The Things We Do For Love

Let me start by saying that Ed and I are not really into Valentine's. While I am a fan of celebrating love, I am a believer that what happens on one day a year does not define whether someone loves you or not.

Sometimes though there are exceptions. Like today.

Yesterday we were hammered with a blizzard. Three times we cleared a path to the barn only to find it completely obliterated the next time I went out. Mostly we cleared it for d'Arcy- with his hind end these days he can't really deal with deep snow anymore.

I remember when he could bomb through the snow. 

This morning I had to carve a path to the barn again-the snow was up to my thighs. I never even questioned what I was doing. While this is the weather that makes me long for an indoor I am happy to have them home rather than worrying about them at a boarding facility and feeling guilty that I can't help the BO.

you can see that the wind has made deep drifts and then nothing.
The path I carved is deep- the ground slopes towards the house which
makes the photo deceptive

 After feeding the horses I went back into the house to load up on caffiene. Ed used the tractor to clear the paddock so I could let the horses out. A strand of my fence had come undone as well and I had to trudge through the snow to fix it. When Ed had the small paddock cleared I let them out. They moved around the small area snorting and trotting. I then started to work on clearing a rough path to the bigger field. It took a while while Irish supervised watched closely 'hurry up!'

not sure if you can see the path but for perspective the fence posts are over 4 feet

After a quick inspection Irish ran out to the field. Carmen decided to carve her own path through the drift. 

I think that Carmen might be learning to enjoy snow: 

She was pretty adorable prancing up to me and then stopping to look at me wide eyed with snow on her nose (sorry no photo or video). 

Wow, this is a lot of snow. And it's kinda fun! 

As Ed continues to plow out the driveway and I am getting ready to go back out and shovel I am struck by what we're willing to do for the creatures we love. I am not alone. My FB feed is full of updates shovelling snow and getting the horses out. 

If it's not love then it might just mean that we're crazy. And that couldn't be it. 

I am sure that Irish and Carmen appreciate it. Right? Right?

Another Storm Day

There is a blizzard hitting the east coast of Canada today. It started last night and is still going strong at noon today. Police are advising people to stay off the roads and a lot of businesses, colleges, daycares and public offices are closed. It is a day to hunker inside and wait for it to all be over.

Unless you have animals. They need to be cared for no matter how you feel or whatever the weather. Responsibility is getting up and donning 4 layers of clothing to head out to the barn to feed, clean and otherwise take care of the horses. Love is not minding doing it. Don't get me wrong. The weather has been very very cold: -29 with the wind chill. For those of you on the Farenheit system that translates to freaking cold. So cold that the ends of your fingers get numb despite the gloves and when you come in you start to get feeling back in your face and it doesn't feel good. But despite that I don't mind having to do it. It comes with the territory.

from the kitchen window this morning. Turns out this was a lull in weather

So I put on my layers and trudged though the drifts to the barn. I made sure that their hay racks and water buckets were full and came in for coffee. (let me just say that with these frigid temperatures I am glad I have the heated buckets).

I went out again around 10:45 to check on them. Turns out that horses are not as impressed with the concept of a 'snow day'.

I went into Steele's stall to put on his halter. I wanted to put him in the cross ties to clean out his stall.
uh uh
He backed away. I came to his head again and started to put the halter on.
NO!
This time he shook his head, backed up and gave a little rear.

hmm. I don't think so. I don't really care that he probably wanted to go out and that this was not typical for a morning routine. The reality is that he had no choice in this. The halter was going on and he was coming out to stand in the cross ties. period. I approached him and he reared up a bit higher. This time I was ready and smacked him on hte belly with the halter. He came down with surprise. I stood very still and waited for him to think about this for a second. He blew softly and I came up to him calmly and cooly and put on the halter. Once it was on I led him out and put him in the cross ties. I then carried on with my plans. He pawed while I cleaned out his stall but I ignored that. I did not want to do anything that would escalate. Instead I waited for him to stop pawing and then spoke to him softly.
'good boy'
His ears came forward and he looked at me. I carried on with the cleaning. He started pawing again but this time stopped much sooner. I spoke again. And that was it. He stood there giving the impression of a well behaved equine.

I know that he feels like this being all cooped up:

But that doesn't mean that he can be bratty. I wasn't angry with him, there's no point. I believe that you get much farther just carrying on and being calm then getting upset. It's days like this though that I wish I could win the lottery (of course that would entail actually buying a ticket) so I could build an indoor. It would come in handy.

After Steele, I brought Irish out. He too was not impressed but knows how to express his feelings without getting into too much trouble (that comes from being older and more mature he says). I then refilled the bird feeders and hung them back up outside. I wasn't expecting the birds today but they came and I want to make sure that they have some seeds. I threw them a couple of chopped apples too. 

In the meantime, I've put a roast in the slowcooker and plan to stay inside.

What do you do on bad weather days?