It seems so unfathomable to me that this past Monday I was running around in a T-shirt, and the rest of this week has been spent steadily watching the watering system out here freeze and trying to stay ahead of it to keep our animals going.

I work outside with horses.  My primary job is teaching kids how to ride, but along with living and working in a barn comes the responsibility of keeping said animals alive.  Usually we have an automatic watering system that faithfully delivers water to our stall bound friends, but this round of freezing temps has completely frozen the system so we went back in time to the old fashioned bucket system.  Problem is, we couldn’t run a hose because the water was freezing in it so fast that it kind of made dragging it around obsolete, so instead watering the horses has involved filling up a bucket from the faucet, going to the stall to fill up the water bucket, rinse, repeat thirty-nine more times throughout the day.

I freely admit I’m a wimpy Southerner, I start to whine about the cold as soon as it dips below 60 degrees, so this arctic blast has been rather interesting as far as how fascinated I am by just how bad the ice can get out here (and we’re not near as cold as our Northern neighbors).  Whenever someone comments to me about how wussy we are, I pretty much look at them and go, “Yeah, but the folks further north expect this kind of weather every year and prepare for it.  Us?  Not so much.  It’d be like a blizzard hitting the Florida Keys.” 

Anyway, originally I was going to write another book review (or rather, series review) but running around and chopping up ice in water tubs, blanketing ponies, teaching in the cold (the best was teaching while it was snowing, the kids REALLY loved that), I have no desire to try and even think of doing anything but reading more, sipping tea, and hoping the pipes don’t explode.  So I’m going to leave today’s blog with an image of just how I spent the last few days, and the tool that has now become my best friend.