Winter Herd

This afternoon it is slightly colder than minus 35 degrees. Been dropping to below minus 40 degrees at night. Bitter cold. Even my thickest gloves won’t keep my fingers warm to feed a few bales. Had to go to the house and get mitts.

Went up the pasture to check the horses. Lots of tracks show they have been home and spending time in the sheds but I like to actually see them at least every couple of days. There are a couple of youngsters who were at the trainers until late fall that aren’t as fat as I would like them to be and I worry about all of them when it is this cold.

I found them up on the leeward side of a bush area. My saddle horse Keeper started coming as soon as she saw me with Danny the kids’ pony close behind. By the time I greeted Keeper I could see the whole herd of 12 was quite happy to see me and weren’t wasting any time following me home to get into the barn and other shelters to get out of the intense cold. Or so I thought.

They followed me home. I put out a bale of hay in tiny piles about the yard to let them know I was here to help and then had to go to the house and get the mitts. My fingers were painful from the cold.

A quick coffee, warmed up, accepted Dave’s offer to come and help as soon as our daughter got home to look after our grandson who was, of course, not in school today because of the cold. I bedded up the stalls, gathered water buckets, and went out to start bringing them in. Wills who is one of the youngsters I most wanted in the barn, walked right up and put his head in the halter. I brought him into the barn and into a nice cozy stall.  He started munching hay. I felt like a hero.

I headed out for number two only to see the last half of the herd heading up the alley to the pasture. I let out a call to let them know I was still here and offering stalls in the barn. Their heads went up, and they picked up the pace to where the last ones were loping up the alley.

It was obvious they did not want to be “trapped” in the barn. These are a bunch of horses that I can catch anywhere. They love attention. Do they just really not feel the cold like I do?

I put out a few bales of hay in the sheds. I gave Wills the option to stay in the stall or move out to the sheds and he was quite happy to stay in the sheds and not run off to the pasture but didn’t try to go back to the stall in the barn. I hope the rest of my herd is smart enough to remember that there were some treats in the sheds today and come back to see if there is more. But their choice to be in their little herd rather than in my pretty nice barn still surprises me.  It has been minus 40. Sometimes it shocks me to see how well they can handle extreme cold if they have top notch pasture and windbreaks. They really don’t seem very stressed. I thought they would be begging to be in one of the stalls but…. they are out there in their herd. By choice. It is me who wishes they were in a box stall.

I know they know they have the option. I will think of them in the night. Sometimes they amaze me.