First snow

I am finally back from my 35 hour road trip.  I went to New England to pick up furniture and equipment and it was a 16 hour drive there and a 19 hour trip back.  UGH I hate driving!  It was nice there though, I saw a some of my relatives and it was in the mid 50's the entire time so I didn't freeze which was a surprise.  Traveling back west, however, there were indications that being warm wouldn't last.  When we hit New York it was in the 40's but sunny.  About the time we hit Niagara it was in the mid 30's and was misting.  When we went into Canada it started raining hard and kept it up even after we made it home.

Yesterday we went about unloading everything and it was again in the mid 30's and it rained.  All.  Day.  Long.  The winter pasture is a muddy, sloppy mess and it makes me very happy to have the indoor arena for a turnout area so the they aren't in this slop.  Then last night RB3 told me we were supposed to get snow.  Wait, snow?  Where did this idea come from, we would get the white stuff?  No way, I was in 50 degree weather just 2 days ago!  Sure enough at night check last night we were getting wet, fat flakes of "fluffy rain" and this morning we have a good couple of inches of snow covering everything.  In a way I am happy because if things weren't so wet and not frozen we would have easily ended up with a foot or more of snow.  On the flip side if things were more frozen I wouldn't have such slop to walk through.

Thankfully everything is in place and ready, everyone has their heated water buckets in their stall, the winter pasture is up and running, the 100 gal water tank is securely in the arena and I even have the tank heater installed!  I got that one done yesterday, I had ordered one off of Amazon that had really good reviews and is supposed to not tax the electric bill as badly.  It came in the mail while I was gone and so I installed it yesterday and it was just in time.  I was impressed with the little unit, it looks rugged enough and the cord clip is a fantastic inclusion.  The clip fits the Rubbermaid trough very well and it does look like it will prevent ponies from playing with it.  We will see!

Hopefully I will get to ride tonight or tomorrow.  I would like to get back in the saddle again to be ready to take a lesson or two in December.  I keep hoping things will slow down for me since November was supposed to be my slow month and it just isn't happening.  Between going out of town, holidays, birthdays and more my month became very busy.  This weekend *should* be slow, just a farrier visit and giving a lesson, next weekend I have to go out of town again and then I have one weekend before Christmas and I have a house full of guests again.  I just need to put riding as a priority again, this having horses at your own place really does kill the ability to ride.