Snow Week?

OK, it was fun when it was just a couple of days of snow, but now I'm reconsidering! We had another storm come in and bring yet more snow and I've been basically trapped at home for the last 24 hours, stressing about not being able to get to work and whether I really filled B's water bucket full enough on my last visit and whether she's drinking enough.

Frozen farm

More snow is predicted for later in the day and all day tomorrow, then again Thursday so I might as well just book vacation time because I don't think my work commute will be happening this week! The water bucket issue I will solve this afternoon, I hopefully have a plan to get some additional big buckets of warm water to her.

Been packing water to her using her grain bucket, which is inconvenient for me, and quite confusing for B!

I know the "real" winter places like to make fun of us out here, but seriously, we are wimps in the winter. I don't have heated buckets or really any winter strategy for the horses...typically we get a day or two of cold a handful of times mid winter and then it's warm again, so it's not a big deal. Also, having lived elsewhere I've got to say there's something different about the snow or road maintenance here because it snows and it basically becomes an instant sheet of ice on the roads.

Ice skating potential under the layer of snow. I stopped to take this picture on the road to the barn and my first attempt caught someone oncoming sliding off the road. I deleted the evidence because he was embarrassed (his truck is way bigger and better equipped than mine, lol) and also I'm nice like that ;)

The bad news is that even when I have been able to get to the barn, I haven't been able to ride much, so I'm really not in any way prepared for the clinic next weekend. I've never been a big believer in practicing for clinics because I'd rather just let the clinician see a normal day in the life, but this is taking things to a new extreme - it's been to icy to even safely walk down the road to get to the indoor the past week, too icy to safely ride at all, really.

B would still like to be entertained, please and thank you.

That being said, of course I went out yesterday morning for a 90 min ride on the trails and pretty much regretted the whole thing. The footing sucked and B was stir crazy and prancy and not being at all careful, so there where several times we were sliding up and down hills or really scrambling to keep footing. When I turned around to head back I opted for some of the more sheltered trails in the forest, but the wind suddenly got super crazy and there were snow heavy trees and branches cracking and falling all around us. Also, some odd howling noises around us at one point - the person I was with was like "Not what you're thinking! It's owls, definitely owls!' but I think we were both thinking "Wolves!" Obviously that didn't add any warm fuzzies to our adventure and the horses were getting pretty upset. It honestly felt like we were in some horror/fantasy movie (snowstorm, deep dark isolated forest, horseback, wolves?!), and not in a good way! Luckily, we all made it home safe and no "owls" made themselves known.  I feel better knowing I at least tried to give B a bit of an outing, but I'm not sure I'll be repeating that adventure soon.

Trying to look all innocent, was actually quite willing to ditch me and leave me to the wolves ;)

* I feel like I should explain the wolves - yes, we have them, yes there is a known pack in the area I ride. We hear them the odd time, and they're blamed for the odd person's pet disappearing, but generally speaking sightings are very rare and they keep to themselves and are not something any trail user should worry too much about.