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Thawing Out
It's been pretty cold here over the past week--temperatures that plummeted from an unseasonable and unreasonable 70 some degrees in mid-October (complete with major flooding of our regional rivers) now to 20 degrees at night, barely making it past mid-30s during the day. This caught us humans by surprise, woefully unprepared for the blast of northeast wind that greets us as we walk out the door, inadequately cloaked and gloved during chores, and pathetically shivering with the drastic transition from late summer to early winter all in 48 hours. The Haflingers, Alpine fur-bearers that they are, are indifferent and unconcerned, though I tend to fuss over whether they can handle the brisk winds that tear through even my toughest Carhartts.
Out they go into the arctic wind, happy as clams, but when I come to fetch them in one at a time in the dark of early evening, they are eager and ready to settle into their nice comfy box stalls, not exactly hot house plants, but not willing to turn down a draft-free place to lay their heads either.
The toughest part of chores on days like these is the watering. Our hoses, despite our efforts to drain them, still freeze solid in places, and on the worst of the cold nights, our standpipes in the barn freeze so there is no water to be had unless we had the foresight to take the time to drain all the pipes the night before. And cold hungry Haflingers are thirsty Haflingers. I've heard all about inadequate water supplies in the winter causing colic in horses that have loaded up on pounds of dry hay, so we start hauling from the house, bucket by bucket when the water in the barn is solid, not liquid. Luckily, the barn is downhill from our house, so the heavy carrying is assisted by gravity. But this all means a doubling of the time needed to do chores and getting up earlier and staying up later and everything is done in the dark. All the while I'm blowing steam rings in the air, thinking "this is building character, this is building muscle, this is ..... nuts!"
So we wait impatiently for the inevitable thaw that will come. Not as long as our Alaskan and Swedish and Norwegian internet friends wait for their thaw (April?), but grateful that we aren't dealing with the firestorm horrors like our southern California neighbors. In the Pacific northwest, we will only need to wait for another week or so, and the rains will return and the ground will turn to mush and then I'll be sucking through mud instead of breaking up ice. Then anticipate the next cold snap and with luck, be better prepared.
Dealing with the freeze is easy compared to fire, compared to hurricanes, compared to floods, compared to most anything. This is just good hard work in behalf of 11 Haflingers--a privilege and a pleasure. I just need to remind myself of that tomorrow morning when the alarm goes off at 5:30...
Emily
BriarCroft Haflingers
http://www.briarcroft.com