind had blown the ground clear around the back door had no problem opening that up. And the ground was nearly bare for about 10' out from the barn. Then were was a big drift and deep snow to the gate by the manure pile. I decided to shovel a path and also decided I'd put Tinkerbell and Marie in the paddock to stretch their legs while I shoveled the path. They have not been turned out together before but I'd be right there to keep an eye on them. They were very happy to be out and Tinkerbell plowed through the snow jumping and bucking like a crazy thing. Marie ran too. They were fine together. Tink pushed Marie around a little but no fighting at all. I let Coal back in with Fanny. Coal waded right outside into the deep snow. Fanny didn't want to go out but couldn't stand to let Coal out of her sight so finally waded in after him. I got the path shoveled and the manure dumped and decided to shovel out Tink's door as it only had a partial drift against it. Then I decided I'd better dig out Coal and Fanny's 2nd door too. That had a big drift in front of it and took a while to get open. Well, if they were all going to be let out I had to shovel out Marie's door too. I was a lot of work but I was able to go to bed and sleep better knowing they were not locked in stalls for a 2nd night. It's just a thing with me. I hate keeping horses in stalls. My flashlight battery died when I was using it to see to shovel out Marie's door. So, I had no light going back to the house and walked into a waist deep snow drift. Literally, waist deep. I though I was going to have to call Fred to come rescue me! Tuesday was spent clearing snow. All we have at the moment is a walk behind snow blower. The snow drifts were in many places much taller than the snow blower so it was slow going but many hours later, we were cleaned up and back to normal.... for the most part anyway.

Frozen boots and a Snow Filled Ride

Cierra invited her friend Joey to ride with her a week ago. I poured rain that day and was postponed to this weekend. The weather was once again kind of iffy. But, snow instead of rain. Cierra and Joey decided to give it a try anyway. We didn't know how the footing would be on the trails but I knew Cierra would come right back if the horses showed any signs of having any trouble. Joey has never really ridden before. Just one other time here he got on Tinkerbell in the paddock. So, Marie was chosen for his first trail ride. I was busy chopping ice in the paddock near the doors to clear them out and mostly left Cierra to get the horses ready. The hoof boots Cierra uses on Tinkerbell had been left in my trailer after our last ride with Linda Temple and were quite frozen. Cierra and Joey had to really work to get them on Tinkerbell but they managed. Marie had winter shoes on so was all set. Then we realized that we didn't have any riding helmets that would fit Joey. After some thought, I realized that one of Fred's motorcycle helmets might work. And it did! So I told Joey he was now good for up to 80 mph. 

Cierra got Joey mounted up and stirrups adjusted, hopped on Tinkerbell and they were off. I stayed out working away at the ice for quite a while. One of the horses I'm boarding for the winter was VERY upset about Marie leaving. Coal has quite fallen in love with Marie. I was just heading back to the house when I hear Cierra and Joey coming back on the trail so I waited by the barn and snapped a last picture of them coming out of the woods. They were smiling so I was pretty sure they'd had a good time. I was too cold to g back to the barn and I knew they would take good care of Marie so I headed in to the house to warm up. I was so glad they were able to get out and ride. Below are a few picture I took of the other horses today. 

Snow Squalls and Sunshine

Today Cierra and I had a very fun and interesting ride. We had planned on heading out around 10:00 but didn't get going until around 11:30 or so. It wasn't too cold and the sun was out so a nice day to ride. We were going to go down the trail from my house to the stream crossing and see if we could cross safely. WE headed out over the new bridge. Marie and Tink are still not convinced it's safe. Marie reluctantly crossed, Cierra led Tink across since she had to get off an tighten her girth anyway and Tink made no fuss. And our trail near the house is much improved since Cierra and Pam recently did a bit of trail clearing. I have winter shoes on Marie, Tinkerbell is barefoot. We decided she would be ok going without boots as the snow is really good right now to provide good footing. We headed out in bright sunshine. The stream crossing was fine and we did a fun canter up the big hill. And Tinkerbell, who previously has been reluctant to pass Marie when we canter, blew by Marie and I on the hill. We also did a nice little canter along the top of the ridge. From there we had to be more careful as we have not been out on this trail this winter yet and had to watch out for ice spots under the snow. Some we knew where they would be, and we found some in unexpected spots but now we know where they all are. It started to snow while we were heading out but it was still blue skies and sunshine. Very weird. We did a little lollipop loop and headed back. I was in the lead as we got to the bottom of the big hill we'd cantered up going out. I slowed Marie down, with the intention of spinning around and taking off and galloping by Cierra back up the big hill. I waited for the right moment, Cierra and Tink were near us.......and I spun Marie around with bit YEEEHAAA LETS GO MARIE!..... Marie turned ..... and just stood there....... MARIE!!!! A big boot in the side and another YEEEHAAA and she did take off up the hill as Cierra watched us in confusion. Cierra caught on fast though and were hot on our heels in just a second and once again they blew by us. We nearly locked stirrups when she passed... that could have been interesting. As we headed back down the hill, suddenly the sky turned super dark and the wind started blowing very hard. Yikes, and then the snow started and we found ourselves riding in a very fierce snow squall. Marie and Tink were not bothered by it so it was kind of neat. Other than the snow blowing very hard nearly side ways right into our faces and into the horses ears. Marie didn't care, but Tink didn't care for that. By the time we got home (and both Marie and Tink crossed the bridge with no fuss this time) the sun was back out. Both horses were a bit sweaty but not really hot so we put fleece coolers on them and turned them out and retreated into the house to warm up and have a hot chocolate with the delicious addition of white chocolate raspberry creamer. 

We decided over our hot chocolate to go out and take Fanny and Coal out for a short ride. It was colder out now and the wind had picked back up and was blowing pretty hard be the sun was out and we decided to go anyway. Fanny and Coal were good about being tacked up and they stand SOOOOO nicely at the mounting block to be mounted. (Thank you Tracy for training your horses so well) I was riding Fanny and Cierra was on Coal. Both were very excited about getting out. We have been on the a few times but only to bop around the paddock. This was our first trail ride. They pranced all the way out and all the way home. But, never did a wrong thing and we had a fun ride. Coal did get rattled for just a moment as we were going under some branches from a downed tree but after just a little dance got his head together so it was no big deal. I think they were very happy to get out and do something. They are very nice horses and I'm enjoying having them at my place. When we got back from riding the 2nd time, Cierra and I buckled down and did the barn chores and even a few projects I'd been wanting to do but needed a hand with. Then we ended the day with another round of hot chocolate. A very good day for sure! 

Building Bridges

I've been wanting to build a bridge over a muddy stream crossing near my house for ages. I had for the most part stopped using a particular little trail on my land behind my house because of it. I had planned to build the bridge last fall and just wasn't able to do it. And by December figured we would not get another chance until spring. But, as luck would have it, we had a warm up and some rain that melted off most of the snow. So, we jumped on the opportunity to get the bridge done. On Friday, Cierra and I cut the decking boards and lugged them into the woods to the stream. It was an interesting chore dragging the boards through the woods on a winding and bumpy trail but we managed it in 3 trips. Saturday morning, I went to Home Depot to get PT posts for the supports and decking screws. Pam and Cierra met me at the house and we lugged the post and tools we needed down into the woods. It took us a while to get the supports laid down fairly level. We were able to pry enough fairly large rocks out of the frozen ground with a pry bar to get the job done. I was impressed with the size of some of the rocks Cierra pulled out and moved. Once the support beam were down we laid the decking boards on and I started screwing them down. At this point, Cierra and Pam headed down the trail to do some trail clean up and brush cutting. Fred came out and helped by finishing off screwing the boards down. 

So of course Cierra and I had to hop on Marie and Tink to try out our new bridge. Silly horses were NOT impressed with our efforts at all. As much as they had hated crossing through the mud, they were trying to do that to go around the scary new bridge. It took a bit of convincing but we were finally able to get the girls to cross the bridge. 

A Good Start to the Year

I recently acquired a new goat, Thistle, and a new cat, India. And just after Christmas two horses, Fanny and Coal, came that will be staying with me for a few months. So, I have quite the barn full right now. 

Cierra and I did managed to get in a quick ride today. We didn't have a lot of time so just jumped on and took a quick bareback ride though the woods behind my house. It was fun even if it was short and a good way to start the year.