If you are unimpressed by animals frolicking in snow, this isn’t the post for you. However if you, like me, could watch animals interact anywhere let alone in the novelty of snow, join me and scroll down for some cuteness! 

Friday afternoon the promised snow arrived, and come morning there was about 3 inches on the ground. The ensuing overnight temperatures in the teens have kept white on the ground even through to today. This was the most snow we’ve ever had since moving to our property in 2010 and a First Big Snow for my year old puppy Kodiak and 2 1/2 year old Sheza.

Sunrise over Snow, December 7th

 Scrappy himself was quite the opposite. He was not perturbed by the cold in the least, as evidenced by his healthy winter coat and drinking trough, the only one with a perfect muzzle sized hole in it. He was less pleased about being put into the box stall Friday night, and was quite happy to be back outdoors in the snowy a.m., in fact eating every less scrap of his snow covered hay leftovers rather than the fresh feed I put out with him! You know your horse is from Nebraska when….

Blaze was doing airs above ground, in hand on my left, on our way out from the stalls, while Desire, ever businesslike, beat out a no nonsense march on my right.

 And finally, silly puppy Kodiak, who SPROINGED through the snow, poking her nose deep in the snow and snorting every three bounces. The two youngsters love the snow, while the more senior dogs can barely be bothered to leave their beds!

Adventure pups Rip and Kodiak

 This morning it was 18 degrees and our water pipes are frozen solid. Nothing like a tea kettle shower, it must be winter. Still it’s gorgeous and sunny and there are (bundled up) adventures to be had!

 Stay safe and keep your critters warm, everyone

I had the final shavings in the stalls, water buckets filled, and 5 horses snugly in their stalls within five minutes of the predicted snow starting to fall late this afternoon. It was a week long effort of cleaning up the barn and prepping it for winter and was concluded in the nick of time!

Everyone went into their stalls pretty politely except my mini horse who had to be convinced once again that he had in fact been handled by humans before (like 3 days ago, when I haltered him perfectly and trimmed his feet..le sigh). Care to know what ultimately stopped the wild beast in his tracks? I believe it was something along the lines of:

“OKAY, STOP YOU LITTLE PRICK” 

And the little bugger stopped in his rapidly departing tracks, and turned to look at me, licking and chewing. I walked right up to him and put a loose loop of rope around and his neck and he followed as polite as could be to his stall on the neck loop.

Okay then. Note to self:change stall name plate to Little Prick.
*****
Sheza continues to entertain and bemuse me with her wild snorting and spazzing coupled with good manners. She *acts* like she’s going to go nuts and flip over backwards but she lowers her head and stuffs it in the halter, moves neatly out around the gate yielding her hindquarters as needed to keep the mini from escaping, and leads completely politely to her stall, all the while jigging and blowing and acting a fool. It’s quite interesting and a lot like her momma Desire, who still to this day snorts and acts like I’m trying to poison her when I first approach her, even with a carrot in hand. Sheza isn’t as suspicious of me as she has that wonderful inherent trust of the much handled foal, but she does act a fool while actually behaving, if that makes sense. AH my silly redhead is ever entertaining.

And look at that shoulder! Baby girl is growing up

Not 2 hours later after the above photo from catching up Sheza, this is the view from my porch!

Happy Holidays, be safe, and stay warm!

 Today between errands and meetings and dropping my husband’s truck at the shop, I got a load of shavings for the stalls. Lots of stall mucking and shavings fluffing ensued and now I have 5 stalls prepped and only 2 that need shavings. All 15 bags went into 3 of the stalls and that didn’t even cover the whole floors of the stalls. I am ridiculously spoiled to have 6 lovely large stalls so I can’t complain that it takes so damn much to fill and clean them, right? So, I won’t! I’m not..I swear. 😉

Anyway the husband is off to work guiding duck hunting in the wee hours of the a.m. tomorrow, and can fill my truck with another load of shavings from Tractor Supply on his way home. In the morning I’ll make sure each stall has enough water buckets clean and prepped, and with the arrival of the rest of the shavings we’ll be ready for whatever sort of weather madness it thrown at us! I’m not sure if I’ll even put the horses away, besides miss fragile hothouse flower Desire and Sheza filly (in danger of slipping around madly in the snow), but it’s good to know the barn is prepped and ready if it get’s too nasty.

Stay warm and safe this weekend everyone, December and WINTER are here!

I had a great ride and a nice time out on the coast but am glad to be home and can’t wait to get out and ride my own steeds. Happy December!