On the brighter side, if not warmer. I have 3 male Cardinals at my feeder this morning, nothing prettier against the snow.
jingling and sending warm thoughts and virtual hand warmers to all you folks with the truly ridiculous weather, and outside chores to do and animals to take care of. it’s about 9F where i am, wind chills below zero, and i’m perfectly ready to bitch and moan–until i think of all the people (including the staff at my barn) who are outside working in this. brrrrrrrrrrrrr!!! :eek: so i will stop bitching.
stay warm, people! irish coffee before noon is not unreasonable in this weather. 
[QUOTE=GypsyQ;7946036]
I leaned over the fence to the goat pen this morning to bust a hole in the ice with my handy 2x4. The splatter from the trough froze my coat to the fence.[/QUOTE]
Pouring hot water in the calves’ drinker to unstick the float I splashed a little on my glove. It wasn’t enough to soak through but when I grabed the metal pipe rail to help myself out of the pen, I ripped a piece of glove off in removing my hand too quickly. 
[QUOTE=sascha;7946133]
Pouring hot water in the calves’ drinker to unstick the float I splashed a little on my glove. It wasn’t enough to soak through but when I grabed the metal pipe rail to help myself out of the pen, I ripped a piece of glove off in removing my hand too quickly. :([/QUOTE]
I’m sorry, but I laughed at this. And at the jacket frozen to the fence. Don’t worry, I’m not laughing from a warm place; it’s because I can totally relate. I’m sure karma will get me tonight and I’ll go home to find the auto waterer frozen, or a horse pooped in it, or…actually, it’s snowing, so I think karma is at work right now.
Better clothing than skin! 
[QUOTE=cloudy18;7945513]
Yes, wind chill matters, whether you’re naked and soaking wet or not. Not sure why you think it doesn’t. The wind cuts right through you. One of the mares was laying out in the snow the other night, it was -11. She won’t do that at warmer temps with a colder wind chill. And it’s not because she dislikes wind, because she stands out in wind, rain, sleet crap weather.[/QUOTE]
Our horses from Saskatchewan used to lay down curled up, when the coldest weather was here. They learned it in that common -40F temps there, in the winter herds. Snow blew over them, sometimes enough to mostly cover them, but they were warm. Must have been a learned behavior with other herd horses, since they were TB crosses from racing TB mares, not any western breeds. They were unable to teach our local horses this trait, but sure wish they had.
Was pretty weird to go out the first time it got REAL COLD after purchase, find them all on the ground, but fairly invisible as snow lumps! Called their names, heads came up out of the snowpiles, then they all jumped up to come in!!
[QUOTE=GypsyQ;7946443]
Better clothing than skin! :)[/QUOTE]
Oh hell yes.
70 degrees here!
Frozen manure! In the South!
-35F windchill yesterday in MN… Horses inside, acting crazy…today a lot of snow! My mood is starting to waver… thank goodness for my aweseome barn and indoor.
[QUOTE=saultgirl;7940820]
No mud and no bugs. And no huge weird spiders or poisonous things or tornadoes or earthquakes or tsunami’s. I keep telling myself it’s worth it.[/QUOTE]
We have no bugs, no weird spiders or snakes, no tornadoes, or hurricanes, or blizzards, or floods (unless you count a little on the road once a year), tsunamis - while a possibility haven’t really happened in this millennia. Earthquakes, yes we get one of those every 100 years or so.
We can get mud (but not at my well established, graded ranch)
Winter lows are in the 40’s - we had highs in the 70’s this week.
What DO we have? A really annoying tech boom. Too many damned people. Traffic and high prices. Spare the Air Days.
I spent new years week in Colorado. When I saw the forecast, I thought I might freeze, shatter into a million pieces and die.
I was surprised that a low of -19 and a high of 6 “wasn’t that bad!” There really is something to “dry cold”. I swear I have felt colder in 45 degrees and rain than I did in 0 degrees and clear.
That said - I wasn’t having to deal with horses on my trip! I am still curious as to what stall cleaning is like in those temps!
It’s been negative temps and even more negative windchill here all week. Horses have been in, and many (most?) are crazy. My horse came down with a fever and hugely swollen hind legs (well, mostly the left hind, but the right hind got in on the action as well) on Tuesday, so I had to miss work for an expensive and freezing cold vet call and now am administering a boatload of meds every day plus trying to get him out of his stall a bit daily without him losing his mind.
I hate winter. Every winter I seriously question whether it is worth it to have horses where I live. Then summer arrives and I’m like, “I’m so lucky to have a horse!” I really think my life would be 1,000 times better if I could just move South every winter and bring my pony with us.
I’m very mopey/angry today.
-25 wind chill here this morning. My horse fell on ice on Monday and because he’s a draftie, it took Police, Fire and DPW workers to get him back on his feet. He’s boarded and I was hours away in Maine on my only vacation this year and I was frantic when I got the call, fearing that when my vet arrived, the news would be very bad. We headed home right away but we still had a long drive back that was very stressful as I waited for calls about how he was doing.
I’m hating winter this year but so grateful for such wonderful people who came to his rescue and the fact that he’s ok.
I took thank you notes and a huge chocolate cake to the rescuers. My heroes.
Chai, I’m glad your draftie boy is okay!
I had the absolutely scariest commute to work EVER today. Total whiteout. It wasn’t even snowing when I left my house. So grateful I made it here without having an accident. And the temperature warmed up to 20, WOO HOO!
Yeah, where did this white-out come from???
I knew we were supposed to get “some flurries, possibility of an inch accumulation” here in southern CT this morning. I was cleaning stalls and it was windy but “warm” (woke up to 27 degrees, it was 7 when I went to bed last night so a big warm-up) and I glanced outside and it was total white-out!
This couldn’t have been fun to drive in! I had to squint to see to get from the house to the barn. Glad you got there safe!
Appsolute, cleaning stalls in frigid temps is easy-peasy! The manure balls all freeze solid so they don’t crumble no matter how hard they’re shaken. And inside of a barn there isn’t any wind, so by the time you finish one stall you’re unzipping your jacket and have your hat off because it’s getting warm, LOL! There are plenty of times in sub-zero temps that I walk to the barn bundled up like Randy from The Christmas Story and walk back to the house later carrying my jacket, scarf, hat, etc.
I don’t mind the cold, so no weather rants from me. My horses were in more than out the last few days but they’re laid back about it. I’ve learned to enjoy the stock breeds…these QH are a lot less emotional maintenance than my late, great KWPN mare was.
My only rant is that 4 days ago Mr Blue insisted on “helping” me in the barn that day. He’s not a barn guy, or really an outdoors guy. He froze my frost-free hydrant. He “washed it off” in -10 degree weather. Water ran down inside of it…I’m having someone out to replace it hopefully this weekend. sigh
He keeps repeating, “For better or WORSE honey, calm down!” I keep telling him “Yeah, til death do us part and you’re speeding up that process!” :winkgrin:
Still nasty cold today, but at least the wind finally dropped and we are no longer having a ground blizzard that put visibility to nil for more than 24 hours. It’s -25°C and close to -40° with wind chill but the sun is out and Wallkicker is standing outside in the sun and watching something going on north of here. The cold doesn’t bother him as much as it does me.
was about 38 degrees for about a week while my mother in law was in town then the day she left went back to a nice 70 degrees
You people with your 70 degrees just need to shut it. :mad: :lol:
We’re up to a very tolerable -10 … but the wind? Oh, the wind. Not as bad as it could be, but not exactly enjoyable either.
And the wind directions the last couple of days have had my mare turning herself inside out. “That is NOT where the creaky arena sounds are supposed to come from. I’m going to die of fright right here right now.” :rolleyes:
My barn owner poked her head in last night for our usual nightly chat. I was at the far end of the arena (well as far as I was willing to venture) so I shouted that I couldn’t hear her and to wait until I got over to her because no way was I going to turn down my tunes while on a moving ticking time bomb. It was a both hands on the reins kind of night. :yes:
Our horses are outside in the cold. Hay consumption has about doubled with the single digits, but they are not leaving any so they need it. No hay hogs here, they walk away when full. Have to say they are having fun outside in that cold, lots of running and playing! Races from the back fence to the front water tank and back again, over and over! Deep thick hair is rippling in the wind, manes and tails flying, sure are pretty to watch from the barn door.
Only one has a rainsheet on for a wind breaker. He gets chilled without a cover in the wind and low temps. Never gets shivery, just cold all the way inside him with thermometer checking. Heavy blanket makes him sweat under it, so rainsheet it is. They all get stalled at night, but NEED to go outside to work off their energy. Funny to find the two barefoot baby horses needed to have the ice knocked out of their hooves when they came inside. Haven’t had the barefooters get ice very often, but they stood well for the snowball hammer to do it’s job. Love that tool! Quite tentative walking until the ice was out!! Older horses have snow-rim pads with ice studs in their shoes, so no issues there.
We got some snow, couple inches of the light, fluffy, SPARKLY stuff, and sunny now at 14F. Lots better than other folks who got all the 6 inches and more of snow predicted. We live in a GOOD place! May need to put the chains on the tractor, she was slipping a bit on the rise after spreading manure. All the vehicles are starting well, even in this cold. I am also running the diesel tractor daily, just to make sure it starts well if we should need it for something. Doing OK here, hope it is the same for the rest of you.
