First Rain, Then Snow

Once again, we're under snow. 

If that sentence comes with a note of disappointment it has been misinterpreted. But...

Once again it is freezing balls outside plus a nasty wind chill.

That sentence should be taken with disappointment. I love snow, but can't it just show up and then lull around 30 degrees to prevent it from freezing without making life miserable for us non-hairy apes?

We had a hint of spring show up, went from snow and ice all around us and negative temperatures, to a balmy 50 degrees with rain, rain and more rain. We even had a thunderstorm roll through! As I predicted, that one tepid day would ruin the rest of winter for us as we yearn again for a day worthy of wearing a tee-shirt and not being immediately shuttled to the nearest ICU for frostbite injuries. 

In fact, we had standing water. Everywhere. And it was glorious, did I mention that already? 

Our water hydrants even had a chance to thaw completely! Three of the four froze it was so cold and I was getting pretty tired of running water out by hand everywhere (four horses and a henhouse will drink more than imagined). 

The horses seemed to congregate more than usual to discuss the warm temperatures and impending rains too.

I did take full advantage of the nice weather to get some ride time in on Jobi at the very least. Aligarh has to wait until we get the rest of the stalls finished in the arena, but that's another story to be told at another time.

The spring-like day seemed to kick off some sort of disillusionment on the part of my horses too, as my cousin's mare came into a false heat and my Paint gelding (ahem, who isn't a gelding..) decided he's mature enough to talk sweet to her over the fence. That gelding party won't come quickly enough this spring. :)

Here's a picture of Corbell, Paint "gelding", before spring kicked in. See the standing water? That's just snowmelt, the rain hadn't even shown up yet.

 

At least he's polite about it.

Lunged Jobi last night in the arena for a bit, keeping an eye on his feet. They're feeling better since I added in the daily routine of applying a new anti-fungal to the frog. Him and Corbell both actually. But I bought some dental syringes that have a special narrow tip to help get the cream down in the crevice in his contracted hooves. "Get in and stay there!" is what I say when I apply it, seems to help the potency. 

He's such a good horse to have around. I did the same with Corbell afterwards, applied his fungal cream and did some lunging. Just left Jobi to wander freely in the arena, he decided to park himself at the outer edge of the lunging circle so I had a reason to school Corbell on why we don't make lunge attacks at horses in passing while being lunged. Short lesson, helps to have a horse like Jobi just stand there like, "I don't care what you say, I'm NOT moving so get to it pony boy."

And here's one of Aligarh with his "girlfriend" Phoenix.