A View of the Snow

Dang...when the Gods give you snow, you just go with it. It's kind of hard to ride the horse when it's 8" of fresh powder on top of 5" of packed ice. So I got some new batteries for my camera and went for a hike about this morning. This is the view of the back of the house. You can see my ski tracks on the lower left. The whole farm looks different in the snow-pretty but in a different way.

ytttttttttttttttttuj that's courtesy of Spidey cat who just walked over the keyboard. Grrrr. My fat cat has her own insulation so doesn't need to try to sit in my lap 24/7.

Anyway, here's the house as viewed from the chicken coop.

The chickens are hanging in there with it being so cold. I guess they don't need toys like the horses do to keep occupied. I saw Oscar nudging his horse ball around today and that helps to keep his busy body mind busy.

Speaking of Oz, I attempted to ride him on Thursday but the footing was so bad and I made a critical error in clothing choice. As someone has already pointed out, snowboard pants are great for making sure anything snowy doesn't stick to them. Thus, they are slippery when applied to, say, a leather item like a horse saddle. Add to that my giant Columbia boots and a pony on a lead rope and you have a recipe for dee-zaster. Fortunately, we didn't pile up but there was a close call when Oscar was trotting through the snow/ice and I didn't have my feet in the stirrups 'cause my big boots didn't want to tuck in easy. The effect of that was a near launch of the slippy pants rider. Somehow we stayed together but I dropped the rope. I turned Oz around and said "go get Beep" and dernit, didn't he just round her up from the trees she was in and park me perfectly so I could reach down and grab the rope. My horse is a cowpony!

I dropped the rope two more times as we attempted to walk across the garden hill and each time Oz got me in position to catch the pony. After the third time I decided the footing was too risky to be messing around playing cowpony. I got off and walked them both down the street a bit so they at least got some exercise.

When I got up today it was 0 degrees. Good thing I havent' been checking the weathe report. WHen it's this cold the only thing I want to know is "will it end soon?" and if the answer is no then I don't want to know. Faulty logic for sure, but it gets me through the cold days.

Joe and I finished fixing the fence today. We had to put in 12 posts yesterday to replace the broken ones and let me tell you, nothing like pounding a t-post in with a torn rotator cuff in the zero degrees but it had to be done to save the pasture. We got new electrical tape up this morning and the last of the posts and now I can rest a bit easier knowing that the next thaw I won't be watching my pasture turn into a mud field.

That's about all the news that's fit to report. Cold, snowy and, um, cold on the farm. Oh, and the Saeco Vienna Deluxe malfunctioned. Now that's a tradegy but nothing a little trip to the Espresso Shop in Chicago can't fix. Soon, ole VPublish Postienna will be churning out hot mugs of courage once again.

I think my skiis are calling....ciao for now.
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