Dawn Doesn't Kill the Mini, and the Boys Say Hello

I had a busy morning at the barn, even though I didn't ride.  It's warmer than it's been - it was 19F this morning and we're supposed to get up in the 20s, but the wind was howling.  Dawn wasn't happy about the wind and was huddled by the gate.  I brought her in so she could take a break in the warm barn while I washed water buckets and made up feed packets.  When I was out getting her, I also discovered that the geldings' water tanks had frozen over - some sort of problem with the heaters - so I broke the ice and texted the barn owner.

When I turned Dawn back out, all the other mares had gone out to eat at the bales despite the wind, but Dawn refused to budge from the gate.  Fortunately, one of the paddock horses had been taken inside for a lesson, so I was able to put Dawn in a paddock on the south side of the barn out of the wind.  She was happy with that, and was enjoying her hay.

I saw the boys down at the bottom of their pasture, and they both came up to the gate to say hi to me. I took a few minutes to talk to them both, and rub their faces and just hang out, which they seemed to enjoy.

I waited a while for the barn owner to get there so we could work on the water tanks, and in the meantime I did an impromptu massage on a horse that was in the aisle - whenever I'm talking with a horse (and the horse's people), I find it hard not to rub and massage the horse - this horse seemed to be really enjoying it.

The barn owner and I tested the heaters and they seemed to be fine once we reset the breaker, but she swapped in one bigger heater since one of the older heaters seemed to be not working well.  Not sure what caused the problem and we'll have to keep an eye on it.

When we went out to work on the heaters, we discovered that the mini who was in the pen next to Dawn had squeezed through the small gap between the gate and the post, and had ended up in Dawn's paddock!  He was in the far corner, as far as possible away from Dawn, but was uninjured.  Dawn can be quite aggressive with horses she doesn't know, so that was lucky.  I guess he came to say hi, and she told him to mind his own business and go over there, and he complied.  We moved the mini over to another paddock to prevent further shenanigans . . .

Snow tomorrow, and then back into the deep freeze for several days - highs aren't supposed to get above zero, and lows at night will be much colder with ferocious winds.  Not much looking forward to that, as horses will be in and there will be no access to the indoor for hand-wallking as it will be occupied by the pasture horses.  I'm usually one who enjoys winter, but this winter has already been very cold and hard - every day is one day closer to spring . . .