Thawed Out

His Fuzziness, The Goober Boy:

Temperatures finally moderated on the west side of the Cascades, but not without lots of problems. Saturday was a treacherous icy transition in the southern end of the Willamette Valley, resulting in several serious traffic accidents.

After dealing with frozen stall waterers, ice-blocked pipes, and skating-rink water troughs in the turnouts -- Susan and Chris had to deal with burst pipes in the little barn that flooded the tack room and feed room. No tack ruined -- everything was up off the floor and a couple of pair of boots were snatched to safety. Most of the feed is kept in garbage cans, so the loss was minimal. Kudos to them and all stable owners and managers who tend to our horses during extreme conditions.

During last week's Deep Freeze I made a couple of quick trips to check on Phantom. Today was my first day back in the saddle. Just walk work to get him relaxed and bending. I did alternating 10 meter circles down the center line to work on me and Phantom.

Since the horses are gradually being introduced to their winter paddocks, I immediately turned out Phantom when finished instead of letting him free graze. As expected, the Arabian "herd" was the most sensible of the geldings. (wink) Phantom, Pugsley, and Dansuan settled quietly into their winter digs. The rest of the geldings were goofballs when transferred to their winter turnouts. Must have been giddy over the new growth of grass.

Moe, the senior member of the CEC Critter Control Staff, was poking around the little barn and demanded lap time. So I complied. He's the lone survivor of the original staff and deserving of some loves.

Indy was a little miffed that I was directing my attention elsewhere, and to a cat! Then, when Mufasa and Scar decided to join Moe, poor Indy was really perplexed. Adding insult to injury, the youngsters hissed at Indy who was greatly distressed by the turn of events.

So on the way home I made up to Indy by taking him for a walk on a path I rarely visit. In fact, I think it was his first time at the locale. All was forgiven.

Now we go from temperatures in the teens to 50+ degrees!