This morning it was 27 degrees when I woke up. By the time I put on sweat pants over my leggings, extra thick socks, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a jacket, mismatched gloves, and a really ugly purple hat, it was a whopping 30 degrees outside. I normally don’t dress like an Eskimo until it gets below 20 (I am from Maine, after all) but with this awful cold I’ve had since last Wednesday, I didn’t want to risk getting sicker.
There’s something about being the first one out to the barn on a frosty fall morning. The grass is all silver, the sun is extra bright. The horses are more hungry then ever and whinny twice as loud. Their coats are all poofed (Espa is well on her way to mountain goat status) and they look like small dragons when they breathe out the frosty air.
It’s the time of year for blankets and extra hay. I’ve already started to adjust some of the older horse’s grain intake and switched a few from pellets to senior. Darwin will start wearing a heavier blanket at night and was put on a night check grain two weeks ago. The water troughs where iced over but broke out with a tap of my boot. Soon it will take a dozen whacks with a hammer. There are no horse flies or pesky gnats. The soupy mud has frozen just enough so that the horses can walk over it instead of through. The snow and ice will be here before I know it, but for now this is my favorite time.
The outdoor ring on a frosty fall morning.
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