Sunday, February 21, 2010

Sunday Sun Day

As The Snow Melts

At last I can see patches of grass/earth where there used to be only snow. From the forecasts, the next storm will be mostly rain, so perhaps we can at last be free of this white prison.

Of course that means controlled turnout for Tucker again as with the thaw will come the mud.

My big thrill of the day was being able to fill the water tub with the barn hose! Hopefully the hose I use for the tub in the arena will be thawed as well because if I have to put Tucker out there, I need water for him. The only other obstacle is that the big sliding door to the barn on that end was also frozen shut the last time I tried to move it. I need to pull the hose in that direction--or I will need to hook up another hose and drag it through Tucker's stall to fill the tub. Kind of a nuisance, but it's certainly better than lugging buckets of water over.

Church this morning and lunch afterwards so I was occupied for most of the day. There was a chill breeze blowing when I got home and still enough snow to discourage riding. I'll see how things look tomorrow and maybe get Chance out for a little ride in the woods. I'll see how the arena looks too. If the snow had melted enough to make a little workout in there feasible, I might do something with Tucker. After that, the week looks pretty bleak with rain or some kind of precipitation for about four days--mostly rain from the looks of it.

Not much to say otherwise. I did meet a woman from South Dakota at the party yesterday. Of course the topic of weather came up and she said how much she loved the snow. The storms we'd had here in New Jersey were "nothing" compared to what she was used to back home, but, I must admit she did offer some understanding of our problems. One thing that was very interesting to me is that she said the snow here is very different than the snow out west. Out there as deep as it gets, the snow is usually the light fluffy kind. Here, the more common snow is wet and heavy as it was in the last storm.

This makes a huge difference in handling it. The first February storm we had was the lighter kind of snow, so shoveling and plowing was annoying, but not a test of strength. The second storm, the one that dropped all the tree branches was wet and so heavy that one shovelful was a chore.

I always enjoy hearing other people's perspectives on the world. The snow "differential" was quite enlightening.

But noting other bloggers' posts about the weather, there seems to be one thing nearly all us horsemen seems to understand in common--mud. I guess unless you live in a world with little rain or very sandy soil, mud is the horseman's common denominator.

Even so, I am almost looking forward to it. It's one of those signs of Spring I have come to long for.

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:31 PM

    I've found the snow here is more often than not the light type as well - we lived in Boston before and I remember all that wet, heavy snow. That said, the snow that's coming tonight is supposed to be the heavy type.

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  2. I'm not crazy about the wet heavy snow either. Out west it is so powdery, I only know this because some of my kids are skiers and they prefer to ski out west as opposed to here because it's so icy on the mountains here. Can't wait for spring either but I detest mud as much as snow. I think it's more dangerous and slippery and then of course it can suck the shoes right off the horses. Ugh. I wish it could be autumn all year long!

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  3. Everyone seems to be having trouble with snow; I think we're all happy that spring is coming. And you're definitely right about the mud- even down here in New Orleans, where snow isn't an issue, there's ALWAYS the mud. It doesn't affect riding (thank goodness for Terra 2000 footing!), but it makes turn out a hassle.

    I wish there was such a thing as autumn down here... Guess I'll have to wish for summer instead.

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  4. We just got rid of our snow...they're calling for more later in the month, but AGH...Do. Not. Want.

    The ground is finally getting dry enough where Jack and I don't slide. Today was the first day I felt comfortable leaving leg protection off.

    The heavy type makes for good packing to make snowmen...I love making them, despite the mess of the snow. The powdery type is easier to shovel off my doorstep though...and it doesn't cake in the horses' hooves so badly.

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  5. The mud is rearing it's ugly head around here, too. Even though we have sandy soil, all this snow melting is just too much for the ground to handle. But I'll take the mud over the snow any day!

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  6. I always look at pictures of people riding through fields of snow and feel jealous. Snow doesn't stick here for very long, so we have lots of rain (=mud), then it feeezes (=nasty jagged frozen mud), and then it snows on top (=super treacherous footing). Thaw and repeat.

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