Just a little bit cold here.

Life here has been VERY cold lately.  The poor horses had been stalled for about three days before we decided to actually plow the upper part of one of the pastures.  They were very happy to get out and tried to prance around, but soon learned that they had better be careful.  Eco does not look happy about the fact that he had to take it easy.   If only we had an indoor arena......

Here May and Otis are checking out the situation.  There was still about a foot of snow under a thick sheet of ice where we did not plow.

Ollie was very careful.

Oracle could barely control his enthusiasm.

Here you can see some of the ice balls that formed when Brian plowed the pasture.

Oracle looking wild.  He wanted to run so badly.  The temps here in the single digits.  We did make it up to 15 the other day.  Supposed to be a balmy 25 tomorrow.

We took Zippy and Bumble for a walk the other day and it was just beautiful!

A beautiful sunset view of Snake Mountain and Elk Knob.

A closer look at Elk Knob.

Snake Mountain.

Zippy taking in the view.  He is actually looking for deer.  We could not walk long because it was only 8 degrees and Zippy has no fur.  Notice how we just walk along on the sheet of ice.  On occasion, you will break through and go down to your knee in snow.  At least I do.  I am just a bit short.   Poor little Zippy pulled a muscle while walking and is not his usual wild self.   He is having a hard time wagging his tail.

Just look at the sheen on the ice.  The ice is very abrasive.  We have to really watch the dogs' feet to make sure that they do not rub them raw.  I think Zippy needs some boots!  We may have this stuff around for awhile.

Ice!

The ice storm story........Christmas day 2009

We woke up knowing that we were going to have ice.  However we did not know that we would have this much.  It was supposed to warm above freezing during the day but it never did.  We were supposed to spend Christmas with family eating great food and having a great time.  We never did.  This is a picture of my back yard.

Our poor blue spruce!

Another back yard shot.

I took this picture around 9:00 Christmas morning.  We still had hope then that we would be able to be with our family.

Never happened.

Then around 12:00 the power went out.  We had been scrambling to get things ready for the power outage that we knew was eminent.  By the way...that little bird is sitting on an Elder Jones sculpture.

This is a feather that Brian left on the fence.  Notice the broken rail in the background.  The wind blew and it sounded like shots were being fired from the trees losing their battle with the heavy ice.

Another feather shot.  Nature has a way of sneaking up on you when you least expect it.

Icicles on the fence.

More fence damage!

This used to be a pasture.  The fence line where the trees are is now buried under debris.

This is the mule pasture.  More missing fence.

I was in awe at how beautiful everything was and at the same time scared and upset at the damage that was happening every time the wind would pick up.

Even the weathervane was frozen.

I love the way my garden gate looked.  Made it myself!

After the storm....Melting begins.....Still no power.....Could have been much worse....I am very thankful for all of the people that risk their lives working very hard to restore power to our area.   We had power back within 4 days.

Beautiful Elk Knob state park.   It really is strange to walk on a thick sheet of ice atop over a foot of snow that was still on the ground from the previous storm.  I am a short person and it really felt good.

Well....nothing to do except play Extreme Mountain Golf!  Brian teeing off.

My turn.  Notice that I have on my snowboarding pants and about three other layers.

Now THAT is how you get to the second tee!  Brian reached the bottom without killing himself, so I thought I would give it a try.  Brian was wearing jeans....I had on my slick snowboarding pants......Well, you can guess what happened.  I started down the hill slowly enough and then hit warp speed.  See those trees at the bottom of the hill?????  Luckily Brian caught me before I smashed into them.

Zippy jumped for joy when the sun came out.

The End...........

More Snow Pictures

I guess this dog is blue for a reason.  Brrrrrrr...... You can barely see my stump planter.  These first photos were taken before the second round of the snow storm.  We got about 6 more inches the next day.

Oracle!  He loves the snow and flies around the pasture.

Danza and Eco however do not like it as much.  Eco was trying to get the little balls of snow off of his whiskers.

The poor little minis were not too happy.  May stayed in the shelter with her new coat on the whole time it snowed.  Brian had to plow their paddock so they could get around.

Bumble LOVES the snow!

Even though she is too short to go into the deep stuff.  I have realized that she does not do as well while it is snowing; she tends to have problems with the snow falling into her nostrils and has a hard time breathing.

Out of the way Gus!

Zippy getting stuck.

HELP!!!

Never mind!

After the storm.  The sky was just beautiful and very clear.  This is a shot of Snake Mountain.

We were lucky to have such nice weather after this storm.  We had little wind and the temps were in the 40s.  We got lucky during this storm with the wind.  We could have had some really large snow drifts and that was kept to a minimum.

A nice shot of Elk Knob.  One of NC's newest state parks.

See ya....I am going raccoon hunting!

Zippy Adventure

I started the day with a walk to see the beautiful snow that we had over the weekend.  The wind was not blowing and temps were in the 40's!  We have not been able to navigate very well, because our driveway is still quite covered.  Brian has been plowing snow for three days.  I took Gus the Labrador, with me because Bumble and Zippy are not tall enough to walk in this snow.  They get bogged down and then try to jump through it.  I will post some pictures of that later.  I did decide to take the short dogs for a walk this evening however.  Brian joined us and we decided to stick to the plowed areas so Bumble and Zippy could walk without getting stuck.

Well....as you can see Zippy had a little adventure.  He took off when we were coming up our drive and I was so worried that he was stuck in the snow somewhere and could not get out.  We back tracked and found him doing this.

Please take note here.  This is probably the only time you will ever see a Bull Terrier and a Bulldog treeing a raccoon.  I am just so happy that the little guy was able to escape and was not hurt in any way.  I was scared that he would jump onto Brian when he reached over to grab Zippy.   Poor little guy.   I had to use my scarf as a leash to get Zippy back up to the house.  

He or she looks so sad.  That is a large raccoon!