Relative Something

Much of the U.S. is experiencing dramatic levels of cold outside so I don’t feel alone in my experience tending to the horses this morning. There is an interesting sort of pressure pushing on you when trying to do everyday tasks at extremely cold temperatures.

The horses handle it as stoically as they always do against weather extremes. They were pretty much all business this morning as they consumed their feed pellets while I was cleaning up the incredibly hard frozen rubble of manure from around their feet.

The fresh snow cover offered clear evidence of unseen goings on overnight. Plenty of hoof prints and turned up leaves exposed deer activity in our woods that intrigued Asher greatly. The horses appear to have been active in both the hay field and the back pasture. The connecting gates between those two fields are not currently open so the horses must choose a single opening from each of the two paddocks to get out.

In the past, they have been slower to cover so much ground after a snowfall. One side or the other of the paddocks will show little to no tracks for days. This morning their tracks reveal they had been moving around more than usual in the last 14 hours.

Back inside, I had a warm couch partner keeping me company after breakfast.

I was thinking about preparing this blog post but Asher seemed to prefer I focus on him instead. He rearranged himself when I brought my computer to my lap and Cyndie took a picture.

He looks so cute it’s hard to feel frustrated with his escape yesterday morning that led to our neighbor from the south phoning to alert us to the unsanctioned whereabouts. I was plowing at the end of the driveway and hadn’t heard my phone ring. The neighbor was out plowing, too, and pulled up to share the news in person.

While we were talking, Asher came trotting back. I didn’t have a leash with me so I hopped on the Grizzly and enticed Asher to race me back to the house. He happily took up the challenge but I don’t think he liked that I decided to drive so fast he could barely keep up.

I figured it would be to our advantage to make sure he was exhausted. Taking him out for extra exercise in these temperatures is contra-indicated.

Thank goodness it is warm inside.

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