We lost about a foot of snow overnight with all of the rain. Unfortunately, it’s now a skating rink in all of the pathways, which is less than fun. But it is supposed to stay above freezing during the day for the next week, so who knows how much snow we’ll lose. As long as the ground stays frozen, we are okay with not much snow cover. (My inner gardener just cringed, badly. Snow cover is good for plants!)
It’s been really windy out there. I had a chance to look out the window and watch the critters and the sheds, while I was waiting for Frank to run a quick errand to the village. None of the sheds budged in the wind, even the gusts at 35mph. (I love our weather station, the one we still have on the roof.) (That’s an old photo, showing Frank with short hair and much heavier.) I think it was good for me to see that. Maybe I’ll stop worrying so much when I hear the wind when I’m sleeping, and will stop having nightmares.
Valerie and I got Polly to follow the Red Scoop of Joy, while on a lead in her halter. I know horse people have all sorts of official ways for teaching a horse to be led. I don’t really know those ways, so unless a horse-training fairy falls out of the sky and volunteers to train her, we gotta go with what I know works with most critters. She really wants to find a way to keep Polly for herself, to be ridden. I’m going to look around to see if I can find someone local who can help.
The animal drama of the day (and there always seems to be some animal drama every day) is that the pigs got out. We got Ginny back quickly, but Hermione went walkabout in the horse field. Polly went nuts, all excited and giddy, and worried me with all her bucking and rearing. She was playing, but she is lethal when she does that. We lost a lamb to that this fall. But then Prince decided that pigs weren’t safe near Polly, and damn near took a chunk of her back out with his bite. (I pity the coyote that comes into his field, and I wonder if we can rig it so that the horses have a field that encircles the sheep and chickens?) Hermione is okay, and back in her pen, but wow was that not fun, running around chasing pigs and horses in a skating rink and cold wind.
The pups are wiped out. Being a farm dog is hard work! We are too, really, but determined to stay awake some tonight. Jeremy is headed over to spend the night. He’s really not going to enjoy her waking him up at 6am tomorrow morning! She wakes up then like clockwork, except when it is 5am.