Cold!

It's not the coldest it's ever been, but after the lovely 'warm weather' of 34 degrees last week, 15 degrees with a windchill of 8 feels cold. The snow and ice that melted a little and created a slushy mess is now frozen solid, making the driveway an ice skating rink. We got a little snow overnight, and now the wind is drifting it into mounds and hills, masking ice and frozen horse poop and thus making walking in the pasture a hazard.

Normally I wouldn't worry about walking the fence in such weather, I'd just do a cursory glance at it while feeding hay and turning everyone out. Today, though, I had to do something about it, and of course I wasn't dressed for it at all (what a day to have my only pair of flannel lined jeans in the wash!)

I did my usual glance while feeding, and noticed that one of the wood fence posts was leaning. I didn't think a lot about it, until I saw the electric cord that runs along the top of the fenceline was broken and dangling on the ground. Crap.

I walked out and saw the post was actually broken at the base, which is pretty impressive for a pressure treated 4x4 wood post. The fence was the only thing holding it up. So I go back into the barn, get my tools and some extra fence cord, and get to work. I'm glad I got a new barn jacket for Christmas, as I was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt (thinking I would just be working in the barn). That jacket is so nice, it covered my rump and the hood protected me from the wind without hampering my vision.

After fixing the fence, I walked the rest of the paddock to check for breaks or grounding. There was a part that got covered with snow when the neighbor thought he'd be nice and scrape the snow off the barnyard. It was nice, but he bent a fencepost in the process. One more thing to fix in the spring.

When I was satisfied that now one would get out or hurt themselves, I finished the barn chores, brought in Gem, Jul, and Sparky to get them out of the wind, and headed back to the house for a well deserved hot shower. I'm still thawing out, but I feel a bit more human and less like an icicle.

Catching up

It's been a while since I've posted anything, so I thought I'd summarize they past few months, and try to post more regularly in the future.

Never had been easier to handle since he got home from the trainer. He leads without being pushy, he picks up his feet without a fight, and I can brush him all over without him being touchy. He's pretty dominant out in the pasture, but I can't really do much until the thaw comes and I can put up new paddocks.

Alex is growing like a weed! At a few months shy of two years he's about as tall as his dam, though a little butt high at the moment. He's such a sweetheart, and leads and stands for the farrier with no problems. I've got his Pinto and Half-Arab registration papers ready to go, I've just been holding off until he's gelded (which should be soon).

Willow's Pinto registration application will be mailed this week, hopefully there won't be a problem with the two choices of name I came up with.

Hope had a pasture incident the other day that had her bleeding profusely from a cut just above her coronet band. When I first saw it her hoof was bright red and I thought she had cut her heel bulb through to the coronet band. I washed and wrapped it and gave her a little Bute and kept her on stall rest for a couple of days. After I unwrapped it, I saw it wasn't as bad as I thought, but I wrapped it again for protection and turned her out. That night, I removed the bandage and let the wound air out. She's doing well, a little sore but healing well. I'm hoping I'll be able to send her out for training this year, along with Faith and Willow.

The older horses are doing well, Sparky especially. She's doing so much better than last year, you wouldn't believe that it was the same horse! She's put weight back on, is more aligned in the hips, isn't laying down all the time, and has a zest for life that was missing last winter though to July.

Jul is 37 this year, and is bright and cheerful and has good teeth. Gem is 31, and doesn't have good teeth like his dam, but eats well anyway and acts like he's a teenager. Tassel is also 31, and seems to be feeling her years, but has a bit of spunk every once in a while. Heather is 30 and energetic, I'm hoping to lose some weight and head off to do some light trail riding with her.

Bahim is 26 this year, and has his issues, mostly with his teeth. He choked in October, and freaked me out. The vet came out and tubed him, and there was so much senior feed that came out. She then floated his teeth, and stated he has no real grinding surface anymore, they're plate smooth, so I have to really watch out for choke. He refuses to eat softened pellets, so he gets Purina Senior which seems to crumble better in his mouth. I have his feed pan close to the ground as well, and that seems to have helped.

Rho is in good weight, though he still needs to be sedated to trim his feet. I just don't know what happened, he used to be really good about it.

Fiesta the Wonder Hinny is doing well, plump and sassy. His hooves have been under control for a while not, no more long feet and rocking back on his heels. It took a while to get to this point, and I'm glad we finally did. He also stands for trims with almost no fussing!

All the others are fine, plump and fluffy and content to eat hay and play tag in the pasture. Hopefully I'll keep up with blogging this year, so my posts aren't always so long!