I’ve been on my own for the past week, for reasons I’ll tell you about later. (Don’t worry: it’s a good thing.) But it’s been a heck of a week.
This post is all about caring for the horses in cold weather, but I have very few equine photos for you, because I can’t both do the chores and photograph myself doing them at the same time. So the photos are from the walk to the pond that Django and I took after we’d tended to the horses one lunchtime over the weekend.
The last time my dear husband was away, it was October, and he arranged things so that I didn’t have to do anything for the seven draft horses. Three of them were still out on a friend’s pasture. The four that were here on the home place had ample grass to eat on the 150 or so acres that aren’t part of the fenced field down by the road. Water we had aplenty, since we were having a wet month and the horses had access both to the seasonal creek on the south side of the property and a watering hole up near the the northeast corner of the place. Other than keeping an idle eye on the fences, I had nothing to do to keep them happy. (That’s the irrigation gun in the photo below, approximately six months from when it will next be needed.)
This time, however, it’s winter, and keeping horses fed and watered in the winter, at least for us, is quite a different thing. Two of the horses are with dh, but I’m responsible for the other five. Dh did his best: he arranged the huge hay bales so that I could reach them easily, and set them on end so that I can just peel off layers of hay, like peeling an onion. But the horses are in two different places: Dixie, Chinook, and Ben are in the barnyard, with the top gate open so they can roam at will on the majority of the place. That’s the senior citizen group. Java and Tuffy are in the field. They’re hardly spring chickens themselves, both of them being over twenty years old, but these two are feistier than the others and are inclined to run the less sprightly horses right off their feed. Horses are nothing if not hierarchical creatures, and the pecking order (golly, another poultry metaphor) in any group of horses is strictly fixed and maintained by intimidation, if necessary. Not that Dixie, Chinook, and Ben would put up any kind of resistance, but they don’t need the recreational hassling that Java and Tuffy would give them. Java himself is on the bottom end of the two-rung ladder in the field and every single time I go out to feed, Tuffy puts back his ears, offers to kick, runs straight at Java, and generally forces him away from the manger. So I put the first load of hay in the manger to distract Tuffy, then carry Java’s portions out through the gate and dump them on the snow where he’s out of Tuffy’s reach, then go back and fill up the manger.
In the barnyard, I think it’s Dixie who calls the shots, though I’ve seen Chinook make a bid for top-horse billing too. Ben is bottom of the heap no matter whom he’s with: it’s been that way ever since we got him more than fifteen years ago. It’s a good thing that he’s an easy keeper (horse-person talk for a horse that easily keeps weight on and stays in good condition without pampering), because he is always the last to get near the feed. Dixie and Chinook, I’m happy to say, are pretty easy-going and readily allow him access to the manger in the barnyard. Elder wisdom and compassion, perhaps.
Okay, so I have Java and Tuffy (Java’s the headless one above) in the field. One of my problems is that the gate (on the right in the photo above0 between the field and the corral that we call the sheep pen, which is where we store the hay bales for these two, is low to the ground, and in snow, requires some wrestling to get open. And it has barbed wire on it, which means I often snag my jacket as I squeeze through with a forkful of hay. I could open it wider to avoid getting snagged, but whenever I do, Java always treats the open gate as an invitation to walk into the sheep pen and help himself to the hay in the bales. It takes some shouting and arm-flailing from me to get him back out again.
Another problem is that the hay bale I’m working on now became tufted: dh skidded it from the barn to the sheep pen behind his pickup, and then used the pickup to nudge it into place. In the process of nudging the bale, the bottom edge became wedged under the bale, meaning I couldn’t possibly free the bottom edge of my “onion” peel. Over the past several days, more and more of the hay bale became inaccessible as a result. My main problem, however, is that I’m just not very strong or adept at forking and carrying hay. I can see that sometimes it’s all dh can do not to laugh as he watches me wrestle angrily with trying to get hay onto the fork and then stagger to the manger with about a quarter of the load he’d carry. It’s easy for the load to get unbalanced, and once that happens, the pitchfork twirls merrily and all the hay falls off. The only positive to my own ineptitude is that feeding the horses is for me pretty vigorous aerobic exercise and when I’m finally finished I’m plenty warm. Thank you to Rachel and the kids for helping me tip over the remaining part of the bale on Sunday morning, thus freeing the tufted end.
I haven’t had this problem in the barnyard, because the hay is still nicely stacked as it was back in the early fall. Dh made sure that two bales were accessible and sitting upright, making them easy to peel. On the other hand, the open bale in the barn, the one I’m working on, is a magnet for the local whitetail deer population. Every morning the current bale is partially unpeeled, thanks to the deer, and the pulled-down hay is dotted with holes, just the size of a deer’s head. Like the horses, the deer are particularly fond of the fines, the small bits of leaf that tend to sift to the bottom of the pitched hay. The fines contain the bulk of the nutritive value of the hay, which is why they’re so attractive to deer and horses alike. But it’s a bit weird to come up to the barn in the morning and see the mess of hay on the barn floor all around the bale (after I’ve been careful to leave the bale smooth the afternoon before) and what look like gopher holes all through it. It’s a good thing that dh doesn’t mind sharing hay with the deer: he just wishes they didn’t make such a mess of the bales.
It’s just as well that these chores are a workout for me and warm me up, because it was suddenly and ridiculously cold here for several days last week. Most mornings last week it was been between minus 24 and minus 27 celsius when I went out the front door with the dogs to tend to the horses. And dark! When we go out just before seven, it’s still twilight or darker and it’s a bit hard to see what I’m doing when I’m fumbling with getting the hose attached to the frost-free faucet by the studio. My vision is further obscured by the fact that I’ve got a scarf wound round my neck and pulled up over my mouth so I’m not getting frigid air into my lungs (I’m getting over a cold). The scarf tends to direct the moist air from my lungs directly upward, where it immediately ices up my glasses. Most mornings, I end up taking off my glasses altogether and putting them in my coat pocket, trying not to crush them in the effort of pitching hay.
And on really cold mornings, when I’ve already given up and removed my glasses, my eyelashes catch the condensation from my breath and immediately begin to freeze together. Not only do they freeze to their neighbours, but because a person blinks, they freeze together top and bottom, rendering me somewhat blind.
The next problem is the water troughs, which are just plastic barrels with the tops sliced off by a chain saw. Neither of the troughs is anywhere close to a source of power, so unlike many of our ranching neighbours, we don’t have heated troughs. My first task, therefore, is to chop through the thick layer of ice that’s formed overnight so that the horses can reach the water underneath, if there is any. Depending on how full I’ve filled the troughs the previous afternoon and on how much they’ve drunk overnight, the troughs may still have water. They may not. If not, I use the opportunity to empty all the ice. This means grabbing an axe or a maul and tapping all round the outside of the trough, over and over, round and round, until the ice cracks enough that it can be broken up into chunks. (I have to mention that the maul is so heavy that I have a hard time manipulating it. And the axe, even the back of it, is prone to making holes in the troughs.) When I’ve broken up as much as I can, I tip the trough over, roll it away from the faucet and with a lot of cursing, scrabble all over the smooth, featureless surface until I get enough of a grip on it to be able to upend it. Then I tap some more on the inverted bottom until most of the ice has fallen out. If the trough still has some water in it, I still do the tapping part, but rather than tipping the trough, I use a shovel to fish for the ice and toss it away into the snow. Then I hook up the hose and get the water flowing into the trough. Not too much, mind you, because then I’ll end up with so much ice I can’t get break it much less tip the barrel to get dump it. And not too little, because it’s crucial that the horses keep drinking in the winter. It’s a balancing act, but I’ve noticed that as the week has progressed I’ve gotten a great deal better at gauging how much they’ll drink between feeding times. And that means I spend less time tapping barrels and heaving ice out of the water with a shovel.
The horses in the barnyard seem to be drinking more than the other two, or else I’m not compensating enough for the fact that there are three in the barnyard and providing more water accordingly. Certainly, Dixie, in particular, has often seemed quite eager to get a drink, on those occasions where the barrel is either empty or iced up to the point that she can’t break through with her nose to the water beneath. It’s hard to imagine that a horse of her size (as with the others, her withers are roughly level with my head) could be described as being underfoot, but that’s exactly what she is: in the way all the time, putting her head into the trough just when I’m trying to empty it with the shovel, getting between me and the faucet when I’m trying to attach the hose, just generally breathing down my neck and making her presence felt.
The faucets are problems in and of themselves. We have three frost-free faucets in working order (out of five), and dh has cleverly installed fixtures that mean that a hose can be attached with a 1/3 turn rather than having to catch the threads of the usual fittings and having to turn and turn and turn them to get the hose attached. But they’re attached to random old lengths of hose with pipe clamps and sometimes the clamps aren’t as tight as might be desired. That’s one place one might get leaks: where the hose is clamped to the faucet attachment. Another good place for a leak is where the two parts of the faucet attachment come together: the smallest bit of ice inside one of the fittings mean they won’t fit together properly. And sometimes it’s not apparent that they haven’t attached properly until they shoot apart and the water gushes out of the faucet onto the ground (leading to treacherous slabs of ice) or one’s clothes (leading to potential hypothermia).
Yesterday I wasn’t aware that I had a water issue until I’d spent several minutes feeding Java and Tuffy: when I got back to the water trough, which I’d left to fill, I discovered that the hose had jumped out of the trough and was gaily pumping water all over the ground. Time to get the bucket of ash from the woodstove to throw down over the ice. This wouldn’t have happened at the faucet in the barnyard, because the hose is so short that one has to hold it over the lip of the trough and direct the water into its depths. When the hose is frozen and stiff, this can mean some contorting. Oh, and I didn’t mention that the faucet is about a foot off the ground, so one has to wrestle the recalcitrant hose and its faucet attachment under the mouth of the faucet at about six inches off the ground. And don’t forget that Dixie is breathing down my neck as I’m bent double. Fun!
So it takes my dear husband about twenty minutes to do the chores. On my very best morning, when I had very little to do to the water troughs, it took me twenty-five minutes. On my worst mornings, it takes me forty-five to fifty minutes. Which would be fine, except that I do have a day job, which requires me to get out of the house at five to eight each morning. I’ve pushed back my getting-up time to 5:30 a.m. and I’m still just racing into the school when the warning bell goes at 8:15. And the day job also means that I don’t get home until well after 4 p.m. (I know, what a gruelling schedule.) Did I mention that the chores need to be done again at the end of the day? Not as vigorously as in the morning, however: sometimes I don’t need to feed any more hay because I can see that they’re still cleaning up the hay from the morning. Yesterday I was still packing firewood from the woodshed to the house at 5 p.m., which at this time of the year means it was dark.
Am I complaining? Oh, perhaps a little. But I have to say I’m actually pretty stoked that I’m able, at nearly 58, to do this work so that I can free up my dear husband so that he can go off and do the special thing he’s doing. It’s a source of pride that I’m self-reliant enough to do this physical work (working with kids is tough in some ways, but it’s rarely very physical unless I have to go to PE). And I do enjoy the horses. I rarely spend this much time with them, and it’s amazing how much their personalities come through even in the limited contact I have with them twice a day (three times if I’m home during the day, since I go out and break the ice in the water troughs for them at lunchtime). And as my dh says, it makes a great story, something I’ll be telling people about for years to come.
But it's humbling too: really, all I'm doing is pitching hay and running water into troughs. Just think of what people have done in the winter for centuries, both in Canada and elsewhere: homesteading required a great deal more work than this every single day to keep critters and people fed and warm and watered. We are so enormously spoiled, those of us who live comfortable lives. Don't get me started on being homeless, or struggling to stay safe and alive in places despoiled by war. Let us be grateful, those of us who don't face these challenges.
Finally, a few notes about animals. In the photo above, you can see Java and Tuffy cleaning up the last of their morning feed. And you can also see Sass, heading back to the gate to the yard. She’s heard me call her, and stopped and turned her head to look at me, but there is no way she is going to come with me and Django on our walk. She does this a lot now, declining the invitation to walk. It’s sad, because it’s her advancing years that are robbing her of energy and ambition, but on the other hand it’s pretty humorous to see how selectively deaf she can be when we call her to come with us. She suddenly becomes very deaf and very busy with an agenda of her own that takes her in the opposite direction, back to the house. She’s so transparent.
So Django is the sole faithful canine companion now. I trimmed his beard last week so that he doesn’t collect quite so much snow and ice under his chin, but we’ll never eliminate those wintery facial decorations entirely. He always lifts my spirits when we’re out on a walk, simply by enjoying himself so much. Check out the ears in these two shots as he races toward me.
He’s so smart: here he even imitates a hunting dog. He does seem to be pointing, don’t you think? He’s utterly alert, focussed on something in the distance, and he’s got that left forepaw lifted in the approved manner.
And here is the delicate footwork of some small creature, I don’t know what. A mouse, perhaps? The continuous line between paw prints is obviously left by a skinny tail.
The solar collectors doing their thing in the late afternoon sun.
Just in case you missed it in the photo of Sass trotting back to the yard, here’s a clearer shot of Terraced Peaks under their mantle of early winter snow. So beautiful. So cold.
Happy solstice.
Hard, cold work, but with a certain joy that has been missing of late. Merry Christmas Anne!
Posted by: Ann Mudrie | 12/20/2016 at 09:05 PM
Golly, Ann, you're right. It didn't occur to me while writing this post, but having read your comment, I too can see that I'm coming out from under the cloud of the intense initial bout of grief after losing my Dad. I think that would make him happy. Thank you for your insight. Merry Christmas, yourself!
Posted by: Anne at Shintangle Studio | 12/20/2016 at 09:20 PM