To call yesterday "Freaky Friday" would be a bit of an understatement. The fact that we are less than 10 miles from the Florida line should tell you how often it snows around here; almost never. The last time it snowed was 17 years ago and everything (including our heat pump) shut down; we left when the temperature inside the house hit 53 degrees. While we were in better shape this time (a wood stove with a blower and a generator), a snowstorm in the south always spells d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r. If you've never seen a Southerner try to drive in the snow, I can promise you it is NOT a pretty sight. Of course school was cancelled, and businesses were closing up shop left and right.
Since I had a full day of testing scheduled at the hospital (and they called 3 different times to make sure I was still coming), Cassandra [DD] didn't get a whole lot of playtime in before it was time to go. She was only two the last time it snowed, so she booked it outside to play in the white stuff until it was time to leave. Her first order of business was to write this terribly important piece of teenybopper information on the back of her dad's car before running around catching snowflakes on her tongue and making some snowballs :o) She managed to bean yours truly with the first one before dashing into the house to stick the other one in the freezer for posterity.
I have to say I had a good laugh upon leaving the hospital when I spotted this man-made decoration just outside the doors of Outpatient (and after almost 6 straight hours of tests, I needed a giggle or two :o) It's kind of hard to see in the photo, but there is a small (yet decorative) sprig of leaves sticking out of the top. The short story behind all the hospital testing has been an ongoing [and increasing] series of bizarre symptoms that have plagued me since February 2009 when I reluctantly got back on the medical merry-go-round. It seems, however, that we may have spent the past year chasing the wrong rabbit; and isn't that just special? With clear test results and puzzled physicians all the way to the Mayo Clinic a couple of weeks ago, I am pretty much to the point that I don't care what it is I just want to know. Hopefully, I will finally know something by next week's post (just in case you're interested ;o) Thankfully, we made it back home in one piece and before dark to feed everybody. Even as an official member of the worldwide organization of the SCC [that'd be "Scary Christian Chicks"] I don't mind telling you I was really worried and praying like crazy about the horses. With rain and sleet that started before daybreak, the horses were soaked to the skin before breakfast. The sleet was followed by big fat flakes of snow that accumulated on the soggy ground, dropping temps and a biting wind. Fun for people maybe, but deadly for animals that live outside. While the Moo Crew usually heads up the hill and shelters in the trees, the girls' stalls are an open design, and shutting them in there would have prevented them from moving around to keep warm. Here's what it looked like in the pasture late yesterday afternoon...Can you believe it?
That's Bella near the center, poor baby, with her legs together and tail tucked tightly against the wind. For those of you that are wondering why I didn't just slap horse blankets on everyone, it's a bit more complicated than you might think. Aside from the fact that we don't even have any blankets because the climate here doesn't warrant them (and it would cost between $700-$1,000 to buy them for everyone; that's if we could even find them locally) individual measurements would have to be taken for specific 
sizes. Since most of the horses have never even seen a blanket (let alone worn one) the middle of a winter storm would probably not be the best time to try a training exercise times ten. With the horses soaked to the skin, the coming darkness, wind picking up and the temp dropping into the 20s, I went to bed and woke up on a prayer. In all honesty, I was scared to death to go outside this morning, afraid of what I might actually find in the pasture. But...Praise the Lord, everyone was fine! Even though the high today is only supposed to be 45, the sun is shining so hopefully my four-legged children can all get some much needed rest after such a miserable night. So...how's the weather at your house?
