Holy BRRRR

Oh South Dakota, why oh why do I live here?

Today Occasional flurries before noon. Partly sunny and cold, with a high near -2. Wind chill values as low as -31. Blustery, with a northwest wind 15 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph.

Tonight Partly cloudy, with a low around -9. Wind chill values as low as -25. Northwest wind 10 to 15 mph becoming light and variable after midnight.

Friday A slight chance of snow after noon. Partly sunny, with a high near 17. Wind chill values as low as -18. Light south wind increasing to 10 to 15 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 20%.

Last night was C.O.L.D. I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced that type of cold before. Of course, less than half way through I was perfectly warm thanks to my irritation. It’s amazing how quickly you can warm up when you’re steaming mad. I’m not sure if the horses were anxious because of the weather or my mood. Either way, they knew to get out of my way (well everyone except Ivan).

I rushed outside last night so that I could get as much of my chores done before the dark set in and before the temps dropped any more. Everyone was anxious for their supper.  I put everyone I could into the barn and then fed extra hay to those that stayed out. I swear the ponies are going to be a rolling ball by the time spring rolls around. I feed extra to Rabbit and Mayhem but I think the ponies are benefiting immensely from it too.

Today’s high is supposed to be two below and I have no idea what the wind chill is/will be. All I know is that it’ll be painfully cold. I’m not looking forward to tonight when I have to go back out into the cold to do chores. Luckily the horses cooperate for the most part going into the barn. Rain was a bit over zealous last night. He wanted IN NOW! But because I’ve had to move him into a different pen, it’s a bit more tricky. Maybe I’ll switch things up again and put Rain in one of the first stalls instead so that he’s not harassing everyone else. Oh what I would give for a big barn with big aisles and big stalls instead of the barn with makeshift stalls and cramped quarters. But on days like today, no one seems to complain.

Luckily the temps are supposed to back up this weekend. I’m not sure I can handle too many days of below zero temps with even colder wind chills. I also don’t think my hay supply will last if we keep having cold snaps like this.

I expect when I get in from doing chores tonight I’ll drop. So no working on the upcoming fundraiser. I’m sure you’ll all be tired of listening to me talk about the fundraiser, but maybe the more I gab about it, the more publicity we’ll get and a few more people will show up. 

Save the Date - Fundraiser March 23rd

Mark your calendars! We are having our first fundraiser event March 23^rd at the Methodist Church in Brandon, SD. We are still working out some of the specifics but I wanted to get the word out as soon as possible to save the date!

For those that have kids, this fundraiser will be a great opportunity to get your kids out to play for a little while. I’m sure by March, we will all be anxious for winter to be over and ready for spring to hurry up and get here.

For the kids, we’ll have an Easter egg hunt, face painting, coloring stations, and pictures with the Easter bunny (no standing in long lines to meet the Easter bunny). For the adults, we’ll have a silent auction and possibly gifts to buy for upcoming birthdays or other holidays. Because I come from a family that revolves around food, there will be a bake sale to snack on sweet treats and other goodies.

And if that doesn’t sound like enough fun, we are also going to be holding a raffle during the SD Horse Fair (March 16 and 17). Come find us at the Cowboy Way Church booth at the Horse Fair to see what we are raffling off.

Can’t wait for all the fun events. Hope to see you there!

Being a Kid Again

You know you’re exhausted when you wake up in the recliner at 2:30am and can’t figure out what day it is. For some reason I thought it was Saturday. Sure makes getting up and going to the paying job that much harder!

I didn’t get out to do chores until after dark. I HATE doing chores in the dark. But it’s ten times worse when there’s a sheet of ice everywhere. By the time I was able to get outside, we had not only freezing fog but drizzle. Normally I wouldn’t have minded but I wanted to get a few things taken care of before this deep freeze sets in.

I went ahead and did my normal chores and then drug out all the hoses to fill tanks. I guess I should be thankful that I can use hoses at the end of January instead of hauling bucket after bucket of water back to the mares and ponies. But after doing chores, I knew it wouldn’t be safe to simply haul water back. We have ice everywhere and some of that ice is super slick.

I will admit that I did act like a little kid for a while last night during chores. After getting all the hoses hooked up and water filling the tanks, I had a bit of time to waste. I should have been working on ground work with one of the horses or doing something, but instead I decided that I would find a really slick spot of ice and slide on it. Yeah, I know, I’m 30-something sliding around on ice for fun. I know it’s silly and I’m glad it was dark and no one around but it did help pass the time away while waiting for the tank to fill. The only down fall of using hoses is that I get wet. I wanted to fill water tanks the night before but I thought I’d be nice and hurry with my chores so Mike could spend some time outside. I’ve learned my lesson there.

By the time I had everyone’s tanks filled to the brim, I was able to wring out water from my gloves. Unfortunately, soaking gloves in dropping temps made me crabby. After getting the hoses drained and collected, I was ready to be done. My hands were freezing. Unfortunately, in my haste to get done with chores, I broke the door to the house. We have to keep the hoses in the basement so they don’t freeze (unless we don’t want to use hoses when the weather breaks). So now I have to figure out how to fix the door before it gets too cold. I swear I tend to break more stuff than fix.

I think we may have missed out on the bad weather. I’m fine with that but it would be nice to get a little bit of snow. Ok, a lot of snow so that it covers up the ice enough so I won’t slip and fall. I am thankful that we are having this type of weather this year instead of last year. Imagine being out on this ice while pregnant. I would have been a total wreck worrying about falling all the time.

I did read that the cold front that’s supposed to blow through should only last a day or two. By the weekend, we’ll be warming up again. Maybe once it warms up, I can get caught back up on a few outside chores I’ve been meaning to do for the past few weeks.

Freezing

The next 48 hours aren’t going to be any fun. That’s not to say that the last 24 hours have been all that great. Yesterday morning we saw freezing rain. We had enough freezing rain to melt much of our snow but replaced it with sheets of ice everywhere. Our yard is dangerous now. I didn’t fall but I came close a number of times. No matter where I walk, I’m on ice. Maybe I should correct that, no matter where I skate, I’m on ice. I was trying to push a wheel barrow of hay over to Babe and Bo up a very small hill (you wouldn’t even know it’s there most days). But I started going up that itty bitty hill and had to stop because I couldn’t keep enough traction to hold myself up, never mind push a wheel barrow full of hay. The pens are covered in ice and I’m worried about the horses. I’m trying to keep them off the concrete but that’s an effort in futility.

If the freezing rain wasn’t bad enough, yesterday afternoon fog rolled in. As the temps dropped, the fog started to freeze. So now we have ice from yesterday’s rain and freezing fog. I had hoped that the fog would lift before this morning. Nope. If anything, the fog was worse.

The weatherman is now calling for a winter weather advisory (of course the advisory stops before it reaches our county but we are only three miles from the county line so I figure we’ll be dealing with some serious snow).I’m not looking forward to snow on top of this ice. If the snow is wet and sticky, maybe it’ll make walking a little easier but if it’s the light fluffy stuff, we are in trouble.

If the snow wasn’t bad enough, we are supposed to get an artic blast and have a high of zero for Thursday. So we’ve had warm temps with freezing rain, turned into freezing fog, which will turn into snow, and then subzero temps. These are the times I wonder why we opened a horse sanctuary in South Dakota! These are also the times where I wonder why I live in South Dakota!!

Tonight I’m pulling out all the hoses to fill water tanks. It’s too dangerous now to haul bucket after bucket of water back to the mares and ponies. Last night I hauled two buckets back and slid the entire way. If I fall and break something now, we are going to be in a world of hurt.

Because of the bad weather and icy roads, we opted to hold off on bringing the neighbor’s horse over. We’ll wait until the weather clears and then try to find a time that works.

We had a great fundraiser meeting Saturday night. The hard part will be finding time to get the logistics of the event figured out. I’ll save the tentative details until after I make a few phone calls. I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up for the event until I have a few more details worked out. We are focusing the fundraiser event more towards kids. The middle of March with the type of weather we’ve been having is a good time to have little kids get out of the house for an afternoon. At least that was our thinking. I know we aren’t focused more on horses but we want to get kids involved and educated in the ways of the horse and this is one step in the right direction.

I’m holding back the remaining eight round bales until March. So now the herd is enjoying different hay, although I think they may have preferred 24x7 access to hay. The herd has taken to standing in front of the barn doors so that they can get the best hay. I swear Dude and Chaos are always the first to be at the door. Because I don’t trust the herd, I always tie the doors shut. I used to think maybe I was being overly cautious but just the other day, someone had been working at the door and had it cracked open. So its’ probably a safe bet for me to always keep those doors tied shut.

I need to get the stalls ready tonight for the artic blast that’s supposed to come in later this week. Luckily the weather is supposed to warm up for the weekend. I guess on the bright side of an artic blast is that I’ll stay home and work on paperwork for the sanctuary. I’m usually so exhausted by the end of a day (what with the full time paying job, caring for all the horses, and taking care of the Bear), that I can’t seem to find the energy to do much after the sun sets. Of course, I don’t seem to get the chance to sit until well into evening these days. 

So for those that are in the Sanctuary’s area, please stay safe. We’ll be taking extra precautions over the next few days to keep everyone safe that the Sanctuary.

Fundraiser Meeting

We had an excellent fundraiser meeting tonight. I've been so excited and keyed up after the meeting that it's almost 1am and I'm still wide awake and antsy to get cracking on the fundraising event! I decided that I would go through my stash of pictures from the past few years (previous pictures are on the computer that crashed and I'm hoping we'll be able to recover them at some point). But we are thinking of doing a 2014 calendar so I went through and pulled some of the better pictures. Here's just a sneak peak of a few I pulled. You may be seeing these again. I'm sure some of these pics have already made it into the blog before.

If you are interested in helping us for our upcoming fundraiser, please email me at borderlandshorsesanctuary@yahoo.com. The more help, the better the event!

Upcoming Auction

Just saw that Mitchell is having their monthy horse sale February 16th. Loose horse will run through at 1pm followed by riding horses in their open consignment at 2pm. The remaining loose horses will run through after the open consignment horses.

I had throught I'd hold off until March but if the weather is nice, and I don't have any other activities, I may just go to see what prices are like. I haven't been to an auction since we brought Savanna and Sahara home and that was in April 2011. I'm thinking I'll be too swamped in March to go to a sale so maybe February would be better.

If anyone wants to go with, I'd sure enjoy the company! You'll have to help sit on my hands too!

Take My Breath Away

I didn’t pay any attention to the weather this morning. I knew it was going to be a little chilly but when I stepped out the door, the cold took my breath away.  I knew we were either in the single digits above or below zero. But after the brisk walk back to the mares and ponies, I was positive the temps were below zero and that we had a pretty serious wind chill. That’ll teach me not to pay attention to the weather a little more closely.

Everyone was standing out of the wind when I showed up to throw hay. I think everyone was rather pleased I was out a few minutes earlier than normal. I need to get my little yellow hay wagon back in to the hay barn so that I can load up hay instead of tossing it out from the barn. It’ll cut down the time it takes to do morning chores and it’ll make it so that the piles can be farther apart to reduce fighting. Although this morning everyone seemed to settle down in a hurry to snarf as much hay as they could get. I threw a little extra just because it was so darn cold out.

The cold weather is making it hard for me to get anything extra done outside. I have been naughty and not hauled water back to the mares and ponies since we topped the tanks off on Saturday morning. We’ve either been running late or it’s been too cold (or a mixture of the two). So last night I took a peek and sure enough, the tank was almost empty. I swear Mayhem is a water horse! I wasn’t able to top off the tank. In fact I was only able to carry back about six buckets before I petered out. Luckily Mike wanted to get out and get some fresh air last night too. So he hauled a few more buckets back. Not sure if we’ll get to haul water tonight or not. We have a meeting to attend so I doubt there will be enough time to do much other than normal chores and then leave. It seems these days we are never home. I guess I’m making up for lost time.

If anyone is bored this weekend or wants to get involved, we are having a fundraising meeting this Saturday at 7pm at the Sanctuary. We are going to start planning for the fundraiser scheduled at the end of March (for Easter). I’m not sure what we’ll be doing, but no matter what, it’ll be fun! So if you want to get in on the planning, we’d be delighted to have you join us. I’ll make sure to bake some type of treats for us to enjoy!