Unbelievably, it’s
still January… How? Nobody knows! Fortunately, tho, in another
3,846 weeks two days we’ll be into February. Still winter, obvi. Probably still gonna be cold and gross… But maybe an improvement anyway? We’ll see, I guess lol…
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| pre-storm: the most bundled up hobo east of the mississippi! |
Chances are, if you’re reading this, you’re within huge proportion of the US that got slammed with an epic cross-country snow storm last weekend. It was … a LOT.
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| a very dire forecast indeed for this part of the world |
Tho, interestingly enough, the forecast was remarkably consistent (and appropriately serious) pretty well in advance. Everybody knew it was coming, and
everybody most people planned accordingly.
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| big daddy, most impractical of commuter vehicles, actually proved useful parking amidst the city drifts! |
Members of the barn staff and care team — including the primary paid force of guys who live on site, and the flex folks who cover days off and some weekend stuff — were all able to juggle days and shifts etc to ensure the main guys got enough time off before the storm.
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| the barn guys did such a surgically precise plow job, tho, the civic should be free soon! |
They had a plan, folks were rested and ready, and it all went super smoothly! What a crazy feeling to be hunkered down, snowed in, off the roads bc of ‘state of emergency’ restrictions, and
completely at peace with the knowledge that Doozy was absolutely fine!
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| anyway. ponies. WILD ponies! |
This is probably one of the first times in my life as a boarder that I wasn’t among the core group of folks gettin shit done when circumstances required it. What a luxury!
Instead, I basically got to just… stay out of the way, let the guys do their thing, and otherwise just wait for the coast to clear to show up and play with my pony!
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| just look at that sweet face and tell me she isn’t the most precious?? |
Now, granted. Doozy is a
VERY different type from Charlie. Sure, she’s still spoiled rotten and considers 3 days of no grooming to be a shocking dereliction of my duties. Absolute neglect, no doubt.
But Charlie, that sweet silly gelding, may he be resting in peace… if he didn’t get his daily grooming, homeboy was as likely as not to take things into his own hands and
stick a leg thru an actual fence while trying to scratch dat itch!
Ahem.
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| ooooooh they heard the peppermint crinkles LOL, **Incoming!!** |
Doozy is… not that kinda girl lol. Tho naturally she was quite happy to finally get groomed again anyway — especially under her hood!
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| speed racer, look at that blur!! |
With things as they are outside, tho, everything is slowing
wayyyy dowwwn on the productivity scale. Tho I still want to make sure Doozy gets regular opportunities to move out and let off some energy!
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| lol. just kidding… ‘twas more of a mild lope |
Turnout in the indoor with her favorite little bebe morgan field mate seemed like the perfect activity! Nice soft flat footing in a safe environment!
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| for real, tho, check out those stems! |
Naturally, neither mare seemed to really know what to do with themselves. They weren’t super stir crazy (probably bc it’s tiring enough just trudging thru the snow to the round bales), so there wasn’t much in the way of galloping zoomies, bucking or squealing…
Doozy let out a few little bucks and bolts, but mostly just kinda lazily ‘self lunged’ LOL! To be honest, both mares seemed far more interested in inspecting the two tractors that were parked behind the camera to stay out of the snow…
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| sweet spoiled mare would like us to please clean up all that nasty icy mess! |
All in all, not a bad way to get a little enrichment! Conditions aren’t likely to meaningfully improve any time soon — with temperatures staying well below freezing for at least another week, and the possibility of another storm coming too.
Not ideal, but them’s the breaks. It IS Maryland tho, so who knows, maybe all this nastiness will be followed by a week of sunny 40*F weather and everything will be back to normal in no time flat! A girl can dream, right?
How did you make out in the storm — still digging out or basically back to business as usual? Or maybe you’re one of the lucky ones and missed the snow entirely?
That's great that you were able to weather out the storm at home and know that the Doozy mare was being well taken care of!!! Fingers crossed it warms up some time soon!
ReplyDeletelol I hope it warms up soon but it doesn’t seem super likely!!
DeleteIt stops snowing in places? That's a thing? I would like to be there 😫
ReplyDeleteLOL! Well the trade off is that places where it stops snowing, they never bother with learning how to deal with or remove snow bc “just wait a couple days!” So storms like this where it stays cold and the snow sticks around, we are a bit screwed haha(sob)
DeleteHere in TX, we got really icy snow which has now been melting and turning everything to mud! I think the snow was easier to deal with, haha! I’m still lugging buckets of water from my house because we are having overnight freezing temps for a few more days and have turned off our outside hose. So not business as usual, but I can at least see the light at the end of the tunnel!
ReplyDeleteUgh yea mud season is definitely worse in someways than snow alone… also isn’t it amazing what you learn about your mgmt set up and opportunities for improvements when the freezing weather sets in?? Glad y’all are mostly doing good tho!
DeleteWhere I am in TX, we got... sleet, with a thin ice base and a thin snow topper - all told more than 6 inches worth. (In fact, I am literally commenting after having just come in from taking a shovel to my driveway to get rid of the 4in ice mound that's been living between our cars before it freezes *again*.) We've actually had metal buildings north of here and into southern OK collapse from the exciting combo of 6+in of ice and construction that never took that into account. No injuries from those so far, but there's some big reining names and repro clinics that are gonna have to rebuild covered arenas and barns.
ReplyDeleteWe got a bit cool for a couple of days - the Canadian prairie version of cool, not the real cold - but no snow! We had a ton of snow in December, the snowiest in over 20 years, but have barely had anything in January.
ReplyDeleteI guess we're paying for missing all the fun last weekend though as it's currently freezing rain overnight. Walking out to the garage tomorrow will be fun. I'm hoping that it will warm up enough by the time I need to drive that the main roads will be ok.
It's already been icy in the fields and the barn yard so I'm sure it'll be a skating rink now and all the horses will be loons once they get onto decent footing inside. Yay.
I'm pretty sure your snow will melt much faster than mine will!
While I in no way wish to minimise the trials and tribulations this storm brought upon everyone in the US, I will admit that I---a million weeks pregnant, stuck in the midst of an African summer heat wave---have fantasized about rolling around in those delicious snow drifts lol
ReplyDelete