Cold! Cold!!! Cold!!!!!

Okay, remember a few posts ago I titled it "Brrr..."? Well, if that was Brrr, then now we are heading into MAJOR BRRRRR!!! We had a winter storm yesterday so the horses spent most of the day inside. Unfortunately we didn't get snow, we got ice (just what we didn't want!). We had sleet, freezing rain, and rain all day, it was just gross! This morning it was about 20 but very windy. The horses went out, they needed to run around, but they will probably come in early because the temperature is supposed to drop. I worked in the barn from 6 - 8, and when I came up from the barn I decided to start the truck so it would thaw before I ran errands. First I had to chisel open the passenger side door (forget the driver's side, that was encased in even more ice!). That took a while and my fingers froze but I did it, started the truck and turned the defroster on HIGH! I opened both doors last night and cleaned them hoping to avoid chiseling today but obviously it didn't work... The truck has been running for 15 minutes and I still can't see any windshield! I'm going to go have breakfast. Hopefully by then it will be thawed and I can run errands, then come back and finish chores. I will write more later...

Well it wasn't thawed. I had to scrape the windshield, but at least I could open the doors! Errands are done. Going to warm up for a bit then head to the barn...

Back to the barn from 11:30 - 1:30, finished chores, then started buttoning everything up and getting ready for it to be really cold tonight. It's supposed to be about 0 with wind chills of -10 to -25! The Dutch doors are closed (not easy since the latches were frozen), all the stalls have heated buckets, and the only things left to do are fix feed for tonight and bring the horses in. Carla came on her lunch break and helped, then we tried one of the blankets on Deja. It fit nicely, Carla is going to come back this evening and we'll put it on her for the night since she has an outside stall. The weather folks are predicting that it will be cold all day tomorrow, and even colder tomorrow night, before it starts to warm up a bit on Thursday. I guess it is January, we've been spoiled up till now!

So, it's 5pm and the horses and goats are all set for the night. Deja has her blanket on and is looking good. Carla helped me try Ziegy's blanket on him - it fits great and he was a good boy. He's not going to wear it tonight because he's in but I will put it on him in the morning before he goes out. He just doesn't have a nice winter coat like the rest do. After a year of good food and care he should be fine next winter with a good thick coat. Tomorrow I will feed them at 6am as usual, but they won't go out then. They will go out after the sun hits the paddock. My friend Barb is going to come then and help with chores (she comes every Wednesday morning and does water buckets and other things). It will be another longgg day!