Another Bitterly Cold Night

Our thermostat was reading -17 degrees when we awoke. Mark kept the wood burner going all night so the house was reasonably comfortable but the furnace quit on the apartment and Jessica had not yet made it back from Gulf Shores to let us know. It was only 33 degrees in there, sure hope the pipes didn't freeze. There was no walk today, only Diane and I are home and we just don't want to walk on the snow and ice when it is below zero by that much. Mark had to put the charger on my car as it was dead but the charger worked fine and the car started in time for me to get to the Berean office before 9:00 am. We had a lot of mail there.
When I left the Berean office the temperature had climbed to 4 ABOVE zero. My first job was to head to the barn to care for the 3 weanlings. The stalls were not cleaned, everything was pretty frozen.
Mike went to Middle Grove to check the automatic waterer out there and check on the horses. He sent back the 2 pictures below:

 The waterer had been turned on high and thankfully was still open. The creek out there is no longer running as we had such a dry fall so without that waterer Mike would have to take his chain saw and cut holes in the lake and that is just not a good option. We are so very thankful for electricity. We have 31 horses currently out at Middle Grove, pictured below are about half of them. They all seem to be handling this extreme cold fine. They were sure enjoying the sunshine. Mike had plenty of round bales out but most of the herd was just drowsing in the sunshine, not eating. 

The foal pictured is Serenity, Sangria's filly, Sangria was just off to the left out of the camera range. Darla the only other foal was behind the tree nursing from her mom Oksana. 

A very nice update came in on Valeria, Whitney's 2015 filly by Valiant. Brian, her owner writes, this was her first trail ride, she is 2 and a half years old and sticks at 17.2 hands. 

They rode through the river bottoms and had no problems. He is hoping to be able to breed her to a Friesian stallion but is discouraged, they are from Idaho,  he bought semen last year for a Friesian mare he leased, tried 4 times with no success. There are just no Friesian stallions around where he lives and AI can be extremely expensive.