Posts Tagged ‘horse blankets’
Bright Morning
The water line in the Ritchie fountain needed a brief shot of hot water to flow this morning, but that will probably be the end of our water worries for a few days. The temperature is climbing swiftly this morning, and we will be heading out to pull off horse blankets as soon as I finish this post. It is easy to see travel patterns now that we’ve had plenty of days without new snow.
Here is the difference between one time down a trail and a frequently used path:
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I’ve pointed out many times the icy patches in the large paddock that the horses avoid. Here is Mia soaking up the morning sun where you can see the horses cover a lot of the ground except for where they don’t:
That manure pile is my attempt to build a mound over the drain tile from the barn water spigot to keep them from squishing it. The water that drains from it creates that icy patch that the horses know to avoid.
This morning, I caught a shot of Mix’s grain mustache when she looked up from cleaning the spillage on Swing’s placemat.
It’s a pretty cheery day here in our oblivion, sequestered from any gloom or doom related to the evils of this world. It makes me feel a little guilty about how nice we have it. I don’t feel any guilt at all about making the horses’ world as blissful as possible for them.
For now, we are taking care of each other.
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Coping Well
When it gets extremely cold with dangerously low wind chill temperatures, schools cancel classes and communities postpone events, but nobody cancels walking the dog or feeding the horses. Eighteen below zero Fahrenheit doesn’t keep us from donning our “space suits” to trudge out into the harsh conditions and carrying out our duties the same as every other day.
Asher needs to get out there to freshly mark his territory, and the horses need us to make sure they can get a drink of water and feed them grain and hay. Finding the water isn’t frozen in the morning is a huge plus in having things go smoothly for the early feeding. All four horses appear to be coping well with the biting cold, which also goes a long way toward allowing us to enjoy life here in the Arctic conditions.
While I was standing idle in the morning sunlight, waiting for the horses to finish their grains, I noticed some pigeons were on the waterer. They weren’t satisfied with simply getting a drink. One of them jumped in the water like it was its personal hot tub.
I have no idea how they avoid getting frozen when they step back out into the -18°F air. I would expect them to become pigeoncicles. They have been leaving a lot of pigeon-poopcicles on the horses’ placemats lately that are almost impossible to scrape off. I would say the pigeons seem to be coping with the cold better than all the rest of us.
We are starting to count the days until we can pull blankets off the horses to free them from that annoyance. As soon as overnight temps quit dropping below zero and daytime temps are hitting the 20sF, we will offer the horses some relief. The blankets are helpful during cold snaps or heavy snowfalls, but the horses would prefer not having them matting down the hair on their backs for days on end.
They have done a good job of coping with the necessary evil this week. I’d think they would appreciate having the blankets fluffed and recentered on their backs, but they tend to act non-cooperatively most of the times we try.
We just need to cope with getting a little push-back and reposition the blankets anyway. Having the blankets hanging off-center may not bug them, but it bugs the OCD tendencies in me when I see it.
That’s an area where my coping skills could use a little work.
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Excited Morning
It was not a quiet week in Wintervale this morning. It is cold out there, but not below zero yet. I took Asher for a walk, and Cyndie headed straight for the barn to minimize her time out in the cold. Just as Asher and I popped out of the woods, a noisy truck could be heard up by the house. The dog was only mildly intrigued, and I was able to quickly deduce the neighborhood coyote hunters were busy at it.
Cyndie had a chance to check in with them near the barn, telling them we had seen the coyotes on our night camera a day or two ago. She told him she would keep our dog in the barn while they were in the vicinity.
Much to my glee, we returned to the ordinary orientation for feeding the horses this morning. Mix and Mia on the same side together, and Swings and Light on the other.
Mia is doing well and consuming much closer to her regular amounts of grain again. We are back to watering down her servings, which is a hassle in the extreme cold. If it prevents Mia from having further problems, it’s a hassle we will endure.
The high winds in our forecast had not started yet, but when a breeze hit me and made the air biting cold, I suggested we blanket the other horses sooner rather than later. Light was not interested in accepting a blanket and danced a few circles while we made several attempts. About that same time, the hunting dogs started howling in our vicinity. That put Asher in a tizzy of barking in the barn.
Soon, we heard shots being fired in the field next door, and the horses went on high alert. About the time things should have calmed down, one of the hunters could be heard calling his dog pleasantly. That quickly changed from pleasant when it became obvious the hound wasn’t obeying. Cyndie saw the pup slip through the growth on the edge of our property and sniff around one of her gardens. Asher kicked up his barking to a new level.
One of the hunters drove up our driveway to retrieve two of their straying dogs, and we all lived happily ever after.
We left Light blanketless and headed up to the house for our breakfast, tolerating Asher’s unrelenting urge to continue barking throughout our meal. I’ll be interested to see if Light will be a little more accepting of her blanket as the temperature drops throughout the afternoon.
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Two Skies
So, if I didn’t want to use a cliche that perfectly conveys my meaning, do I just choose a different series of words? My, there can be such a big change in conditions from one day to the next. [see “what a difference a day makes”]
On Saturday morning, I checked my weather app before stepping out the door to see what we would be walking into. It indicated a 12mph wind, but looking outside, I could see there was none. The air was still.
However, when we got to the barn, our local conditions caught up with the data being reported on the app. The wind picked up with gusto.
As the day wore on, the sky became filled with a remarkable depiction of the waves blowing the air, shaping the clouds in the upper atmosphere.
Yesterday couldn’t have been more different. Even though there was nothing up there to focus on, I felt drawn to snap a photo of how it looked when I lifted my eyes to the sky.
It doesn’t look like the kind of sky that matches a holiday gift season that advertisers are trying to persuade all of us is in full swing. It’s a never-ending beef of mine. I saw Christmas gift-giving prompts before Halloween.
Seems like we should probably be seeing Valentine’s ads pretty soon based on that timing. Get ready to buy chocolates, flowers, and jewelry soon!
The skies won’t look too friendly this afternoon based on the forecast. Cyndie aired out the horse blankets yesterday in preparation for chilly precipitation due to arrive. Wearing blankets is not one of the horse’s favorite things so we try not to put them on sooner than necessary.
At the same time, we’d like to get them on before the mares get soaking wet. It becomes a challenge of timing it just right to keep all of us happy.
Unlike the timing of certain holiday advertisers…
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Saturated Snow
The weather played out just like the forecasters predicted. Overnight Sunday into Monday the snowflakes flew with an unrelenting intensity. I woke in the middle of the night and saw it was piling up to an impressive depth on the deck railing out back.
It started to change over to a mixture of rain and snow a couple of hours before sunrise. I knew the moment I stepped outside yesterday morning the snow was the consistency of wet cement.
Two of the horses stayed totally dry. The other two looked totally wet. They all appeared to be coping just fine.
I grabbed a shovel and headed down toward the road. I wanted to see how deep the snow was on the driveway and check on the mailbox that usually gets blasted by snow shooting off the blade of the township plow truck.
Just as I stepped out of the barn, I heard the truck coming. I was not going to get there in time to save the mailbox. Luckily, it wasn’t an issue. The driver was working at a controlled speed to push the slop to the side, not throw it well off into the ditches. The mailbox was fine.
The snow depth on the driveway was borderline worth plowing. The challenge would be all the water saturating the bottom couple of inches.
I decided to try running the Grizzly ATV up and down the driveway to disrupt the sloppy covering of snow, half hoping it might be enough to make it easily navigable by cars.
The ATV tracks made it look easy enough to plow so I went for it and lowered the blade at its sharpest angle. I don’t know that it made it any easier but the pavement cleaned up nicely in just a handful of slip-sliding passes.
I wasn’t going to even try the plow blade around the hay shed. I made multiple passes to break up the snow and called it good enough. When we went down to feed the horses at dinner time, there was standing water in many of those tire tracks.
Based on evidence on the ground in the paddocks, several, if not all of the horses, did some lying down in that soaking wet mess with their blankets on. Well, blankets mostly on. Swings managed to fold hers over off her butt.
You can see her back foot standing on the dragging blanket making it hard to move forward. That area just beyond the overhang is even more like wet cement with the combination of sand and saturated snow. The back corner of Swings’ blanket is a mud-saster.
Too bad she’s not one to stand out in the rain. Some precipitation might help rinse off all the muck.
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Every Step
I spotted an impressive phenomenon of nature after heading down to the barn yesterday morning.
Each and every small animal footprint through the snow had captured a fallen oak leaf.
The latest air mass of bitterly cold temperatures has left us for the east coast. At noon today, I plan to give the horses a break from wearing blankets again. Other than the off-and-on annoying sounds of snowmobile engines passing by, it is calm and quiet under the hazy sunshine in our valley.
As the air warms it becomes obvious that the thick snowpack becomes its own refrigerant, radiating cold from below. Even though the daily high temperatures are forecast to rise above freezing, it doesn’t guarantee it will feel as warm as thermometers indicate.
However, with all things being relative, any above-zero temperatures offer welcome relief after extreme cold spells like we endured Thursday night/Friday morning. The horses seemed to begrudgingly tolerate the pain, gritting their teeth and standing still in a meditative state that hid any spark of life in their eyes.
This morning, they looked much more alive and were a smidge more active. I think they will be as happy as me to be granted several days of ease, free of the brutal grip of dramatically cold air masses.
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Brutal Weather
Have I mentioned how much I detest rain in winter? Yes. Yes, I have mentioned it. Yesterday, we got everything the weather forecast promised. Starting with a freezing drizzle that was barely perceptible, beyond the fact the handles of my tools were developing a slippery coating. That transitioned into plain old sleet which then magically turned into a brief spurt of rainfall. Just enough rain to make a mess of everything.
Might as well top that off with some heavy snow, eh? You know, that 1-2 inch-per-hour rate stuff. Luckily, we caught a break as the system spun and our region only received a short amount of that snow before we were graced with a few hours in the eye of the storm, void of any precipitation.
If you were a horse in this kind of weather, what would you do?
After a few days without blankets, I covered the horses back up on Monday while they were dry to give them some protection from the wetness that arrived yesterday. Now, just because they have blankets on, that is no reason to become heedless of the elements.
Apparently, the chestnuts, Light, and Mia, figured they would be protected beneath the bare branches of the dying willow tree in the small paddock.
I have no idea if they noticed it wasn’t doing much toward keeping them dry.
I don’t know what Mix was thinking.
So close. Maybe, once she got her head out of the falling ice/flakes/raindrops, she figured that was good enough.
If I were a horse, I hope I would choose the option Swings smartly relies upon for comfort and well-being.
Dry as can be, which is quite a feat in the kind of weather giving us the business yesterday. The kind of winter weather that conjures up the word brutal in my mind.
Plowing and shoveling was a bitch. It’s heart-attack snow. It’s hurt your back shoveling kind of snow. It is “slip while trying to shovel” conditions. It’s just. Plain. Brutal.
How many days till spring?
Not that I’m counting, or anything. When I was younger, winter was my favorite season.
When I was younger, it didn’t rain in the winter.
When I was younger, brutal just meant a LOT of snow, maybe a little drifting wind. Sometimes really cold. Since I wasn’t responsible for plowing or shoveling as a kid, winter storms were all fun with occasional cold wrists in the gap between my mittens and the sleeves of my snowsuit.
Getting old can be brutal.
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Other Ventures
Yesterday I wrote about the horses venturing out but they aren’t the only ones around here who’ve been on excursions. To make December a little more festive, Monday night Cyndie and I took a little drive to Minneapolis and picked up our daughter to meet Cyndie’s brother and mom for dinner at Giulia restaurant followed by a George Winston concert at Orchestra Hall.
The food was delightful (I ordered salmon) and the concert was… interesting. I’m embarrassed to admit that I never considered that George would have aged since the last time I paid any attention to him, which was so long ago I don’t actually remember. I think it was when we lived in the rented double bungalow on Cedar Avenue which would make it over 40 years ago. His command of the keys was still remarkable. He played a few Vince Guaraldi tunes that are always a treat to hear among selections of his other compositions.
The evening was only slightly more challenging an outing due to accumulating snowfall and Cyndie being confined to crutches.
The week before, I was on my own excursion, driving out to Eden Prairie for an annual December gathering of old high school buddies. In a wonderful serendipity of experience, I ended up finding more than twice the number of friendly old faces than I was expecting.
Much to my surprise, at the same restaurant, there was a gathering of folks from Physical Electronics, many of whom I haven’t seen since I left that company in 1999, after 18 years of employment. I was torn between socializing with the roughly 30 former coworkers and my group of about 15 former classmates.
As tough as it was to cut the coworker greetings short, I was there for the EP guys, so I returned to mingle with them, but it was a thrilling surprise to have stumbled unexpectedly upon a reunion of friendly faces from the best years of my working life.
We don’t expect to be doing any venturing out for the next few days. Snowfall is due to begin this afternoon and then tomorrow and Friday the snow will be blowing around in winds that could hit 50 mph. Wind chill temperatures will be extreme.
I took a picture of our horses modeling their blankets in advance of the wild weather. Yesterday was very much the calm before a storm. They soaked up the sunshine and napped most of the day.
I’m guessing they will see little reason to venture from the protection of that overhang when those high winds kick up. I wonder if I should tie a guide rope from the house to the barn to help me find my way in a whiteout blizzard.
There is always a possibility it won’t be as bad as the warnings are preparing us to expect. Our fingers are crossed.
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Ventured Out
Apparently, the horses were just waiting for nightfall to venture out into the deep snow covering the hay field. Their meandering trails made for an interesting pattern beneath the colorful dawn sky yesterday morning.
It was around -5°(F) but the horses appeared unperturbed by the cold, even though there was frost on some of their whiskers and eyelashes. By noon, it had warmed to the mid-teens and their attitude had noticeably changed.
They showed a much greater interest in stuffing themselves with hay at noon. That preoccupation was a helpful distraction, allowing me to put blankets on all of them in advance of extreme weather coming in the days ahead. I think they were wise to the threat and were stoking their furnaces in advance.
Probably why they were so accepting of my fumbling around to get the blankets on them. They seem to sense what lies ahead in the weather department.
I got the barn and hay shed loop plowed yesterday and it was just as tricky as I suspected because of the depth of the snow. By taking it slow and moving half-plow-blade amounts of snow at a time, I accomplished my goal. After parking the ATV back in the shop garage, I headed down to clean up the edges with a shovel and was surprised to find the feed delivery van parked at the barn, unloading bags.
They showed up a day early to avoid making deliveries in wild weather.
It’s a good thing I ventured out to plow when I did. This incident encourages me to not let things wait until the last minute. If I had waited any longer to get that part of the drive plowed, those 50 lb. bags of feed would be piled in the snow at the edge of the driveway and I would have been carrying them down to the barn by myself.
Sounds like winter is going to come in like a lion this year. There’ll be no worrying about whether or not it will be a white Christmas around these parts.
Ho, ho, ho.
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Paired Photos
Yesterday morning I was taking extra pictures to chronicle our morning routine for a photo exercise occurring on my virtual community, Brainstorms. Members all over the globe were capturing their lives in images for four days and posting them to provide a simultaneous glimpse of our varied locals and activities.
Of course, mine involved horses and I came up with two sets of images that work best when shown as pairs.
It was a cold morning that was going to become a warm day, so… Blankets on / blankets off.
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I then stepped up beside Light and was taking a picture of her gobbling pellets from a feed pan. She turned to see what I was doing.
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There’s something about a horse’s nose that is just so great up close in a photograph. For all we know, that could be a moose!
Don’t tell her I said that.
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Relative Something 