Tripp and I take a short ride up and down the road...

As you read in the last entry, Tripp was doing a lot of running and playing...and he thought it was funny to make me chase him in the deep snow.  When he does this on dry ground, it is easier for me to get positioned in front of his shoulder and he says "Oh alright..." but with the snow he says "Hee hee, the girl can't move very fast in this stuff."  Then he throws in a buck and fart to add insult to injury.  Ha ha!  Seeing as this was the second time he did the run away thing I knew I couldn't give up.  I did not want it to become a habit.  So I kept at it...would get up to him and pet on him, then walk away to confuse him.  Finally I decided it was the right time to keep him so I could take a short ride.

I don't ride on our road any more...more people have moved out here and they drive like bats out of hell on these roads.  There are curves and hills, and I sure don't want to be on the receiving end of someone driving in the middle, or on the wrong side.  I decided playing around the driveway would be good...I will get my horsey fix, and I should be able to log some distance.  I had it half right.  I could not get my blasted GPS thingy to work on my phone.  I decided that my horsey therapy was much more important than dinking around with an electronic gadget....

Tripp is checking out the snow path thru the back yard...and Hemi is steering clear of Tripp's feet.






We got to the front yard and Hemi was sniffing something...then Tripp decided to sniff something...Hemi's rump!





"Sniff Sniff...yep, smells like chicken!"
When Hemi realized he was being sniffed by something big he jumped about 2 foot in the air!  It was too funny!  He is mostly blind so if he isn't paying attention, he gets surprised. 






Yay!  Finally!  I get to ride!  Out the driveway we go!  Woo hoo!

The thing is, Tripp was not too keen on the idea of riding in the road.  He was very nervous.  He really is an awesome horse and he finally hit a point where he started to walk with purpose...like he said "I can do this!  Let's go!"  I knew he was not okay inside about it, so I let him walk a few steps then turned him around and came back up the road.  We did both directions several times and worked on a few maneuvers.  It really worked out well because there were ice patches on the road and they made me nervous.  He finally did relax.  I wouldn't say he was okay inside with it, but he was better.  I have another thing to add to our 'practice list.'  :-)





Coming back into the driveway...




















Out the driveway and to the right.  I stayed close enough to the driveway to be able to get out of the way if someone came down the road.  This is the good part of the road...I can hear and see what is coming.  Once you get on either end in the dippy do's it is harder to see which direction the noises are coming from.





Aaaahhhhh yes, love the shadows...





Out the driveway and to the left...

I really don't know what I was doing here....I ended up with this shot of his head and liked it.  :-)





Brian came home and took a few pictures for me.  It is nice to get full body shots once in a while... Oh my gosh, I just noticed how thin the bottom of his tail is!  What the heck?

Brian says Tripp is a little spoiled...he knows to flex that head around and I will scratch it for him.  :-)





He loves nosing around in the snow...
























And I love the end result!   





Brian wanted to take my saddle off for me...and who was I to deny him the pleasure of helping out his wonderful wife? ;-)





Brian's daughter Madison is not much of a horse person.  I know, I know...I tell Brian she is a freak!  Ha ha!  What little girl is not horse crazy?  It just isn't normal....anyways, whenever I get the chance I have her hold Tripp (or whoever) hoping that someday she will get the horsey bug.  And if not...that is okay too.  (Not really...I just said that to be nice...hee hee!)  Madison likes them well enough...she just isn't that crazy kid I was that would try to ride anything if I could catch it.  She has a lot more self preservation than I did.  :-)

Yeah right...because Tripp worked soooooo hard! 

I have to remind Madison that SHE can scratch his face, but HE cannot use her as a scratching post.  It is easy to forget because Tripp is so darn cute and we want him to love us.  :-)

After being unsaddled and brushed, we headed back to the barn lot.  The time I had was short but wonderful!  I would rather take a few minutes of horse time than no horse time at all. 

 

Snowy nose...over and out!

Until later...Karen and Tripp who is still snickering about leaving the girl eating his snow while he blasted past her!

Back to back blizzards (from end of February)

I have been trying to get pictures to load for a couple of weeks, and they just wouldn't do it.  I decided to try again....SUCCESS!

After the first blizzard, a few days later we were blessed with another one.  In some parts of the country they would not think this was a blizzard, but for us, this was a blizzard!  I took pictures of the same stuff every day for a week to show the differences....

They closed work again so I was thinking this was going to be MUCH better than the last time!  We are home and not stuck out on the roads.  I could get the blog updated, read a few blogs I like to follow, etc.  Oh, I got to read...but it was books and magazines because we lost power.  Our power was out for three days!  We stayed home, and yes it was cold.  One night we went to a friends to shower, she fed us a warm meal, then we headed home again.  Thankfully we had several gallons of drinking water (we refill jugs) and Brian had buckets of water sitting in each bathroom.  I had also topped off all the water troughs the night before, so we were good there.  The coldest it got in the house was 42 degrees, and I was grateful we didn't have kids.  The only casualty we had was my sucker fish (plecostomus).  I had him a long time so I was sad and shed a few tears.  :-(  We replaced him yesterday with a little dude.  I have not named him yet.

Anyways, here are a few pictures of the follow up blizzard....


My view out the front door...I took a vacation day just in case, but they closed work so I didn't have to use it.  Yay!




I am going out to feed....

It was after dark when I would go out to feed, so I got a few pictures then too.

View from the barn lot to the front yard.

Birds trying to take cover...it was very windy!

Our neighbor was blading his driveway and came over to take a couple sweeps out of ours.  Every little bit helps!

I was looking down his driveway and saw a big branch bend down.  I thought the snow was falling off it then the whole branch went.  From my vantage point it did not look very big...





Then he drove up to it thinking he would push it out of the way.  Nope...it was the size of a small tree!  I went over to help him drag it off the driveway.  It got us to thinking to stay in the open instead of hanging out under trees.  This stuff was heavy and we were watching stuff fall all over the place.




The cedar trees are drooped over...you can see the top of the round bale stack on the other side, and normally you can't.

The snow drifted in front of the chicken house door...

The cedars on the hill beside the house.  They got more droopy and more droopy every day...the tops finally snapped...

Outside of the chicken pen...

Metal chairs in the back yard...

The bird feeder and the chimes are snow covered....this snow stuck to everything!

When you would leave and come back...new drifts....by the chicken house door...

Front yard...

The walk-thru gate to the barn lot.  I loved how the snow stuck to it.

Nakita and Hemi walking in the path...

Hemi taking a roll in the snow on the front porch..

Close up of my old Jeep Scrambler...

I drove this old Jeep for over 20 years.  The brakes were causing problems and nobody could figure it out without it costing bunches.  I was attached...so here it sits.  :-)

Red doesn't care what the weather is doing...he always comes to visit...

I expected to find everyone snow covered...but everyone was just wet.  It was a wet heavy snow.

It is snowing...Wy thinks he should get a treat...and he did.  :-)

Snow dogs...they love it!  It was a few days later that I found them laying in the dog house...I knew they had enough too.

Windy and blowing snow...Rico coming to say hello...

The hill beside the barn lot.  We have blocked that off so we can try to get grass growing there again.

The snow was edging off the roof and I just knew that one morning it would come down on my head.  It never did...it gradually melted as the days got warmer.

Cedars on the hillside...they were so pretty!

 View down the road...

This is the wild barn kitty.  I had been milling around the barn a while this morning and the kitty did not wake up once.  It must have been very tired to not notice me there...it is usually on alert and will go hide when it sees me coming.

Icicles starting to form on the edge of the roof...

And a few days later.....I was taking pictures each day to show the progress of snow, icicles, etc...

Still a lot of snow on the deck...

Batman wanting to know why I am not walking over to the path to give him his treat.  It is because I am feeding the chickens first.  :-)  The horses had their walking paths all stomped down which was nice!  It was almost like they did it just for me!

Batman and Hershey...

Batman...

Early morning shot of trees on the hill...the snow is starting to fall off one side, but the other sides are still very heavy...

Hershey ready for breakfast...

A drift up the bush by the window...

More icicles...I loved watching them grow...

Me and Stormy...

Nevada...

Hershey heading to the barn for breakfast... (she and Tripplette are still getting fed different stuff than the rest so they go in when Tandee goes in for her meals)

Wyoming on the path he stomped down for little ol' me.
It was cool because the first snow was packed down too...so the path is on a few inches of old snow.  It made for easier walking.  Woo hoo!

What the heck?  Another storm coming in????  We did end up with a couple more inches out of this, but it was not bad.

Ace...

A few days later and still a bunch of snow...sure isn't melting very fast...

Finally!  Some sunshine and time to groom...Batman and Tripplette...

Batman and Chase...

Power finally came on so I am topping off water tanks and getting tank heaters hooked back up.  They wanted to help...

I have the smile...all I need is a Coke!

Trees still drooping...the top of one finally snapped...

Chase looking over his herd...

A piece of blue sky behind the chimes...snow is almost off the bird feeder...

This path had a few inches of snow under it too.  Made for easy walking for all of us.

The sun was shining and I wanted to ride a bit...before riding there was time for play.  They did a lot of running and play fighting before I got a hold of Tripp...

The snow is sliding and curling off the barn roof...

Close up view of icicles on the edge of the house roof...

View of icicles from below...

Deep snow...and the tracks of something...wish I knew what it was...

Joker and snowy nose...

Nevada with water dribbling after a drink of fresh water...

Eye and shadow...

Nevada...

Rico and Epona...they did not see the need to run in the extra deep stuff...not yet anyways...

Thomas doesn't like snow...

Tripplette, Batman and Hershey...
Batman likes having someone his own size to scratch with.  I don't like that they have chewed his mane off.  Oh well...

This just doesn't show it as good as what it looked like in person...the snow stuck to one side of all the trees and hung on for a full week!  It looked like one of those paintings where there are Indians and red/white paint horses hidden in the woods...

Titmouse...

Oh my dear Tripp...he played hard to get again, and I think it is because he knows I can't move well in mud, and I can't move well in deep snow!  I didn't give up...finally got him...when he was ready to stop playing.

There he goes!  I knew he would have to tire out sometime!  Ha ha!

This is the one that made me laugh...he went around the cedar trees and I was waiting for him to come blasting out the other side.  Then slowly I see movement in the shadows...here he comes sneaking out of the trees!

Tripplette nose...

Hemi got to go for a ride...and he is being all dramatic...

Icicles from below...

The snow path at night...

The snow is slowly sliding off the barn roof...

The snow path at night from the dogs point of view...

A few days...still lots of snow...

It really was beautiful in spite of the three days without power.  We are going to put a generator or heat source of some sort on our budget so we can be better prepared.  We toughed it out and did just fine, but it did not have to be that way.  If we would have had heat in the house I would not have lost my sucker fish.  :-(  Everyone else did good tho, and honestly, we still had it a lot better than some folks.  Life is still good!

Glad I got this snowy update done....I love when the blogger works like it should.

Until later...Karen and Tripp who got very tired running in the deep snow.