Ice Age

This is what I am tackling every night on foot to get to the stables.  Believe me, it's like glass.  It's not any easier walking on the verge next to the fence as it is frozen solid too.  Most of the snow has melted in the fields now, apart from the boys summer field, to the right of the picture.  For some reason the snow isn't melting in there.  I fell again today, getting out the car on my way to work.  My feet just slid away when I stepped out the car.  My arm got stuck at a strange angle and I heard something tearing.  My arm has got increasingly more painful as the day has gone on.  Leading Wolfie and mucking out was really sore.  My Dad slipped and fell last week and he has cracked some ribs, so really I should be grateful I'm still in one piece.

Wolfie is still bored but his appetite seems to be increasing again.  I ended up buying him some readi grass to try and stimulate his appetite and it seems to have worked.  He's still not eating his full ration of hay or haylage but it's definitely an improvement, and I'm slowly starting to increase it again based on the amount he's eating and what's getting wasted.  When I walked into Wolfie's stable tonight, he was still in the field.  Wolfie normally does a demolition job on his stable during the night.  Bankings down, bed coming out the door, buckets turned inside out and buried under the shavings, hay everywhere, sometimes rugs buried in there too.  He has always done this.  People worry when their horse's bed is a complete mess, incase they've been cast, upset during the night.  I was worried tonight, because Wolfie's stable was in perfect order.  Obviously it hadn't been mucked out and there were visible droppings, but apart from this it was very neat and tidy.  I was walking about it like someone entering their house and finding it to be burgaled.  Very strange.  Not that I'm complaining.  Maybe Wolfie has turned over a new leaf and decided to be a tidy horse.  We'll see how it looks tomorrow.   

The handle of my sweeping brush broke in half.  I'm upset about it.  I'm funny about mucking out tools and when I find some that I'm really comfortable using, I like to keep them.  To be fair, it wasn't an expensive brush and I've had it since I got Wolfie.  I like a brush with a long handle and this one had a good long handle, now it would have a long handle if I was 2 foot tall!  I went to B & Q to see if I could get another handle, but have decided I may aswell get a completely new brush.  I'm going to tape the end of the other one and Zoe can use it.  She enjoys mucking out, but all my tools are huge for her.  I was telling my Dad about the brush / handle dilemma when he asked if it was like Trigger's sweeping brush in an episode of Only Fools and Horses.  Trigger had won an award for using the same broom to sweep the streets for twenty years, even though he'd replaced the head 17 times and the handle 14 times.  Made me laugh.

Buttons is just being, well he's just being Buttons.  He's as happy and as matter of fact as ever.  I'm glad to say he hasn't lost his appetite at all.  He's taken a shine to parsnips at the moment.  He's looking forward to a visit from Zoe soon, as due to the weather and the conditions at the stables she hasn't been able to get up to see him.

My camera seems to be taking hazy pictures today, not sure why.  I'm absolutely desperate to get back to riding.