Relative Something

Wet precipitation when the temperature hovers around the freezing point is a perfect recipe for hazardous footing. This morning we woke to ice covering everything and faced a slippery challenge walking Delilah and making our way down to feed the horses.

To our surprise, the horses were navigating the crazy conditions with relative ease. I suspect the advantage of having four points of contact with the ground and being almost ten times our weight allows them to deal with the slippery footing better than we do.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

They were judicious about moving around and calmly settled into enjoying the feed served up in their pans on the ground. I get a sense that their ability to cope with the situation better than us is a function of their living outside in the elements. They were experiencing it as it was happening throughout the night and adjusting to conditions as they changed.

In contrast, we arose from our warm, snuggly bed and stepped out of our comfortable house into the shocking iciness that threatened to slam us to the ground with each slippery step.

I tried to prepare Delilah for the craziness on the front steps but she pretty much had to figure it out for herself when the pads of her paws couldn’t get a grip on the surface.

The outlook for the rest of the day is the opposite of sunny. There is more rain expected, possibly even thunderstorms this afternoon, but with a little warmer temperatures so maybe not as much ice.

We aren’t sure about how the horses will deal with heavier precipitation. They have shown significant anxiety about being confined to stalls in the barn so we are inclined to leave them out until they get uncomfortable enough to need a break from the weather. Maybe then they will be more interested in the indoor option.

In preparation for the possibility, we added pads to the floor of Mix’s stall after she carved up the soil something awful with pawing and kicking last time, when she kicked boards down in a tantrum. In addition to the dust storm that must have resulted, she excavated a few large stones with her aggressive gyrations in there.

Tonight might end up being a chance to test that new floor.

As always, the weather will dictate our decisions.

.

.