I am already sick of winter and it hasn’t even officially started yet. But every time I complain, I hear about someone else who has it worse. I was whining to a Canadian horse breeder the other day about our single digit temps and high winds and she wrote back to say it was 30 below and a blizzard at her ranch in Alberta. Yep, someone’s always got it worse than you.
I spent half the day thawing out frozen waterers; at least three out of four are working now, so it wasn’t a total waste of time. Keeping horses in sub-zero weather is quite a bit of hassle. It’s a lot of work just feeding and cleaning; dealing with snow drifts and frozen buckets is the pits. I’ve been doing it here in the Colorado mountains for 25 winters; 15 winters here in the “Banana belt” of Colorado, the Upper Arkansas Valley. When it’s 25 below in the Gunnison valley, it may only be zero in our valley. It’s all about your perspective.
In the winter we whine tremendously about our high-maintenance automatic waterers. Meanwhile Melissa (who grooms/exercises our horses and lives nearby) is hauling water from her home a mile down the road to her four horses. Yuck. I did that one winter 25 years ago and swore never to have horses again if I had to haul water to them. Even for one horse, it’s a pain. Have any of you been through that? What’s your most dreaded winter-time chore? Maybe draining hoses (or unfreezing them because someone else didn’t)?
I’ve had more than my fair share of my perspective thrown in my face the last few months and I have to say, it is always good to gain perspective on your reality. And that which does not kill you makes you stronger, so they say.
Enjoy the ride,
Julie
http://www.juliegoodnight.com
http://www.horsemaster.tv