Well, what a variety of extremes the past 30 days or so have been! We've had a dusting of snow, warmth where horses wore no blankets for days, mud, pouring rain where horses in blankets ended up damp and chilled after a couple hours, inches of snow on top of warm wet muddy deep ground, and finally now single digit high temps and prolonged strong winds freezing the ground in lumpy ankle-killing glory under the snow.
Every day I take a look at the detailed hourly forecast--percent chance of precipitation, wind direction, wind speed, etc--and determine if horses are going out at normal time or staying in for an extended breakfast. If we're working/training outdoors that day or doing training in the aisle of the barn; if our outdoor training is going to include longeing or if it's too wet and deep and we'll be working in hand on the driveway or taking a long walk around the perimeter of the pastures or even along the edge of the field to the woods. If horses will be out until dinner time or if they will need to come in early and warm up/dry off in their stalls before the sun goes down.
Lately it's been long walks around and zero longeing. Or, it's been working in hand in the barn aisle. Both the LBM (Little Black Mare) and the Poetess are getting really great at reading my body language as to when to trot, or halt, or back up, or turn on their haunches. Halting square and standing attentively until I indicate I want them to move. Just because it's not the kind of weather that permits riding (was actually going to get on the LBM last week, then it rained and rained and rained for days on end until it turned to sleet then snow and howling winds) doesn't mean that there isn't training that can be done.
Including, apparently, introducing the LBM to a mounting block. I had put a 3-step mounting block on my Christmas Wish List, as I'm not about to attempt to mount the Poetess from the ground when I start riding her. All four of my kids went in together and bought me not only a 3-step mounting block, but a green one (green is my favorite color)! I didn't want it to get covered in ice and snow, so when the weather turned nasty I brought it into the barn. LBM acted as if she'd never seen one before, so some of her in the aisle training sessions have focused on walking up to and standing quietly beside it after I move it to the dead center of the aisle. Now she walks up, halts (instead of swinging her butt as far away as she can), and stands quietly while I (purposely) stomp up the steps and stand over her. I think we're good to go on this concept indoors, just need the weather to cooperate so we can try it outdoors.
Back before the current real winter bitter weather arrived, DH and I (mostly DH while I did other barn type chores) got the stall fronts built for two more stalls. I need the temperature to go back above freezing so I can get the wood stained and sealed. Maybe in a week or two, if the long-range forecast holds true. We're holding off on building and hanging the stall doors until that's done.
DH also fixed the short pieces of siding that are between the big barn door and the little loft doors. Years and years ago the tops of those pieces had gotten pulled away from the header and over time more and more chaff from putting up or throwing down hay fell down into the crack, making it bigger and bigger. Well, it had gotten to the point that it was not allowing the loft doors to slide properly. So one abnormally warm day (possibly even New Year's Day), DH decided he was going to fix it.
Rather than getting the extension ladder and doing the repair in an OSHA-approved way, he decided it would be quicker and easier if I just lifted him up in the tractor bucket (the new tractor can actually reach almost to the loft floor). It was easier to move side to side in the tractor bucket unscrewing the two pieces of siding when taking them off and them putting them on and screwing them in again. With a ladder he would have had to climb up, unscrew one, climb down, move the ladder, climb up, unscrew the second one, climb down to put down the cordless and get the broom, climb up. . .
Once the siding was off, he pulled out all the (yucky, moldy) built up chaff and swept the header clean before putting the siding back on again. Good as new! Or, honestly, maybe even better than new because this time he fastened the tops of the siding pieces much more securely.
In other brand-new horse farm owning news, the water hydrant inside the barn froze over the weekend. It's supposed to be a frost-free hydrant. It's the exact same hydrant (brand and model) that we installed in DH's shop, behind the barn, and beside the garden shed. The hydrant behind the barn is working fine. The one in the garden, when I tested it, works fine. I probably should go test the one in DH's shop, but I haven't. The one in the barn, however, looks like it's going to be out of commission until the Spring thaw. For some reason it has frozen below the level of the barn floor, as evidenced by the frost that formed up to that point then stopped (so, no water in pipe above the frost, just below it). DH is afraid this means it's not draining properly and we're going to have to tear up the concrete floor to get down to the bottom of the hydrant and fix it. :( :( :(
That, more than the frozen hydrant in the barn, bums me out. Ever since experiencing this style of gate latch back in 2016 at a farm I worked at (from March 2016 to Aug 2019) I've known that this is what I wanted on my gates when I finally got my pastures fenced. All the decades of f***ing fiddling around with iced over chains or frosted up double-end snaps on gates that necessitated either sticking my face up to the offending frozen piece and blowing hot breath on it to thaw it, or taking off my glove and risking freezing my bare skin to icy metal in order to heat said icy metal, were going to be behind me once I got my own farm off the ground. Winters and gates were going to be so much better. . . Apparently not. At least, not if I want to use that pasture at all the rest of the season. Fingers crossed the other gate and gate posts don't also shift or heave this winter and maybe I can just keep horses in pasture two until Spring so I don't have to deal with a chained gate???
As for that frozen hydrant, as long as the one outside the barn continues to work properly (frost-free), it's not a big deal to fill stall water buckets from that. I'll worry about the logistics and ramifications ($$$) of tearing up the concrete after Spring comes. DH is worrying about it enough currently that by Spring hopefully he'll have figured out the best way to go about repairing/replacing it.
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