Today we struggled.  There was a lot of snowfall overnight.

We set off in the Eggbox and slid our way to the Minions’ field (about 1 mile down the road).  Even with extra-grunt 4WD on, we slid in a scary way down the hill and got stuck on the track.  So we gave up, grabbing buckets, haynets and water containers, lugging them the last bit to the ponies.

The ponies were pleased to see us and our food. We broke the ice off and refilled the water bucket, noting the stream that runs through the field had completely frozen over.  I have never seen that before.

I almost felt sorry for Newt. Almost.

Then we dug and pushed the Eggbox out of its drift and wobbled our way home, getting stuck again on our track, so again, we abandoned it, walking home feeling rather shaken by this experience.

After lunch, OH and I walked back to the Minions’ field and I caught Fivla, Vitamin and Waffle.  OH led Fivla and Vitamin and I had Waffle.  The others were wild and free and they galloped up and down the road having the best time.

Meanwhile, I struggled with Waffle who was awful.  By the time we reached my neighbour’s house, I had run out of steam.  My neighbour took pity on me, came out and offered to lead Waffle for me so I could shout at the others who were now departing over the horizon (having scrambled over the cattle grid!) and not going home.  Luckily, they realised they were on their own, turned tail and galloped home, following OH with Fivla and Vitamin with Waffle and my neighbour bringing up the rear.

We shovelled them into a field and shut the gate fast.

Since then Waffle has had the water bucket over twice. OH has dragged the duck pond over to be their now un-turnoverable water container with rocks in.

I have put out haynets and I am barely speaking to anyone.

Lambie update:  Apparently he is still with us.

He might manage a small piece of hay – yay, go Lambie.

I told you – we are struggling!

More and more snow overnight but everyone equine is doing ok.

This lot can get to the grass if they bother to dig through the powdery snow and they have a bucket in the morning.

Monster of course is in his element.

Invisibility is his middle name.  He is the master of stealth and surprise.  No one expects…….. a white cat in the snow!

Meanwhile, I am worried about Lambie. He hasn’t eaten his breakfast for two days in a row and seems depressed.  So I put the others in a field, so they couldn’t hassle him.  He likes to eat on his own and I tried everything.

I opened a fresh bag of sheep crunch – nope, he turned away.  I gave him a fresh block of dried grass – he quite liked that and I wondered if he is missing fresh green grass.  I can do nothing about that. The snow has covered it up.

I even held the bowl for him between my feet so it didn’t slide around while he was eating.

Then I sprinkled some of Edna’s favourite food (Rowen Barbary Ready Mash Extra) on the top and he quite liked that.

The minute I thought “good, I’ve found what he likes”, he would stop eating.

I tried fibre beet (dried sugarbeet cubes for horses and he quite liked them – but no real enthusiasm).  He’s gone off hay too.

So I found a box of beet shreds with barley and he did like that.  Sadly you can’t get beet shreds anymore but I hope I can jolly him along until the thaw at hopefully the weekend.  Lambie has always been a fussy feeder, and sometimes he will only eat if I promise to hold his bowl.

*** sigh ***. I shall now worry constantly about Lambie.

The snow is pretty and all that but it is also an awful lot of hard work too.  So, because I am totally exhausted from waiting tables – horse, pony, sheep, duck, hens – since 8.30 this morning until it got dark just after 4, I am not going to write much.   I just want to curl up with some ginger wine and a hot water bottle really.

But in between lugging buckets, water, haynets, etc, I managed to nip out with my big camera and take some photos of Haakon and Iacs. Kolka was the other side of the shed.

As you can see, they are all doing fine.  Their coats are working well. No one is jittery or cold and I would almost say they have all eaten themselves to a standstill.

I feel like I have fairies, or furries, at the bottom of my garden and you can see why I have to keep going out with food or fresh water….. they keep standing there trying to get my attention.

“Excuse me, could we possibly have the next course?”

It’s been hard work today.  The weather is not letting up and the snow is now getting worse.  These pictures are from early this morning when it was just windy and starting to snow again off and on.

Despite this, everyone is holding up very well. They all seem bright, chirpy and resourceful.

My blackbird is living in the sheep shed.  Sensible.

And the sheep are living outside – their choice, even though there are haynets indoors. I fed them hard feed twice today mostly to get them out of the way so the ducks could have two meals without an argument.

At lunchtime, I gave the Icelandic horse a good pile of hay plus a couple of buckets of water.  The gable end of the shed is very sheltered which makes it an ideal spot.

There was a bit of an argument – thank you, Haakon.

But Kolka made her presence known and got her fair share of hay.

Iacs went for a corner approach.  Sensible chap. He stayed out of the arguments.

Since then, there has been a whole lot of snow dumped on us and the outside water pipes are all frozen so we have to lug water from the house.

But I can sleep tonight without worrying too much because no one is cold and everyone is full of food and water.  We have done our very best.

And the Eggbox is a ruddy God-send, I can tell you.

We woke up to snow. Not a lot but enough to get in the way of everything we wanted to do. And it is very windy too so the windchill is making itself known.

The Minions are fine. Because of their escape, they now have masses of old long grass to get through.  I grudgingly gave them their breakfast buckets of minerals/vitamins, cleared their water bucket of ice and told them that was it.  Nothing else.  Get on with it.

The sheep have haynets and, though they valiantly went into their field for the day, when I found them huddling behind a wall in a vicious hailstorm, I told them to come home.  So they took one look at their lovingly made haynets and walked out again, ducking under a fence to find another field to eat.  I tried. I really did.

Pepper, of course, has been my constant companion in all of this.  Ted went straight home and refused to leave his bed ever again.

The ducky-wuckies haven’t really left their shed either,  though there are a faction that are made to stay outside by Dad.  Duck-Wars are going on because the girls are laying eggs – I have no idea why. Spring, it ain’t.

This afternoon found me, as per usual, in my shed stabbing away while watching Murdoch Mysteries when I stupidly looked up…..

…. and saw this. That would be Iacs trying to get my attention.

Somehow he knew I had three buckets in my porch which I had planned to give to him and his field-mates at tea-time.

So they had it for lunch instead because I kept seeing Iacs out of the corner of my eye.  He was very persuasive.