Room Service

Okay, so this may not look like a waiter with a dinner tray and fancy linen to you, but to our horses, this is room service indeed.  After a day of snow and temperatures that barely got above 20 degrees, for the horses there is no finer sight than a tractor carrying 500 pounds of hay bales headed towards them.

I loaded the bales this evening at Scout's Barn -- we store about 15 tons in there and still have space for four stalls -- and headed out to the sighted horse corral to start feeding.  (We have a handful of sighted horses in addition to the 20 blind ones.)

I was eagerly greeted by several horses who acted like they hadn't eaten in weeks (in truth, since they finally finished up their breakfast at about 11 a.m. this morning!).  In case you're wondering, they didn't get all 500 pounds -- I fed about two of the bales and stacked the remaining five for feeding tomorrow. 

When Alayne and I went out this evening to begin the barn chores, it was 12 degrees.  This was balmy compared to last night, when it was 0 degrees when we finished chores.  (It dropped to minus 4 by the time we went to bed.)

In the distance you can see the lights from Beauty's Barn, our new barn for blind horses.  Alayne was taking care of the horses there while I was loading the hay at Scout's Barn.

(Click on photo for larger image.)

Comments

[ginger & Tobias]

It amazes me that you can still remember to take photos when you have all the chores to do and deal with the cold weather. Being in t-shirt weather (most days) I really enjoy seeing the snow photos and the animals.
Many years ago I lived in Kentucky and tended to cattle before going to my regular job. I had to go out and chop a hole in the ice in the pond so they could get water and get them hay. The same routine when I got home from work at night. It was a record winter in Kentucky that year, with a blizzard (maybe one too many z's?) and the highways were even closed. They don't have the equipment to deal with major snowstorms there because they don't get them that often.
Just a heartfelt thanks for all that you two do!

[Karen]

Winter has indeed arrived in western Montana, much to the delight of my two labs. In the Ninemile Valley west of Missoula, we're enjoying a big fat snowstorm that had the dogs dancing in circles on their hind legs.

Have you made any decisions regarding Timmy?