15 December 2007 (2nd post)

Thanks for the comments everyone. I suppose I should have clarified, the barn in the other post with the new doors is one of two barns that we have, I call it the "old barn" because it is the first one that Larry had built. It has three stalls on the one side and a "tramp shed" and "hay shed" on the other side. It is only 36' x 32'. The door that Stan has just built is 10' wide and 9' high or thereabouts so it is a much smaller building. The new barn has aluminum siding and is 40'x72'. That is where I house most of the horses. The hay mall (hay storage area) is above the stables. It has 5 stalls built (three one side and two on the other) which takes up half of the barn area including the feed/tackroom area and the other half is where I have built the temporary stalls for the winter. The sliding door is 12 foot high and twelve foot wide, one at each end of the barn. I can actually ride in this barn when there are no temp stalls there because the cross beams for the roof are 12 foot up. Here is a pic of the big barn taken last year after about 8 inches of snow one night. The old barn that I posted in the last post has a much lower roof.



Hope that clarifies the dilemma LOL.

Abraham in this weather the horses pretty much stay wet while they are out. They do dry and I dont normally worry about getting them dried before bringing them in, If they are very active they will dry but then they go and roll in the snow again LOL. Their coats work in a wonderful way to keep them warm. They will shiver when they are extremely cold and I have only seen that once so they are pretty resiliant. I have had occasion where there has been a terrible rain storm moving in and the wind is howling and rain lashing down and I am running around worrying about bringing them in only to find that they are happily down the other end of the field munching away like nothing is happening!! They are wood chewing machines unfortunately, this comes mainly from boredom, horses are grazing animals and if they are out in a pasture with good grazing that will keep them busy, when they are cooped up they do whatever they can to pass the time. I will definitely check out the link for Pioneer Woman, sounds intriguing. We have only had about an inch of snow so far today it has been slow but tonight after midnight we are expecting up to 14 inches up til mid Sunday. Time will tell I suppose, meteorologists arent always accurate, I joke that it has to be the only well paying job where you are paid even though you are consistently wrong LOL.

At the moment from their outing yesterday, the horses are all covered in dry mud still LOL. MiKael sorry about the rain, that is the pits.

Well just wanted to clarify that little dilemma. (((Hugs))))) here's hoping I can get out the front door tomorrow morning LOL.

Lori
xx