... again.
The snow came in Sunday night and with it, the bitter cold. The kind of frigid, biting weather that makes you want to stay in, close to a fire in the woodstove with a good book in your hand. But when you live on a homestead, there's always work to be done and animals to be fed and taken care of. Some of the work is what you plan on, and some like the walk I took yesterday, wasn't exactly what you had in mind.
We've moved the horses back and forth across the farm a number of times the last few months. Mainly because we were weaning Liberty, our nine-month-old little Palomino filly who needed to be separated from her mom, Ria for six weeks (you can read my blog about it blog here). That all went well and once they were reunited, they've been happy as can be, along with Casper the white pony nearby.
But with the heavy snow we got the night before last, I've had to keep a close eye on them to make sure they're weathering the storm okay. Since we're still fairly new horse owners, and I still have a good bit to learn, I get a lot of my horse-sense advice from our good friend Dennis Traywick, who grew up raising, breaking, and riding horses back in North Carolina where he's from. And so when he called yesterday morning and recommended I get them out of the weather and into some stalls, I put my book about farming down and found myself trudging across the farm leading one horse, with the others close behind.
It was miserably cold, and yet, incredibly beautiful at the same time. One of those times and moments in our lives when we're doing something we didn't want to do, but are so, so glad we got to do it.
A time, when we think... I almost missed this.
It continued snowing most of the day and it kept accumulating (which is very unusual for us here in middle Tennessee) until it finally let up just before nightfall.
I checked on and fed the horses again this morning and they're happy as can be in the big barn with the doors closed and lots of warm hay. Much like I'll be this evening when I get back to my spot by the woodstove, with a book in my hand.
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PS: Thanks to my nephew Mikel Hunt, for taking the cold walk with me and the horses, and with his camera, making it one we could remember...
