You know it's cold when ...

-you arrive at the barn to find the horse's water bucket frozen solid; a six inches thick cylinder of ice. (Thanks goodness for the automatic waterers still functioning.)
-the farrier calls to say, "umm, I think I need to reschedule, maybe for next week?"
-everyone gets a bran mash at night, two nights--maybe three--in a row.
-mucking the stalls yields lots of poop frozen hard as rocks that "thunk" as you throw them into the wheelbarrow.
-you have to stomp on the bedding to break it down from large chunks into something that remotely resembles shavings.
-you arrive at the barn and keep on your clothes from work (long underwear, pants, turtleneck and wool sweater), adding another pair of socks, your wonderful quilted insulated winter riding pants, a sweatshirt, a heavy fleece, a hat, a down vest, and the warmest gloves you can find. And you still need to periodically pop into the tack room to warm up.

Tuesday night we plunged from 30 degrees to 5 degrees! And since that plunge, it's been single digits all the way ... with a few negative numbers thrown in for good measure. Tomorrow, the weather forecasters are saying maybe 10 degrees, and that's looking WARM!

The horses seem to be doing ok. They've got on their Baker sheets, insulated blankets and turnout sheets and feel comfortably warm but not too toasty when I slide my hand underneath the layers. Katie walked Dude yesterday, and I arrived later and walked him again, plus Bestie. Some people did ride yesterday at the barn, but we're both weenies and really don't see the point of it when it's so cold.

I'm hoping today to put them out for a little while, after we run some errands. The barn's policy is not to turn out below zero degrees, which I can understand. Once the horses get uncomfortable, they tend to get unhappy, and if no one's there to grab them and bring them in, they start getting silly. So it's better to leave them in. Sounds like they'll get out Saturday and Sunday. We're supposed to get some snow, which will be nice. Right now we've got a hard crust over everything from the cold.