Posts Tagged ‘horse blankets’
Chilly Bones
We have survived our second night in a row with temperatures reaching – 20°(F) outside, where wildlife and domestic livestock live and cope with whatever Mother Nature dishes out.
Despite how extremely frosty-looking Swings was this morning, the horses are faring impressively well against the elements. None of the other three was covered with as much frost as Swings, but they all had frozen eyelashes and ice in their noses.
It is damn cold. This far below zero is where tree trunks start splitting open. It sounds like a rifle shot when they do. We have been hearing it happen, but have yet to spot clear evidence of which trees have ruptured. Air this cold is also dry and thin. Sound waves travel to the degree that vehicle tires on the pavement a mile away sound like they are right next door, similar to the way voices carry across the surface of a lake.
Boots on snow squeak like a bearing needing lubricant.
It is startling to imagine that such brutal weather as this didn’t sway a sea of tens of thousands of concerned citizens from amassing on the streets of Minneapolis yesterday to voice their objections to the abuses being dished out by the fascist regime currently sh**ting all over our democracy.
Is there any possibility that the level of dissatisfaction it takes to drive this behavior will sink in with the powers that be? If not, I shudder to think what it will take.
We decided to try giving Mia the added protection of a neck covering, but the attachment that Cyndie found in the barn wasn’t a match for the blankets we have. Maddy, from This Old Horse, stopped by with another blanket for Mia that worked a little better.
It’s funny to think that it will be twenty degrees warmer in a day or two, and even though it will still be near zero, it will feel so much less stressful for the animals. It’s all relative!
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Freeze Dried
There are days when a walk outside on our property feels like we are living in a high school science lab. Whether it’s Physics or Chemistry, the atmospheric conditions pretty much dominate everything. We intimately witness the emphatic difference between dead calm and gale-force winds, a transition that can happen in a startlingly short span of time.
Evidence of cold contracting materials and heat expanding them becomes an auditory experience with our log home as it creaks and groans, snaps and pops as the wood reacts.
After our most recent January thaw, the air made a swift swing to a hard freeze. Snow that was mushy on top and soaking wet at the base became a solid block overnight.
Around the edges of anything icy, we get to see one of my favorite winter phenomena: sublimation. The H2O molecules skip the liquid phase and transition from solid to gas, expanding invisibly into the cold, dry air above. Surfaces that appeared to be soaking wet during Tuesday’s meltdown froze solid overnight. By yesterday afternoon, a majority of the driveway had been freeze-dried. The same applies to most of the shingles on the roof and the boards of the house’s deck.
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We put blankets on the other three horses yesterday afternoon in advance of expected precipitation today, to be followed by a reasonable cold snap.
Each blanket has straps on the inside that get routed around each of their back legs to hold the sides of the blanket in place. A week or two ago, Cyndie reported finding a stray strap lying in the snow. It looked like one of those side straps to me. We both assumed that one of the horses had managed to ‘toss’ it from their blanket.
Here is one of life’s little mysteries that keeps things interesting, and yes, it is related to “assuming.” The last blanket we put on was Swings’ and when I didn’t find a side strap on my side, I asked Cyndie to bring me the strap she had found in the snow, assuming the puzzle was solved.
Imagine my surprise when I reached up under the blanket, trying to locate the D-ring to clip the strap to, and found there was already a strap connected to it that I hadn’t noticed. The strap had gotten hung up over her back instead of hanging down like the rest of the straps to be attached.
So the question remains, where did the strap Cyndie found in the snow come from? We have no idea.
It’s a good thing we are only caring for 4 horses. I can’t imagine trying to keep track of things for a larger herd, given the number of times things get confusing with just our quartet of mares.
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Slippery Mess
Yesterday, the 13th of January, we endured another day of serious melting, having not dropped below freezing the previous night. Our trails in the woods look like a super-highway for deer traffic in some areas. There isn’t a single trail where at least one deer has left its hoof prints.
We found a spot where deer had lain down and melted the snow right in the middle of one of the trails. They must be well aware of Asher’s presence because, despite all the tracks, they are conspicuously nonexistent during the daytime hours.
The songbirds sounded pretty happy about the big thaw. The false echoes of spring floated in the air as we made our way among the leafless trees of our woods.
Mid-40s(F) in the middle of the day allowed for a stroll without my outer layer insulated shirt-jacket. My vest was perfectly adequate. Playing with Asher rendered my mitts soaked from the wet snow.
One of my favorite things is when Cyndie sends me pictures she took that look exactly like something I would capture. She knows me oh so well. At least the melting mess makes for interesting photos.
I have done some custom cropping of her images, but she gets all the credit for capturing these views for my entertainment.
Where was I while she was walking the dog and seeing all this beautiful scenery? In the house, finishing the jigsaw puzzle and reading more chapters of Bruce Springsteen’s autobiography.
At the afternoon feeding for the horses, Mia got covered with a blanket again, which she calmly accepted. I believe it helps our cause to remove the blankets when the temperatures warm up. They tend to fret less when the time comes to put them on again. We like to get them on before bad weather makes them cold and wet, but that can find them less interested, if you know what I mean.
Since I believe they are picking up information that we’re not always aware of sending, it’s on us to visualize the desire to keep them as warm and dry as possible when the weather is expected to change. Mia must have sensed this yesterday.
At this point, I’m hoping we can get some new snow on the ground soon to offer a little added traction. The paddocks are a ghastly, icy mess to navigate across until that happens. Twice yesterday, when Mia tried to execute her hurried escape from the reach of maneuvering horses, her hooves slipped dramatically.
That’s a rather nerve-wracking sound when it happens right next to where I’m standing.
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Transcendent Ambience
With our weather taking a mild turn, I took the blankets off three of the horses yesterday, leaving Mia covered because she doesn’t grow as thick a winter coat as the others. Blanketing horses is interesting in that it seems like they’d just as soon not have them on, but they appreciate the added protection against the elements when the weather gets crazy.
As such, they will cooperate by standing still while we put them on. It is a treat to be able to reward them by taking the blankets off again as soon as the conditions allow. Happily, Mia doesn’t fuss over keeping hers on.
She finished her feed and came down to where I was tying a freshly-filled hay net on a fence post. I did my best to read her intentions in case she preferred to get rid of the blanket, but she gave me no indication that was the case. She seemed more interested in gobbling bites of hay.
With the warm temperature, I was working without a hat and wearing uninsulated gloves. After finishing all the chores and collecting empty feed buckets, I paused to lean on the gate and enjoy the moment. It was a wonderfully quiet night. As darkness approached, Mia was wandering from one placemat after another to scrounge any remaining spilled feed pellets. The other three horses were each at a different hay net, munching away.
In the distance, across the road in a grove of pine trees, an owl started hooting, adding to the transcendent ambience.
It was the kind of solitary experience that wouldn’t have been as special if someone else were there, but as I was enjoying it, I found myself wishing everyone could have the same opportunity.
I don’t know how I ever got so lucky to live in this remarkable place and have a relationship with these precious horses.
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A Thursday
There was an unexpected Asher adventure as we were about to feed the horses yesterday morning, involving a raccoon. While Cyndie and I were focused on the usual chores, Asher vanished without our noticing. His telltale, excited barking in the distance instantly grabbed our attention.
Cyndie stopped what she was doing and hustled in the direction of the hay shed. In the perennial garden just beyond the shed, she found Asher and the raccoon in conflict with each other. I stayed with the horses, trying to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary was going on, despite the angry noises coming from the raccoon.
She reported that Asher had the butt end of the still-complaining raccoon in his mouth and took off running when she showed up. When she caught up to him again, across the road at the end of our driveway, she said he was in the process of burying the no longer living critter.
I don’t remember seeing coon hound in the 18 breeds identified in his DNA.
Our neighbor just south of us was pleased to hear he has some help in controlling the population of nuisance wildlife. When Cyndie stopped by to deliver some Christmas cookies, he told her he had dispatched 19 possums and 25 raccoons this year.
It’s comforting to know that we may have gained some tolerance for occasions when Asher might wander onto their property, now that he’s seen as contributing to pest control in the area.
After a couple of days above freezing, we are facing another Winter Weather Advisory from the National Weather Service, which predicts light snow, wind as high as 40-50 mph, and icy flash freezing conditions. Needless to say, the horse blankets are back on.
Mia needs the added protection more than the others, but she was the most uncooperative about letting us cover her up. She doesn’t grow as thick a winter coat and ends up shivering more quickly than the others, so one would think she’d welcome the blanket.
Instead of chasing her around in an attempt to force compliance, we are inclined to patiently invite her to come to us as we stand holding the blanket. Since they were all eating from their feed buckets while we were putting the blankets on, that just meant standing close to her bucket, and eventually she stayed put while we covered her up and hooked up all the clasps.
I have every confidence that they understand why we are covering them up again. We also move hay nets from out on fence posts to up underneath the overhang. Since we only do these things during periods of stormy weather and always return things to normal afterwards, I believe they read the signals and accept the changes without unwarranted stress.
Lousy weather is stressful enough on its own, especially when high winds are involved. The Weather Service is tossing out phrases like “a conveyor belt of Aleutian low-pressure systems” and “atmospheric rivers.”
To us, it just seems like a Thursday.
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Different Profiles
As Asher was trotting up the driveway the other day, his shadow on the pavement looked like an interesting silhouette. I pulled out my phone and tried to snap a photo, needing to wait for good sunlight through the tree branches while also trying to keep up with him.
The challenge of keeping up with him is that he speeds up as soon as he notices someone closing in on him.
The first shot had him looking rather moose-like to me. At jogging speed, I didn’t get the shadow framed as well as I wanted.
This one didn’t line up so well, either, but it captures a little more of a truer profile of him. I particularly like that it caught one of his front paws in the motion of his scampering.
Yesterday, before the rain really started falling, I took a picture of Mia in her muddy rain slicker.
Since our rain overnight was predicted to turn into snow, I think the horses will understand this morning why we subjected them to the nuisance of blankets again. At least I didn’t find any evidence yesterday that they were rubbing the mud onto the newly braided bale twine we wrapped around the post on Monday.
Cold and wetness are never a good combination for the girls. It would seem most logical to stay beneath the overhang and munch on the hay we hang under there for them. For some reason, at least three of them can’t seem to resist the adventure of exposing themselves to the elements.
Swings is the one who most often demonstrates the ability to remain dry by staying under the roof. She is the oldest of the bunch. Maybe the additional years have produced a more informed intellect.
She be older, so she be wiser.
This would be a good time to be able to tune in to their telepathic frequency to find out what they are thinking. At the very least, I hope they recognize we want what is best for them. We wouldn’t subject them to the rain sheets if we weren’t concerned about their exposure to wet snow and rain when temperatures are cold.
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Adjustment Time
It looks like we have reached the point in our change of seasons where the temperature will drop below freezing and stay there for a while. We have had almost two full winters of temperatures frequently rising above freezing, and it’s reached the point where it’s become my expectation. I’m going to need to adjust my mindset and acclimatize my body for something closer to old-fashioned winters real quick.
When the temps stay below freezing day and night, lake ice finally gets a chance to become thick enough for skaters and ice fishing fans. The ground will begin to freeze, and without snow cover to provide insulation, it will freeze deeper and deeper into the dirt. Then, when we finally do get a decent snowfall, it won’t start melting from the bottom up.
It just might make me feel like a kid again.
Yesterday, I updated the braided bale twine we wrap around one of the posts supporting the barn overhang. Can you tell the difference between the old and the new in the photo?
The horses have proven they like to rub against it. Covering the wooden post protects the horses from getting splinters and keeps them from chewing on the wood. Finding this creative use for the twine cut from hay bales keeps the polypropylene out of the waste stream.
I decided to do the wrapping while the horses were being served their feed for the afternoon, but I started before the feed buckets were brought out. They showed a healthy curiosity about what I was up to. Light seemed to think the new braid I brought out was for them to chew on.
After Cyndie served up their buckets, she helped me with the exercise of going around and around in what felt like an endless number of circles to tightly stretch the braid on every corner.
Now the horses can rub against a wider span of the bumpy braid when the rain blankets we just put on them again become bothersome.
Rubbing against the posts is a much better option than against the hay nets that Mix was trying to use. The metal clips on the blanket were getting snagged in the netting while we were standing there, and unfortunately, they don’t rely on finesse to get themselves out of such situations.
Hopefully, the horses will adjust quickly enough to the cold temperatures that we can remove the blankets when the current bout of precipitation moves off to the east.
Accumulating snow can’t be far off in our future. It would be great if the next batch of precipitation coming our way wouldn’t start as rain.
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Calamities Dodged
Sometimes, I feel as though the horses must think we make the silliest decisions. I have no idea how much sense they have about approaching weather systems. We are greatly influenced by forecasts from meteorologists. When the weather service issues a winter weather advisory, we consider how it will affect the horses.
Monday afternoon, we put their rain covers on due to the likelihood of a rain/sleet/snow mixture falling overnight into Tuesday morning. It held off just to our south overnight, but sleet finally started falling just as we were feeding them yesterday morning.
Invasive Garlic Mustard is easy to spot in November.
It was hard to tell whether they appreciated the extra protection or not. Now the extended forecast is showing highs for the week in the mid-to-upper 40s(F) with mostly sunny skies. When it dried up by late afternoon yesterday, I decided to remove their rain sheets.
Cyndie was in the Cities overnight with friends, so I was on my own with the horses. Mix was first and seemed very eager to have the shell removed. Mia came up as soon as she saw what was happening, so I offered to help her out of her cover next. She was fine with me undoing the clips in front and stood mostly still while I disconnected the two straps around her belly. Then, she decided to bolt before I could unclip the small strap on the back.
With the blanket open at the front, it blew into the air as she took off, and Mia just stepped her back legs free of the rest of it as she ran. I walked down the slope to pick the sheet up off the dusty ground, trying to act like it was the normal procedure.
“Nothing to see here. Carry on.”
Mia’s little burst of energy got Swings and Light to come up to get in on the action. I unclipped the front of Light’s raincoat and one of the two belly straps before she decided to copy Mia and suddenly took off running, kicking her way out of the rest of the still-clipped straps.
“Really?”
Thankfully, Swings, the oldest and calmest of the four, stood in place while I wrangled the clips apart and slid the cover completely off her back. As a group, they seemed like they were of a mind that they didn’t need the extra protection we went through the trouble of providing.
We prefer taking precautions, in contrast to waiting to try and help them after they get wet and cold if conditions turn sour.
So, we dodged a few potential calamities this time, as Light kicked dangerously while Cyndie was in the vicinity, situating the back of Light’s cover, and the two horses bolted with straps still attached while I was in the process of removing them.
It serves as a fresh reminder to keep alert to risks every time we are interacting with these huge and sometimes unpredictable beauties.
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Sound Carries
Continuing with the theme of how serene it can be in our little paradise, particularly in the early morning, Cyndie and I caught ourselves being the “loud family” yesterday on our walk with Asher on the way to feed the horses. Sounds carry, we know that. Our immediate neighbor to the south has a phone ringer on one of his outbuildings that must be out of an old Bell Telephone rotary dial model. When it rings, it seems like it’s coming from within our paddock fence line.
When we emerged from the woods yesterday morning, the cloudy sky was particularly fascinating with a dramatic swirl directly overhead. I knew a photo wouldn’t capture the full essence of what our eyes were perceiving, but snapped a shot anyway.
When we walk and talk in the morning, it is common that one of us will get ahead or fall behind, pulling a weed or vine, so the projection of our voices picks up a bit as we carry on conversations. Suddenly, I’ll become aware that we are shouting at each other on an otherwise silent outdoor morning in such a way that the neighbors and the horses wouldn’t be able to miss.
Anybody outside yesterday would have heard us marveling over the spectacle in the sky, or how Asher was about to chase after a deer that had waited until he and I were only about four feet away before it bolted off through the trees, and our boy perfectly responded to my command to “Leave It!” and stayed with me.
The kind of conversational stories that a person can be so involved in telling that one loses track of how loud their voice has become. Yeah, way too many mornings, we are the loud family marching through the woods and along the back pasture to the barn, carrying on at the top of our lungs in the otherwise blissful serenity of our little valley.
“The Hayses are up and about,” the neighbors will announce.
With a chance of rain in the forecast and verifiably chilly temperatures, we put rain sheets on the horses yesterday morning while they were eating from their feed buckets. The precipitation didn’t show up until much later, but Light had made her own decision about being covered by the time it started to fall.
Cyndie found the blanket wadded up on the ground in the middle of the afternoon, bottom straps still clipped, and nothing ripped open. It must have been a fascinating sight to witness her Houdini performance of getting herself free of that. I’m confused about whether she pulled it up over her head or down off her butt. Had to be over her head. There’s no other way.
I’m glad to have missed it. Catching her in the middle of that would have been frightening. I wonder if she made a lot of noise while wiggling and wrangling it off of herself.
The way sound carries, the neighbors probably knew about it before we did.
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Horse Happenings
For the record, my legs are feeling stiff from Wednesday’s up and down, crouching, kneeling, walking, and bending effort to clear the weeds. Just in time for a planned bicycling outing this Sunday. How soon do I get to say I’m too old for this?
I took a picture of Mix receiving a syringe of medicine in the side of her mouth from Cyndie. Mix makes ridiculous faces after Cyndie squirts the dose into her mouth, vividly demonstrating her disgust at the insult. Cyndie has taken to adding an equal amount of applesauce in hopes of masking the flavor that bothers Mix.
The reaction was less extreme with the flavor enhancer.
Maddy, from This Old Horse, was over yesterday, and she thought Mix looked like she was moving with less pain, so the icky medicine is probably helping to some degree.
The reason Maddy was here was for an appointment with a new (to us) farrier. He seemed like a young guy to me, especially considering his name was Ralph, which aligns more with my dad’s generation. Ralph came across as a man of few words, but he let his work do most of the talking. He was efficient and handled the horses’ occasional resistance with gentle patience. That is a welcome change from the previous person who was doing the job.
We were graced with a day of much-improved weather yesterday. All it takes is a clear blue sky and wind speeds of zero for the sunshine to soften the blow after a night cold enough to produce a block of ice in our rain gauge.
The low sun brought a golden glow to the dry corn stalks in the fields and cast a long shadow in the late afternoon hour.
We removed the rain sheets from the horses for a few days because of the nicer weather. As much as possible, we want to encourage the growth of the horses’ natural winter coats, and providing the artificial warmth of blankets can send their bodies the wrong signal, reducing the need for more insulation.
I don’t know if science supports that idea, but it satisfies our intuitive perceptions, so we go with it. If the horses shiver, they get blankets. In the meantime, they gotta grow more hair.
That’s some horse happenings as we reach the last week of October, 2025.
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Relative Something 