![]() The smell of the mare’s breath and coats is warm, round and deep. The others push closer to me, nose to nose, they breathe me in and I, them. Warmth and friendship, could life get better for her? I get close and feel the warmth of her 100 degree body against me. I sneak up close to the oldest mare and slide my gloved hand across her back and talk softly and she murmurs back to me. I can’t blame them, they have stood together most of the night and have melted some of the snow on the ground. No knickers or neigh for me to hear from the group, just my snow boots crunching up the slope to the orchard trees.ĭaisy with Skippy in the snow on the Jane Lew farm.įor the small herd, standing and sleeping is more comfortable than slipping down the hill to the barn. I open the gate with the frozen chain and hear it bang as I swing it through the snow and across the frozen ground and into the pasture. Today was not going to be one of those days. Horses trapped in fences, cases of colic and babies born in the open all happen when humans are not looking. You do it to make sure that everything is alright if they do not come in. I Complain to myself about walking up the bank into the pasture to looking for them. I reluctantly fill the feed buckets with two heaping scoops of sweet-smelling grain. Just the quite… no cars or trucks, no snow plows (sometimes for days), no other person for miles was outside on a 12 degree morning. I holler at the top of my lungs”Here Girls!” and get no response. They stand at the farthest point away from the barn on the top of the hill. ![]() Even though the barn doors are always open the herd of four quarter horse were never in the barn until feeding time.Įven if they heard me tracking slowly through the snow they never moved. Walking my way to the barn across the yard I look for them but can not see them in the top pasture. I cross the back porch and hear the first crunch of the snow on a step. I would get up early, like all farm families do, so I could get the feeding done before work and school would take the day.ĭressed in my coveralls, hat, and gloves, I head out of the back door of the farm-house. So the mornings for me always started early even in the cold. ![]() When you own livestock you never get a snow day. My horses in the top pasture on a snowy morning. ![]()
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