Gee Whiz!

Over a foot of snow!? In Surrey? Unheard of!

Poor YM was stranded miles away (her car couldn't cope with the journey) so I made it up to the yard to meet with others who had offered to help out with the barn. Got the horses all sorted with breakfast and hay and then brought in the two live outs who were covered in icicles, poor mites! One old mare, who never wants to come in, virtually put the headcollar on herself. They have huge bales of haylage out there, but they wanted some comfort I think. They didn't take long to defrost once they were in and I think they're staying in tonight as they are both pretty old.

Sammie of course thought the whole world had gone quite mad. He's been out in this sort of stuff when he lived out in Gloucestershire, but you would have thought he'd never seen anything like it in his life. Much snorting and lowering of the head went on and every little movement made him jump - including a sparrow.

We got mucked out and then YM (who arrived late through devotion and hitched rides) needed to go and check on her foalie with the live out herd, so we drove up there as far as I could get, gave them all a feed and checked all their feet. Then I finished off Sammie and drove home before the ice really set in; even the best of cars can't cope with ice rinks.

I did take Sammie out for a little walk and he came back on stilts of snows on the fronts. He looked most disconcerted by it! Another reason to go barefoot - his hinds were fine.

It did look beautiful though - perfect powdery snow. It's just a bit of a pain when you're trying to get work done, and it freezes your feet off if you're wearing wellies.