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.