It's been a while! Things got busy and I'm finally having time to sit down to write again.
Records are fun to break - speed, distance, weight - but not temperature. This winter has not been fun. I mean, we live in the South. If I have to put up with 100 degree summer days, I shouldn't have to freeze in January. And that's what we did - set a new record for consecutive hours below freezing at 200 hours and 19 minutes. Hurray. We've lived here for just over 4 years now, and I had never seen the large pond out front frozen over...until now. Completely frozen over, end to end, all the way to the bank. Craziness.
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| Hockey, anyone? |
And it snowed! The first snow not so bad, but the second, 4 inches. Now, I know you are thinking hey, aren't you from up North? Four inches of snow should be nothing! Well, all true. Until you live somewhere that doesn't have any snow plows, or big stockpiles of salt, or ways to clear the roads, along with people who didn't grow up driving in the crud. An inch of snow is enough to completely shut down a southern city. I've seen it happen. More than that is absolutely crippling!
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| It snowed so hard you could hardly see down to the woods! |
I bet you are thinking so you are stuck at home in the snow, you rode the horses in it and it was fun and beautiful! Sigh. I wish. It's counterintuitive that there's more work on a farm in the winter. Hoses and hydrants freeze. Hay needs moved and fed. Horses blanketed. Old, arthritic legs need wrapped at night. We decided to keep the horses in at night this winter to ease up on old Chuck and his sore feet, which meant stalls had to be cleaned every day, night time hay had to be fed so they could keep warm, etc.
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| The front yard |
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| Ok, mom, we are done playing. Can we come in now? |
Plus, on the really crappy side, Deuce got injured in training just after Thanksgiving. We tried rest and supportive therapy, but he didn't really improve. Turns out he has a damaged collateral ligament. Vet said we are looking at 6-9 months of rest for it to heal. So right now, I am rideless. More on that in the next post.
But - it's not as dismal as it seems. We have a good handle on taking care of the boys in the cold now. I seem to have accumulated enough blankets for the horses that they always had a dry change of clothes. And because of the cold and snow, we ended up with a new family member. A woman saw a small cat get hit by a car on the road in front of our farm, and stopped to pick her up. She couldn't keep her, and because I'm a sucker, I took the kitty in. We took a trip to the vet and turns out she has a broken hip. Amazingly enough the vet said it would heal on its own, just give it time. So the kitty is living in an upstairs bathroom until she heals, gets spayed, and is ready to become another barn cat. We named her Flurry - she came to us in a snow storm, and also after my favorite hockey player. It's been about 6 weeks and she's running and jumping and playing so she's ready to start her life as a barn cat!
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| Little Flurry |
Plus, I kinda like the cold. I mean, I could do without the whole "all the water is frozen and if I am outside any longer my eyeballs will freeze, too" for days on end, but I like the change in seasons. I like the early morning walk I take when it snows and the only other footprints are from the animals we share the farm with. It's quiet with no cars on the roads. I love when the horses are sent out after a snow and they walk outside like "hey, where did all this white stuff come from?!" And then I like having my tea while I warm up in front of the fire and watch cartoons.
Oh, and can't forget these girls - I was very worried about my bees in the long stretch of cold we had. They were a small colony headed into winter and I didn't feel they had enough food stored up. We wrapped the hive in insulation, but I had my doubts. The first warm day we had, I was thrilled to see lots of activity! They made it!
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| The girls out and about on a warm afternoon |
Happy trails!
-J.
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