Tuesday 30 November 2010

ACCCKKKKK!!! One of those days...(AND snow pics, natch...)

...I have to be honest, its not serious...everyone is fine, the horses are blooming (though the hunters are now officially bored), the sun is shining,

The hound puppies seem to have settled back at kennels (where they have returned because they were totally and utterly uncontrollable either individually or jointly and had reached the stage where they came for a walk, came back home and only gave us a cheery wave before disappearing for hours at a time - and yes, they are only 5 months old...).



Winston has more or less recovered from having his bits chopped off on Friday and is totally ignoring the requirement that he should be on a lead for the next week..



BUT it is DARK in the mornings until at least 8am, then it gets DARK again at 4.30pm - if I am lucky...The water supply to the barn is completely frozen which means that I need to trundle to and fro from the house with buckets to make up feeds in the morning, ditto again in the evening - all of which would  be fine but last night the barn-lights decided it was all too much and tripped EVERY SINGLE TIME I tried to turn them on...taking everything else with them.  There's a super-efficient, modern circuit breaker on our electrics, which is very safe, but its also very sensitive and unless it is utterly satisfied, it refuses to function.  Maybe I can learn a lesson from it.

No chance of finding out what was wrong, because of course I couldn't see a thing...

This meant I was stumbling about the barn in the dark, picking up feed buckets and turning horses out completely blind and, ironically and annoyingly, tonight all the horses who had decided to stay in the barn were completely invisible - Angel - very dark bay - crashed into him twice; Solomon - black - ditto; Kingsley - bright bay but on a November night at 6pm he might as well have been black...Its a good thing they are all extremely good-natured and can see in the dark much better than I can.  They must have wondered what on earth I was doing fumbling and stumbling about muttering away to myself like some deranged old bat.  Since I am spending the days shrouded in a balaclava, maybe they can't tell the difference...

...and that was only Monday ;-)

8 comments:

Corner Comforts said...

Hi Nic,

Just had to say that Winston looks just like our Vizsla Hendrix did after his op...bouncing around like nothing has happened! He is a very handsome dog.

Hope your electrics are nicer to you this evening!

Kate

Dare Gothic Clothing said...

Sounds a bit like winters here - last year not only did I loose all water to the fields and stable, I also lost water to my house for 5 days - so had to drive containers of water over from my parents house - you realise very quickly just how much water all the animals use when the convenience of outside taps are taken away!
On the lighting note - my favourite invention is a little head torch - genius little device meaning no more fumbling in the dark or juggling torches with lead ropes in hand :)
At least Isha shows up in the dark... not so great against the snow though ;)

Nic Barker said...

LOL! Thanks Kate and fingers crossed!

Fayley, yes, I used to have a head torch in the primitive days before we had super-duper lighting (gnashes teeth in fury) but of course I have no idea where it is now and even if I could find it I bet it would be defunct...I was thinking of it with longing only yesterday... :-( Isha BTW was the only one I didn't crash into ;-)

Cristina said...

Definitely headtorch - in the week I only see Frankie at night and the lights aren't good enough to check proper checks and pick out feet.
I've also used it as a headlight to ride up the lane and back in the dark.

Got a text from my yard manager - we have lots of snow now and my pony is very smug as he is the only one not suffering with snowballs ;-)

Nic Barker said...

:-) - Pics, Cristina! Lets have a mass snow pics day!! :-)

Lainey is also smug because she and Bailey W have have done so much roadwork that all their friends' shod horses have had to be re-shod at vast expense - wait till they see how he goes in the snow ;-)

Cristina said...

I've got a half day on Thurs so if it's still snowy will get you pictures.

Nic Barker said...

:-( Still no lights.....

Unknown said...

EEps! In my experience things like this only get funny once you're at home with a hot cup of tea blogging about them ;))
Perhaps we need to train Kingsley to help make up feeds.
Hope it's not the beginning of a long winter again.
And ditto head torch!