Relative Something

It’s all about the weather. The conditions we awoke to yesterday morning were right up there with the most challenging we have faced, primarily due to the precipitation falling while temperatures were right around freezing. It wasn’t a harsh cold like a winter day, but a little bit worse in the way of bone-chilling, soaking wet cold.

The horses were shivering more than we liked to see, and Mia’s blanket was half off and dragging in the mud. Luckily, she stood still while we removed that and put on a fresh dry one. While the horses were occupied with their morning feed, Cyndie began cleaning out the inside of the barn so we could offer them a chance to come inside. We decided on a plan of leaving the stalls wide open and giving them the ability to come in or out as they wished without restrictions.

Since the last two times that we put them in stalls and closed the doors were disastrous, mostly due to Mix’s PTSD tantruming, we wanted to test whether they would choose to come in on their own to get a little extra shelter if we didn’t lock them in. There was fresh water, hay, and a small serving of feed in each stall.

They were all pretty skittish about coming in and showed no sign of being comfortable enough to relax and take advantage of the shelter. There were frequent moments of urgent exits and crashing into doors and each other, but then they would wander in tentatively again for another try. Swings was confident enough to spend extended time eating and drinking in the first open stall. She was comfortable enough to pause for a pee while in there.

Eventually, she made her way to the opposite corner stall and spent a little time checking it out. Mia barely made it inside the front door because Mix and Light were busy not making their minds up and nervously rushing out as quickly as they had tiptoed in.

After we grew weary of waiting for them to calm down, we kicked them out and closed the door so we could get back to the house to feed Asher and have some breakfast for ourselves.

When we came out around noon, the ice accumulation on tree branches was growing to between 1/4 and 1/2 inch thick. Whenever a gust of wind shook loose the ice, the crashing sound on the metal roofs of the shop-garage, and the barn made it sound like entire branches were coming down.

It was good the horses weren’t inside the barn because that would have freaked them out big time. The temperature was climbing a few degrees above freezing, and the horses appeared to have warmed up enough that they had stopped shivering.

We decided to keep the barn shut, but we swung the alleyway gates out so they could have access to the center space under the overhang that is normally reserved for us, leaving the door into the barn closed. Watching them on the surveillance camera, we saw Mix claim the center spot, which left Mia with an entire side of the overhang to herself.

They were done crashing around, so all that remained were large shards of ice raining down out of the trees at random when wind gusts shook them loose. It was no less unnerving for us.

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