Winter is Here

The calendar might say that it's only November, but winter is here. I'm afraid winter is here to stay. We received our first snow fall on Saturday and had over six inches of snow. I wouldn't mind so much but we still had a few things that we needed to get wrapped up. But those things will have to wait. But with six inches of snow and me being only 5ft 3in, tromping through snow hauling two 5-gallon buckets full of water back to the mares and Junior is a little tough. The buckets were dragging in the snow. It wouldn't be bad either if I only had to haul back two buckets. With Junior, I know have to haul back six buckets to keep the 100 gallon tank full. I let it go one night and it took me umpteen buckets to get it back to full.

I've also been stalling Junior at night so that he can eat in peace. That also means that he needs to have his own bucket of water. I think I'm hauling about 50 gallons of water every night between the horses, ponies, and dogs. It's going to be a LONG winter.

I'll tell a story about Junior later. Or go over to the Senior Equine Care blog where I'm chronicling Junior's progress.

I was able to do all of my chores Saturday in the daylight which was lovely but every other day I've been out in the dark doing chores. I'm not ready for winter and winter chores. Six months of this is six months too long! Yesterday the wind picked up and it was bitterly cold. I guess the Farmers Almanac was right. Normal amount of snow but bitterly cold. It's supposed to be below zero degrees Fahrenheit tonight. The rule used to be that it the temps fell below zero that the horses would go in. But everyone can get in out of the wind and hang out under shelter so that rule might have to change. Junior will always go in just so he can eat all night. I threw in his hay, alfalfa, and grain mash last night and this morning I caught him with a mouthful of hay still! It takes him that long to eat.

The weather is supposed to warm up by the end of the week. I hope it actually happens. I did keep track of the fog we had earlier in the year. If we are technically in an El Nino, then the snow we had on Saturday was spot on! For those that might not know me, I'm a little weird when it comes to winter and storms. I follow the old wives tale of 90 days from fog is rain/snow. Starting this past week and going for another three weeks, I have fog marked down in my calendar each week. We'll see if it was just a fluke or if we truly are in an El Nino. It would make tracking predicted snow a little bit easier.

The farmers around us didn't get their corn out either. Our farmer friend has a field just to the west of us. We normally have to put up a snow fence to keep some of the snow from drifting up into our driveway but he still has corn. I doubt he'll be able to get the corn out at this rate. I really didnt' figure we'd get six inches of snow in the middle of November.

Winter is definitely here!