A Reprieve

Sovina's Zorita

The past string of days have put a skip back in my step. The temperatures have been very cold, especially right at dawn, but there has been no wind to speak of and lots of radiant sunshine. We've been able to feed the horses near the house and with no shoveling duties, chores have been a snap (well almost).

One snafu that has caused no small amount of irritation is that it seems one of the huge tarps we had covering a carefully stacked pyramid of round hay bales developed a rip just under one of the cedar poles Kevin used this year to keep the upper sides snugged in tight. This must have happened shortly after the hay was stored up because every bale that the pole was resting on has been compromised with deeply penetrated rotted spots. These spots are as frozen as ice making it impossible to peel off the layers as usual. Out came the pick axes again as both Kevin and I discovered how much warmth the body can generate when trying to pick through frozen, rotted hay! Then came the task of sorting through what remained of the hay that was edible. A tedious job that in the end Kevin pulled away the frozen mass (it was so large and heavy that it required the tractor) and we put it out in the field for the herd to sort through. They seemed to enjoy returning throughout various times of day to pluck the hay that was still good (but stuck to the frozen rotty part) and disdainfully shaking off or pawing and kicking away the dark rotted clumps. After several days we were able to hoist the remaining rotted, rock hard clump into a toboggan, sled it back out of the field and roll it on to the mulch pile at the side of the yard. You can imagine how pleased we were to not have to perform these extra duties in stormy winter weather. We will have to buy extra hay before the grass comes on. With the early, hard winter we've been feeding more than expected, and now, these rotted portions set us back a bit too. Thankfully it was a good year for hay-making last year, and hopefully Bill Fogal will have a few yet that he can set aside for us.

It has been so incredibly serene and surreal going out these past few mornings to take care of breakfast chores. Our first full moon of the new year has been allowed to show itself and not been hidden by thick cloud cover or snow fall. We can manage to see very well, and the only light we turn on is inside the shed. I always find moonlight to be magical, but even more so when it is falling on a snow covered landscape.

This morning there was a film of thin clouds that the moon would dip into and out of as it continued its journey across the sky. After laying out the last hay pile and picking up the oat pans to store in the shed until tomorrow's breakfast, I went into the house to fetch my camera. It was so well illuminated outside I wanted to take some photos to share. Before heading out, I turned the focus dial on the camera to the "night scene" setting and then the pups and I walked way out to the east so I could get a photo of the horses eating their hay, with the house and its cheery warm interior lights with that big moon hanging up overhead. It was still quite high in the sky, with about an hour yet to go before sunrise and I had to get quite a ways out from the house to capture all that I wanted in the photo. I took quite a few shots, rewarming my fingers in between (it was about +9°F), and eagerly looked forward to see how they turned out. Well...they didn't turn out, as you can see below. The moon was captured, a wee bit of the house light, but all else is dark--as if that moon wasn't illuminating anything. Phooey! I wish I had tried the automatic focus setting, because the night scene setting sure didn't show things right.
I'm sure this never happens to Leslie Town, and that's why she's the pro and I'm the novice! :-) (Of course Leslie, if you were trying to go for a moonlight scene I'm betting you'd be trying while it was still in the east part of the sky during reasonable evening hours and rather than in the world of the predawn.)

Just as dawn arrived things got frosty and the horses were all eating with white fringe everywhere on their bodies. By the time I went back out an hour or so later, things were warming up a little and it appeared the thing to do was settle in for a nice nap.

On the left is Interessado, then Fada and Belina. Dee is nibbling hay in the background.

Animado is on the left and Altamiro is on the right. Mistral is nibbling in the background.

I decided to sit down next to Interessado. This little colt was so warm and snoozy that he only briefly opened his eyes as I snugged in next to him. I was far too close for a decent photo, but I took one anyway.

Interessado, dozing while laying down in the snow.

I was far enough away from Fada that I could fit her into the frame easily and so took a photo of how her nap was progressing.
After a bit, I got up, went over to where Altamiro was dozing and proceeded to free his tail, mane and forelock from the grip of the many opportunistic Burdock seeds that had been part of Altamiro's attire for weeks. I was also able to free up Belina's tresses as well as Animado. While working on Animado's forelock, Jerry came over and made it known he wanted to be next. While I was working on Jerry, Kevin came out to tell me he was heading off to fetch some timbers from the forest. I asked him if he would take a few photos of me and Jerry. When I am pulling out burrs and de-tangling tails in the winter, I like to get in as close as I can to the horse (or mule) because their body temperature helps keep the numbness away from my fingers. It's always especially pleasant when working on Jerry's tail--he has such a nice big warm rearend!

When I was a participant in the Nevzorov Haute Ecole forum, there was quite a bit of discussion on how awful it was for horses to live in cold climates. Lydia Nevzorov had definite opinions about this, one of which was to say that horses who are live outside in the winter do not get enough sleep because they will not lay down in the snow. I just haven't found that to be the case here at Ravenseyrie, as you can see:

Animado

Zeus

Altamiro

Altamiro and Zorita

After nap-time, it was play time! Well, Animado wanted to play, but Fada wanted me to itch her bum. It was difficult to do both at the same time, especially when Animado's antics kept making me want to stop and take photos:

I'm going to end this entry with some video footage I pasted together showing a new game Altamiro has devised for himself and Jerry. It seemed to me that Jerry wasn't in quite the same playful mode as Altamiro and frequently he tried to politely walk away, but Altamiro wouldn't let Jerry quit so easily. He kept pestering the poor mule for over fifteen minutes with this crazy game. I happened to be washing dishes at the time as filmed it from the window over the kitchen sink. Enjoy!