I didn’t realize it has been so long since I posted any updates! In some ways, a lot has happened, and in others it has been fairly quiet.

I’ve gotten Scooby and Skyler out a few more times since October, and he has responded well to the shoes. I put him in steel to start with when we measured for a set of Blue Pegasos, which he is now in. Both horses are in the orange joint-saver shoes and this is the first time we tried a reset on Sully, since we wouldn’t be riding a ton on heavy rocks or the like… Will see what the look like in a bit!
I was able to start on our “track system” in early November with cutting down the pasture for the horses over the winter. The whole thing had lime/fertilizer/seed spread, then I put up a fence to keep them out of the bulk of it and in the flatter area for shelter, hay, and water. The big area will rest for now and be over-seeded in spring, then off limits still for the next year. I want to slowly make a track all around the 3.5 acres and do a little woods path, and the owners are fencing another 2 acres for me to lease that is just through our far gate that I can rotate them into for grazing (eventually). Slowly but surely!

Soccer wrapped up for both kids for the fall session, with Skyler’s team winning the Frostbite Tournament the first weekend of December. Asher had his first band concert, both for the 7th grade and getting playing with the jazz band. Sadly, we lost Loki mid-December due to heart failure on top of his diabetes. We all really miss him, and will be looking at adding a cat again to the house soon. However, we had a nice quiet Thanksgiving at home with a family outing to the park as it was a warm day, a wonderful Hanukah and Christmas, including going to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert, and a great holiday break where we drove down to FL to visit my parents… What was planned as a 15hr trek ended up at 17hrs due to road issues in SC…very long drive down! We had a lot of fun while there though, hanging out hitting the pool and the beach, and a day trip to SeaWorld.

We ended up deciding to leave even earlier (230am vs. 4am) when heading home and it ended up right about 15hrs with minimal slow downs (in NC that time!). Forecast was showing some snow starting as rain Sunday night/early Monday (still a holiday) so I raced around getting out a new round bale and blankets on once back. It had been warm the whole week we were gone, and was still 60degrees at 8pm when blanketing. We didn’t think much about the 4-8″ claimed to arrive as they are usually very wrong… for once, they were mostly right! At 430am when I looked outside during a bathroom trip there was nothing happening. At 730 when we woke again, there was 6″ of very heavy wet snow, and it was still coming down… we lost power at 8am, phone and internet shortly after. The truck had been scheduled to be fixed that morning but we called first thing and agreed to reschedule to Friday. Thankfully we have a generator, and a 100gal propane tank that feeds it with a line into the house. Minus a bobble in things later on Monday (needed oil), it performed flawlessly. We figure it was about 9″ at our house in the end! We played outside in the snow some and you could hear the trees cracking and falling all around. When I walked the field I found 4 trees on our fence 😦 One section is crushed and will require some repair, but first we have to get the trees off to turn the electric back on.
We were expecting to have power back by 11pm Thursday per the estimates, but submitted a request for propane refill on Tuesday just in case once we finally ventured out for food (since we hadn’t gone shopping yet). Little did we know just how long this would last! Phone and internet returned Tuesday evening, but power reinstatement kept getting delayed. Truck was dropped off on Thursday afternoon for its Friday appointment because more snow was expected and we didn’t want to have to think about the roads Fri am… another 3″ fell Thursday night. Still no power… Propane was expected not to be delivered until the following week (as “on demand” requests aren’t prioritized over the auto-fill folks) and we were getting worried… Saturday morning came and we went to a friends for showers, with the hope power would return during their latest 4-9pm window. Starting around noon there were trucks lined up on our road. I guess the helicopter clearing last month didn’t do much in the woods behind us! Chainsaws were running till around 4pm. I had extra buckets filled for the horse’s water as we expected the propane to die at any moment and lose use of the well. We were having difficulty with the hose that allows us to run off a grill-size propane tank so we headed out to Lowes and for dinner, and if a new hose didn’t work once home we were planning to go back to our friend’s place to sleep. We had at least 10 power trucks around us and our 2 neighbors who border the power line that runs to the hill. At 6pm we got the text from the neighbor just as we were talking to the guys at the bottom of our driveway – Power was back on! (and linemen confirmed) We turned around and got the heat running and started cleaning up (several dishwasher and clothes laundry loads needed to be done).

The most frustrating part of the ordeal was the false hope. On Wednesday we had gone into work and received a notification power was restored. After talking with 2 neighbors, I discovered that was not the case. This happened several times, and we re-reported our outage 5 times between Wed & Fri. By Thursday evening we had started to par down what was hooked up and getting power by the generator as other outages near us were showing delays. Friday afternoon we went into work and shut the whole thing down, which meant it was much colder upon our return that day unfortunately. Overnight we then ran space heaters at lower power and bundled up more under blankets. Saturday am was 50 in the main are of the house without them set up (with both space heaters going on full heat it can get up to 68), as one heater goes to each bedroom (kids stay together in a room) overnight. It works rather nicely, though we are eyeing a 3rd heater to keep one going out front next time. We learned some things… like (1) swap over to paper products sooner 😄 (2) assess what is hooked into the generator to extend things if something like this happens again, we can start out with less hooked up (3) bring the camping stove under the back porch so the wind doesn’t keep blowing out the flame (4) time to get more small wattage appliances. We did use the toaster oven, air fryer, instapot, my camping stove, and the regular grill to do some cooking, it was just hard to clean anything without hot water running…
In reality, we were fortunate and weathered the storm well. We have elderly neighbors who refused to let anyone help get their generator going (we are going to try to help much earlier in the process next time). We were able to have water for our horses and such and provide water to a neighbor who could not for her horses. We had extra propane around (and will get more small tanks as backup) between the grill and trailer tanks if it came to that (plus a coworker lent us another 3 just in case), and worst case could swap to gasoline as it is a duel fuel generator. We have a workplace that understands and we could bring the kids in with us the few days the office was open. We have great friends that offered us showers and housing. And more importantly, our own Hanukah miracle as the tank we thought would be empty lasted all the way until the power returned (fuel company came out the next day and it was down to 1 gallon apparently).

Back to horses <lol> when it comes to spring ride plans… I have some! But I haven’t been on Sully since 12/18, I guess that goes for either horse really! We did a fun holiday ride, that ended up shorter than planned due to an unexpected cold rain, and me having with a major Oh S**t Moment as I got in a bind and busted my back window on the truck 🙄 (hence the truck needing fixed as mentioned above). Next up will be getting Sully checked out by a new vet for his stifles and set a treatment plan before we make any ride commitments, but we will continue to hack out on walks and such for fun once the weather cooperates!