40 Degree Swing

As the weatherman said this morning, “We are in the middle of winter” but these temperature swings are tough to handle.  For some reason I ignored the weather for the weekend. I guess after getting through the Polar Vortex, I really didn’t care what was going to happen because it couldn’t get any worse. Well, then we had that ground blizzard. That’ll teach me not to pay attention to the weather! Of course the ground blizzard caught a lot of people off guard. That Friday was nice and the weather just kept getting nicer and nicer.

By Sunday morning, I decided to pull blankets because the temps were supposed to reach almost 40 degrees. It was so nice out. I think all the horses were happy to get their blankets off. I decided to leave the blankets off over night and into Monday. Until I heard the weather report on Monday. So Monday morning during morning chores, I started blanketing horses again. That’ll teach me to start blanketing horses first thing when winter hits! Rain objected to being blanketed but I knew if we were to get bad weather, he’d be the first to get chilled and feel miserable.

Everyone was a bit of a pill to blanket. I don’t blame them. It was still nice out Monday late morning. I’m sure they all thought I was crazy to be sticking them back into blankets.  I did skip blanketing Zeke and Jim because I knew it would be a battle unless I ran them into the barn and I didn’t figure they would go in first thing in the morning.

We had a family activity to attend Monday afternoon. About the time we got to where we needed to go, it started snowing. I was pretty glad I’d blanketed the ones I had and wished I’d fought a little harder to get blankets on some of the others. When we pulled into town it was 30+ degrees. We were in town for just under three hours. In that time, the temps dropped ten degrees. When we finally got home (after dealing with near white out conditions), the temps had dropped another five to ten degrees and we were into single digits.  It’s pretty hard to go from 30 degrees to 5 degrees in just a few short hours.

The horses were happy to get into the barn. Luckily I knew this weather was coming so I’d gotten the stalls ready. Everyone was happy to get inside. Chores still took an hour but at least we were done just before the final glow of the sun disappeared. The weatherman said we’d be below zero and we definitely are. In the past 24 hours we’ve had an almost 40 degree s wing in temperature. It’ll be a wonder that the animals don’t get sick. I guess that explains why our family (two-legged) has been sick.

And now the weatherman is saying that we aren’t done with the cold weather any time soon. We have another chance for a below zero cold snap later this week and next week there’s talk of more below zero temperatures. Oh goodie. Please not the sarcasm.  

I was grumbling yesterday about having to blanket the horses. I’m tired of seeing a sea of green. I like seeing green because that means green pastures but green in the middle of winter means blankets on horses instead of seeing blacks and browns. I guess I need to find some cheap blankets in colors other than green!

Tonight after I kick the horses out, I’ll have to get stalls ready again for Wednesday night. Guess it’s supposed to be teens below zero again. I just hope that we don’t get a lot of wind. With the little bit of snow we have received, we’ll be dealing with blowing snow, near whiteout conditions, and blizzard conditions until this darn snow melts. And speaking of melting, I love the warmer temps because it does melt the snow but now with the colder temps setting it, we are dealing with ICE. There’s nothing better to damage your pride than a patch of ice. I was climbing over the gate and hit a patch of ice the other morning and landed flat on my side into a snowdrift.  It’s probably a good thing no one was around (except the horses). Here I was, lying in a snow pile with my feet all tangled up on the gate. Once I got up, I realized I’d left a very neat impression in the snow pile. Ice is very humbling.

But I now have to be extra cautious because what little snow we did get, covered up the ice patches. There’s a skating rink in front of the barn door. I can’t get the big door open so the horses have to go through the smaller door (if I want to get them out of the pen). And the mares and ponies have to deal with a skating rink in front of their stalls. The next few weeks are going to be interesting weather wise.

We are also starting to think about our upcoming fundraiser in April! It’ll be our annual Easter Fundraiser. I’ll write more but its coming. So if you want to donate, please let me know. We can always use donations.