Staying Warm

Riding horses: warm
Cleaning stalls: warm
Breaking ice out of water buckets: warm
Instructing riding lessons: COLD!

As the temperature dips down below 0, I'm thinking that I am definately horse crazy. I'm actually enjoying being out in the cold cleaning stalls. I'm surprised that my hands are actually warmer after my gloves freeze. I guess it's like having an igloo on each hand insulating them... If you have to actually use your fingers, it is quite a different story!

Breaking the ice completely out of the water buckets took my assistant and me about an hour and we had a great time laughing at ourselves. Spending the last 7 years in Washington had allowed me to forget what breaking ice out of buckets is like; perhaps during my previous time in Montana I was smarter than to use buckets.... We do have heated water troughs and I appreciate them very much, but for some purposes we still use buckets. My assistant and I had our assortment of "tools" to break the ice in each of our buckets. We laughed at our caveman-like manner using rocks and sticks to chop the ice. It almost became a race to see who could break their ice first. Freezing water was splashing us in the face, ice chips were flying, etc! At one point my pigtails were even white with ice chunks hanging from them!

Riding is such an athletic activity that we sometimes find ourselves sweating and shedding off layers. It seems strange that you can get so warm in such cold weather! Don't get me wrong-even though I am shedding layers I do still have little warmers in my boots!!

Instructing riding lessons is where I find myself getting very cold. I move less as I find myself directing others in the action. Once you get cold it's hard to warm up. My assistant and I are at the barn for 8 hours each, so don't be surprised when you see us in our big, warm, insulated coveralls tomorrow!!!!