Thursday, December 10, 2009

She lives! And thrives!

Today looked like my Big Chance to visit Dixie. Look at this stupid forecast!



I put on my Frozen Southerner outfit, with minor changes, and headed out. I wore a different pair of wool socks today, and I tried the very thin black wool/spandex glove liners. Both were failures. I have one pair of expensive Smartwool socks, five pairs of cheap and ugly - but extremely effective and comfortable! - Costco wool socks, and three pairs of very pretty and soft wool/silk blend Costco socks. Do not fall for the wool/silk blend socks at Costco. Yes, they come in rose and blue and heather grey, and ooh they feel soft, but they aren't all that warm and they don't have very good elastic properties. Also don't buy those super-thin glove liners I linked in the comments to yesterday's post. Also not very warm.

I managed to keep my momentum up and got up the mountain to where Dixie lives without any problem. S's neighborhood is all 15+ acre lots, and she lives at the back of the development, so it's a very low traffic road. Good for riding, bad for snow removal. I slid gracefully into S's driveway and was delighted to see that Dixie had watched me drive up and was ambling closer to the fence. I fed her some Frosted Mini Wheats (because I left the apples in the truck and they froze solid - D'OH!) and scratched her face for a while.

She lives!

There you go. Four inches of snow, two run-in shelters, and no blankets. Horses really are tough!

I should measure her and buy her a blanket, I suppose. The only situation I really worry about is a cold hard rain, which is extremely rare in the hills where she lives, but there's no harm in having a waterproof light blanket on hand. Surely she's smarter than a turkey and will go in a shed if it starts raining... but I don't want to count on that.

I took a fuzzy-yak picture for my mom, but it's not very impressive. Her head looks like a goat's head, and her legs look like an airbrushed unicorn on a license plate, but you just can't tell how thick the hair on her body is here.
Fluffy horses

Here's a slightly different angle of a view I post a lot, looking down the hill into Reno. Look at that frozen fog inversion layer crap!
View into town

I thought to take a picture of Tempus's Weird Foot too, for Lythia. I was telling her that Tempus had an injury to his coronet band as a 2 year old, and his hoof wall has grown out weird there ever since. It doesn't bother him at all; just looks kinda funny.
Tempus's hoof - for Lythia


I had to put the chains on to get back out of S's driveway and down the hill. Here's the theoretically-plowed road:
Driving back out

I might try to get back out tomorrow - depends on how much snow we get tonight/tomorrow am.

5 comments:

  1. Umm... no thank you! I'll pass on the snow! Yuck!

    I will admit, it's pretty, though. Especially against gorgeous blue skies. But I'll enjoy it from the pictures you take instead. :)

    I showed a horse in 4-H that had an injury like Tempus. Jack's was from putting his foot through some metal siding. Never bothered him at all either, but it is interesting to look at.

    Stay warm!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes, NOAA is always the most accurate, sadly! look up the weather for Truckee, i want spring :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. in2paints - I'll take lots of pictures for you then! :P

    Zach - my husband likes to read all the forecast sites, but I think they all get their forecasts from NOAA so that's the only one I look it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Shiny and fuzzy beasts! Lovely scene... from my warm living room :^)

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's funny ... I've only lived in Nebraska and thought I had a pretty good idea of climates in other states. Guess I'm really surprised you get that much snow in Reno. I knew it snowed some, but boy - you are getting as much as we are, it seems. I wouldn't have guessed!

    ReplyDelete

Feel free to comment!