Posts Tagged ‘Winter’
Old Lessons
This is starting to feel like a real winter. For the first time in years, our temperature has not risen above freezing since dropping below in the last week of November. The snow that has fallen is accumulating, not melting. The 10-day forecast shows the trend will continue.
I have to admit, the last two years have lulled me into an uncharacteristic lackadaisical attitude about my techniques of managing the cold and snow. Case in point, that dang plow blade on the Grizzly. It took me three tries to get the mechanisms of the winch-lift and the catch-pin of the blade angle connected so they wouldn’t interfere with each other.
The solution was so obvious when I took the time to consider it. I’m a little sad that my memory of how it worked in the past, before I added the now-failed bracket, made this into a bigger deal than it deserved.
Yesterday, I was finally able to run the plow along the edges of the driveway to push the snow bank one length beyond the pavement. Like any good winter, as soon as I finished, it started snowing again, covering the surface with a new dusting of flakes.
While returning from a walk with Asher, Cyndie had me call his name in a fresh exercise of following commands.
She had been out on Friday night to meet Elysa in Hudson for a creative art experience. I took Asher out with me that night, thinking he would hang around while I cleared some of the freshly fallen snow. He disappeared into the darkness and was gone for two hours. It serves me right for recently bragging about how great it’s been having him stay around.
I’m blaming the darkness of night and the wealth of nocturnal critters available to tempt him. Last night, when I took him out, however, I used a leash. Fool me once…
Not that darkness is the only time he faces temptations to chase prey. The rabbits have been plentiful this year, and he is more than happy to race after them at every opportunity. They are creating well-worn trails in the snow toward the barn overhang, where there is an endless supply of spilled senior horse food pellets to eat.
We are no longer surprised when we show up to sweep off the placemats before feeding and find them already cleaned.
The horses are coping well with the impact of real winter weather. It seems they remember how to do this better than I do.
I trust I will get the hang of it after a few more decent snowfalls. Clearing fallen snow is almost like riding a bike. Once you get it down, it just gets easier as you go along.
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Feeling Wintry
In case you were wondering what the most recent blast of winter weather was like for us on Tuesday and Wednesday, I present the following that it inspired me to create:
Recipe to make an otherwise beautiful event of falling snowflakes into an angry blast of epic proportions:
- One afternoon of misting rain
- A few hours of actual raindrops
- Cold but not freezing air temperatures
- A few hours of mixed precipitation of rain/sleet/snow
- One large blast of a below-freezing air mass
- A constant 25 mph gale out of the Northwest
- An infinite number of snowflakes of various shapes and sizes
Add the above ingredients in the order listed for the duration indicated. For greatest impact, extend the overall event for longer hours to increase the amount of angry blast desired. To add some *icing* to this cake, don’t allow the sun to be visible for weeks after the storm has passed.
I admit that I got a little carried away with the last line. Overstating the part about not being able to see the sun for weeks is just being rancorous. In reality, we enjoyed a decent mix of scattered sunshine yesterday afternoon. The angry blast of wintry weather turned out to be far short of epic.
We have removed blankets from the horses, and they are showing every indication of being perfectly adjusted to the arrival of the snow and cold.
I pulled out my winter boots and insulated Carhartt overalls to wear while the snow was flying in the gale-force winds, but I need to retrain myself on the intricacies of getting in and out of my winter “spacesuit.”
It’s safe to say that the switch has been flipped, taking us from the genteel conditions of a mild autumn into the harsh reality of winter in the north.
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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Deep Freeze
The temperature never rose above negative numbers yesterday, but all our electrically heated water sources for the horses functioned flawlessly! That makes tending to the animals so much less stressful, even though doing anything outside for an extended amount of time at 15 below carries its own challenges.
Yesterday afternoon, while I was waiting for the horses to finish the grain in their buckets, I was looking out over the frozen, sunlit scenery and marveled over the environment. In our homes, we have little freezers for food preservation. They take a lot of energy to function, and we try not to hold the doors open very long to preserve the cold. Restaurants have freezers so big you can walk inside them. A large frozen space seems like such an engineering accomplishment.
Yet, here I was, standing where everything I was looking at was frozen colder than any refrigerator freezer. The wood and screws of our fences. The trunks of all the trees, some of which develop long vertical cracks from the extremely dry, cold air. The ground freezes several feet deep. The world around me was one colossal freezer.
Five months from now, these temperatures will be a distant memory. It’s such a fascinating transformation.
Indoors, our bird of paradise plant is showing a new sprout on the stem of the smallest leaf. It’s a wonderful compliment to the deep freeze outside.
The previous three sprouts that have appeared since this gorgeous potted “tree” arrived at our home were so inspiring that I find myself watching and wondering where and when another pointy tip will emerge. I now have my answer.
Another leaf is imminent.
Maybe the spring thaw won’t be very far behind.
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Wicked Cold
One hard part about surviving a bitterly cold winter night is when the following day and night offer no relief. In fact, the second night proves to be even more harsh. Ouch. It would be great if we could just hunker down inside beside a warm, glowing fireplace during extremes such as -20°F with crazy windchill numbers making it feel much, much colder.
Wisps of deep-freeze ice crystals decorate the driveway.
With outdoor animals that need to be fed and a pet dog that needs to be walked, we don’t have the luxury of staying inside. Adding insult to the brutal conditions, yesterday afternoon I discovered there was no water in our Ritchie waterer in the paddock. Something was frozen. The question was, what to do about it? Of course, Cyndie had the right idea.
She placed a call to the guy who originally installed it and who also repaired the leaking valve last fall. He was at a funeral. She left a message and called the office. The owner answered (which is how she learned our guy was at a funeral), and he tried to offer some suggestions. It was just enough to help me with an idea.
I dug up a heat lamp that was stowed in the vacant chicken coop. Meanwhile, our guy at the funeral checked his messages and called Cyndie back. He provided more specific instructions about where the most common freezing occurs and how to address it. She heated water and came down with an insulated carafe. While the heat lamp was pointed into the inner workings from a side access panel, we chipped away at the frozen cover.
When the cover came loose, Cyndie slowly trickled hot water on the exposed float valve and feeder tube until the carafe was empty. When she returned to the house to get more, I held the heat lamp strategically over the valve. In about one minute, I heard some action. The water was starting to move. The heat lamp was doing the trick, and soon, water filled the metal pans of the double-sided waterer.
Earlier, we had put out electrically heated buckets of water under the overhang to encourage the horses to drink more water during the cold spell. Now, they were showing curiosity about what all the fuss was down at the waterer. I’m hoping they will keep drinking from it because that will move water through the valve, and maybe slow any refreezing likely to re-occur at these wicked cold temperatures.
If it is frozen again this morning, at least we know exactly what we can do to solve it.
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Counting Leaves
It is not impossible to function at -14°F (-25°C), but it can be a bit of a hassle to tie up hay nets and distribute buckets of grain –one of which now gets watered down— in such extreme conditions. I am very happy that Asher showed a keen sense of efficiency and adapted perfectly to my plan to shortcut our morning walk and get his business out of the way as swiftly as possible.
The horses were equally focused on their tasks and offered no resistance to assuming their positions and chomping grain with their frozen whiskers getting messier by the minute.
The feelings of accomplishment when returning to the house and getting the feeling back in our fingers and toes don’t entirely dispel the intense urge to have remained under the warm covers of our bed instead.
We tell ourselves these extreme cold snaps that are difficult to survive help to control the populations of pest animals and insects, as well as the number of added people who might consider moving into our region when their homes prove to be inhabitable.
I looked up at the leaves in the big oak tree over our driveway and had two thoughts.
There aren’t many leaves left clinging to all those branches. On the other hand, there are still more leaves up in that tree than I could count.
In contrast, there is a young oak nearby that looks as though it still is holding all its leaves after they dried up and turned brown.
There is also a birdhouse with a birch bark roof that features an opening that wasn’t there when initially built.
I think the residents left for a warmer climate a long time ago.
As harsh as this weather is, the forecast indicates the bite will be even more intense tomorrow. The critters that survive this will have something to brag about.
I have no conclusion that wraps these contemplations this morning into a logical theme. That would involve more thought than I have to muster. With what little energy I have, I intend to curl into a ball like Asher is doing right now on the couch beside me and save what I can for the next foray into the Arctic elements outside later this afternoon.
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Frozen Observations
Getting out of bed on mornings when the temperature outside is below zero and the first order of business involves walking a dog and tending to horses, takes an extra level of oomph that gets harder and harder to muster. Even Asher chose to stay in bed for an extra few minutes this morning after Cyndie opened the door of his crate.
But greet the day we must, and soon we found ourselves plodding along the North Loop trail on the snowless frozen tundra. I don’t know what depth the frost has reached at this point, but not very far beneath our land, the water table is still liquid. Hydrostatic pressure is pushing it up above ground where it freezes in slippery growing mounds on our trail.
Asher had no interest in lingering after the horses were taken care of because the pads of his feet were getting almost as cold as Cyndie’s fingers. The little black pigeon that I have taken to calling “Plucky,” must have been suffering from cold feet, too. After pecking away at the cracked grains beneath where Swings was eating and having spillage from Swings’ mouth shower its feathers, the fearless bird chose to perch on Light’s back.
To a bird’s feet, that must feel like standing on an electric blanket.
Our agenda for the day involves taking Asher up to the lake with us for a single overnight visit in order to meet a contractor tomorrow for a quote on carpentry work, both indoors and out. It’s tricky figuring out what to bring for such a short getaway that will still involve walking a dog in extremely cold temperatures.
We have horse duties covered for tonight and tomorrow morning, but that’s it, so we need to return by dinnertime tomorrow.
Tonight will be a big night for NFL fans as my Minnesota Vikings will be doing battle in Detroit against the Lions in a single-game competition that will determine Division Champion and playoff seeding. It is hard for my tiny mind to perceive that some people will be oblivious to the significance. It’s as if there might be other issues of greater importance in this world.
Not to the 8-year-old boy in me!
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Remarkably Still
It was so cold outside this morning, it almost felt like winter. The key ingredient that was missing was snow. I feel sorry for places in the world that historically experience this kind of cold but don’t get the months of snow cover that I was able to experience growing up. This environment of things being frozen solid but lacking the beauty and softness of a season-long blanket of wonderful snow is rather sucky.
Still, it was an absolutely beautiful morning despite the lack of temperature. We didn’t have any degrees. Zero Fahrenheit on the thermometer.
While I was outdoors, not a single vehicle traveled our road. When no one is moving about within earshot, it feels like Cyndie and I are the only ones in the world. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It is noteworthy because of how rare an instance it is. The quiet was simply luscious. The air was still and the cold temperature seemed to lock everything in place.
The chilly air frosted whiskers but otherwise didn’t appear to bother the horses at all this morning. Compared to those warm days with fog limiting visibility, these cold, crisp days allow the horses easy viewing, which is much more calming on their nerves.
One other rewarding thing about cold weather in the winter is the clear skies that accompany it. When Cyndie pulled into the driveway last night, she stopped to capture the view.
The sun had dropped below the horizon, creating a golden glow at our horizon and lighting up the crescent moon and Saturn out in space.
It’s cold.
It’s still.
It’s beautiful.
It’s drearily lacking in snow.
There’s still time for that last one.
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Winter Sunbathing
After the beautiful snowfall, we got some sun, and horses know to take every advantage of a clear sky in the winter. When I glanced up from hauling bales of hay from the shed to the barn, I had to stop to take a picture of three of the mares all lined up and looking like they were all business about sunbathing.
It was interesting to me because they normally align themselves perpendicular to the rays to catch the full advantage broadside. It wasn’t that cold at that time so I figure they were more interested in bathing their minds in all the benefits of the sun’s full-spectrum energy.
Mia chose to take it up one notch and parked herself where she could also enjoy brunch while she bathed.
That’s how smart horses do sunbathing in the winter.
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Relative Something 