Christmas Eve

 It was still dark when I drove up to check the fillies. They were snug in the stall and more than ready to come out but it was still just too cold. They were given more water in their heated water bucket and a half of a bale of hay. 

What a cold night, each time I awoke it was below zero and the wind howling, slamming into the house. We didn't get a lot of snow over the course of the storm but what we got drifted. The picture below was taken on the way back to the house this morning.

We had guests coming in this morning around 9:30 am. Mark came with me on the second trip to shovel a path into the apartment while I laid the fire in the wood burner as these guests wanted fire. That meant the futon had to be put up as a couch and the floors given a quick once over. Mark started working on waterers.   The hair dryer in Evan's was running full blast but there was no water in his tank. The ice was so thick it had frozen the float to high. We filled buckets with hot water from the apartment and kept dumping it in until the float was unfrozen and that worked.  Joan sent a text that she made it home from Gulf Shores around 10:00 pm last night but her furnace wasn't working, the house was down to 60 degrees and she had no water. Mark headed over there and got her furnace working.  It was the her water softener that froze even though it is in an insulated closet which shut down her water.  Once that was heated up all worked. We had a breakfast date today with Ralph and Jamie at 8:45 am. On the way to the Hog Trough we had to slow way down for a truck stuck and a big machine trying to pass.

That machine had to back up to make room for us to pass. Mark's car was out of gas so we went straight to Casey's to fill it. Mark got his credit card out of his wallet but then struggled to put his wallet back in his pants pocket as we were both wearing heavy winter coats. He stepped out of the car, reached down to pull the lever that opens the gas up and realized the card was not in his hand. Thinking the wind took it, he quickly looked around on the ground but had to get back in the car to warm up while checking his pockets. That credit card was no where to be found. Mark moved the car forward so I could look under it but it was not there. We both spent about 5 minutes looking for it both in and out of the car but each time we got out of the car we could only look for a few minutes before freezing. It was still below zero and high winds. At that point we gave up and I gave him my credit card to fill the tank. We found the card just before we pulled out of the gas station. When he pulled the gas lever it had slipped out of his glove, down to the floor and was hidden by the lever. Crazy. We were still early for our breakfast meeting. When we turned onto 116  we saw the sun dog.

A rainbow made from snow crystals in the air. It was ending at Mike and Diane's sign. We enjoyed a delicious leisurely breakfast with Ralph and Jamie. Ralph was driving home from work this morning around 6:30 am and saw a man crawling on the side of the road. He stopped and asked if he could help, the man turned him down. Ralph ended up calling 911. Hopefully the police got him in a car before he froze to death. What a crazy thing to do.  Jamie is down sizing and gave me a beautiful precious moments topper for a cake plus table cloths and place settings. She also gave us 3 Christmas gifts. One for Mark, one for me and one for mom. When we got home from the Hog Trough Mark went out to check waterers and Evan's water was at 60 degrees, nice and warm. Horses drink more if the water is not ice cold so this was good. The electric bucket in the stall was also working well. I left for Morton to pick up Nancy who was going to spend the night at Joan's house. We stopped at mom's to give her the gift from Jamie.

Mom gave Nancy one of the candy canes out of it and Nancy was really pleased.

After dropping her off at Joan's I drove to the barn to let the fillies out for the day. Their waterer was checked and I was pleased to see it open.

By this time it was 13 degrees positive instead of negative. They were both glad to get out.

We kept the fires going most of the day but this evening just have one going. The wind is not quite so bad and now that we are in the positives it isn't so critical. The fillies were checked one more time. 

The extreme cold is over, don't get me wrong it is still going down to single digits but these fillies have a thick winter coat and can tolerate that just fine. It was just the -35 degrees wind chills last night were so awful that I didn't want to take a chance on losing them.  This Christmas Eve was a good day and tomorrow we get to celebrate Christmas, the birth of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.