Ramblings from the Frozen Prairie

I went outside yesterday to do chores and was faced with five inches of snow. I'm sure to some, that wouldn't mean much but with my short stature, it means dragging buckets of water through snow. Luckily Mike went out to push snow about the time I needed to do chores. I hate hauling water. I hate hauling water through snow even more.

But the snow is all piled up so hopefully it'll stay there for a few days. We are dealing with subzero temperatures and subzero wind chills. It took 1.5 hours to get everyone tucked into their stalls last night. I'm putting everyone in their stalls again tonight. I'm not looking forward to doing chores in below zero temperatures with even colder wind chills. But I can get out of the wind for the most part. And I'm usually hoofing it to get everything done so I'm usually warm throughout all of chores.

We are in a blizzard warning starting at noon tomorrow. I'm not sure what's going to happen. Our road is already blowing shut with just 20 mile an hour wind. I'm not sure what will happen when we get the 30mph sustained winds and 40mph gusts. I'm staying home and working the paying job at home but thinking I'll have to cut out early to take care of animals.

I guess the Farmer's Almanac was right. Normal snow but bitterly cold temperatures. Boy howdy were they spot on. Come January first and we've been dealing with terrible weather.

Unfortunately with Garrett being run down, I'm starting to get run down as well so hopefully I can get my feet up for a few days and relax/recover. The horses dont' seem the worse for wear. Although Dude now demands to get into the barn. I know when it's bad out when Dude insists that he be in the barn instead of just the hard keepers. Unfortunately Dude doesn't understand that if you're one of the first ones in, you're also one of the last ones out. His herd boss mentality doesn't work with me. Jim hangs over the stall wall and pins his ears at all the horses trying to get out of the barn. I don't want to put up a screen because it makes chores harder. I haven't figured out exactly how to fix Jim's bad habit. It's the only time he shows his bad side. Oh what I would give for a 20 stall barn with luxurious stalls that lead right into the drylot and where I dont' have to make sure specific horses are in the barn first before others come in. And a barn aisle. What I would give for a barn aisle. Our barn is all stalls. There's no aisle. Of course with this weather, I'd probably turn any aisles into stalls to make sure everyone was out of the wind.

Even Rabbit is very opinionated about coming in out of the cold at night. She was disgruntled with me this morning when I kicked her out of her stall. She pouted in the corner of her pen until everyone else was eating at the bale. I know when she wants her stall time when I come around the corner and she lets out a gigantic whinny. She's normally not very vocal towards me unless she really wants something.

With everyone wearing blankets and everyone being bored with this cold weather, the horses are getting antsy and naughty. Maverick keeps messing with everyone's blankets. I discovered a new tear in Rain's blanket and I blame it on Maverick. I hope that the weather will get better so I can pull blankets and get Rain's blanket fixed before it gets any worse. There's no money in the budget to buy blankets right now.

Speaking of blankets, I have pictures of Ivan sporting is new to him blanket thanks to Erin from Head Heart Hooves. His new blanket fits him perfectly (so does Junior's blanket).

I'm hoping that we won't have too many  more cold spells and we'll be over all the sicknesses at the Border household soon. I'd really like to get 2015 rolling on a good start instead of frozen on the prairie.