thoughts on ice

For what seems like months - and indeed may actually be months - every path between house and barns and paddocks has been an unbroken sheet of thick ice. Paddocks, ditto. My boots are permanently cleated and my pace is a slow penguin-waddle. Last week we had a couple of warmer days and some of the ice had finally begun to melt, exposing rocks like little islands that provided welcome moments of surefooted relief along the still ice-covered paths. Yesterday evening when I came in from carrying water buckets to the paddock trough, I was so happy to reach the house without falling. I was hopeful that more warmish days would melt the rest of the ice before we got more snow. Lovely soft snow. I've often said I'd rather have two feet of snow than a quarter-inch of ice.

But we got more snow last night, insulating the remaining icepack. Despite my cleats, I nearly fell twice this morning just carefully putting out the birdfeeders right next to the house. The fresh snow was already four inches deep at that point and has continued to fall all day. It is genuinely dangerous walking, because even knowing that the ice is under the powder doesn't prevent it from taking your feet out from under you.

These days, icy or not, I am far more conscious of the risk of falling than I was prior to the shoulder dislocation in 2024. Or, more accurately, I was always quite conscious of the risk of falling, and of course knew that a fall could have very bad results, but I had never experienced the very bad results. I've fallen countless times, just as I've bumped into things quite often; I am a clumsy person and even at my advanced age seem to have only a vague concept of where my body begins and ends. I think the worst injury I had had from an earlier fall occurred - wait for it, and I don't mind if you laugh - was when I cracked a rib while vacuuming. I have always said that housework is dangerous.

Thinking back now, my hardest landings have probably been falls from horses. This isn't even about being clumsy; I'd wager anyone who spends much time on horses also comes off now and then. I recall one fall before a training jump when I got up from the ground with the wind knocked out of me and so jelly-legged I could hardly stand, but of course got back in the saddle and rode to the jump again. That whole thing about "getting back on the horse"? It's true.

So that bizarre little plunge from my own doorstep with the resulting shoulder injury was a watershed experience for me. I had plenty of time during the months of one-armed chores and physical therapy to rethink the way I do things, and to simply not do some of the things I had always done. But...chores are chores, and must be done, one way or another, period. Which brings us to this evening's chores. And all this nattering about horses and vacuums and such is looking a bit like procrastination, isn't it? Hmmm. Out I go.

I was about to post this but just realized that it might be better to post it when I'm back inside, chores done, everyone fed and watered and tucked in for the night. So here I go. Hang on a sec.

...

Okay, back again. Fell once, on a slippery slope. Got up. Reassured the three frightened goats who saw it happen and were poised to flee. Checked to see if the packet of banana buttons in my pocket had become a banana smoothie. Miraculously they hadn't, so I handed them out. We were all happy.

Onward!

~~~~~

postcard from the barn

 

Mallow and Azalea saying hello.

~~~~~

report

Moxie watching the sun rise.

I'm back with the water report. The cold water line to my kitchen sink has been replaced. It was pouring rain that morning, and during the plumbing work I think I got more thoroughly soaked than AM did, because he was in the dry crawlspace and I was standing outside the little crawlspace window, yelling, "Do you need anything?" and "What?" and "Are you alright in there?"

Not raining today, though!

Before the work started I asked AM if, after the plumbing,  he would mind taking a moment and just unscrewing the lightbulb in the crawlspace and replacing it with my socket adaptor that would hold both a bulb and an extension cord that might power my bucket de-icers. He very kindly agreed, and after checking that the new water line was functional, he headed for the fixture and that's where the wheels came off, so to speak.

First, the adapter broke while being screwed into the socket. Oh well, it was quite old, but worth a try, I said. For now let's just put the bulb back in the socket and I'll think of something else later. 

But when AM put the original bulb back in the socket, it had stopped working. I borrowed a functioning bulb from a lamp, but when moved to the crawlspace, that one didn't work either. AM decided that the outlet in the crawlspace - a simple single bulb socket - should be replaced. Even though it would mean hardwiring - not the job he had signed up for - AM was ready to go to his house and get another fixture from his personal Collection of Useful Items, but - and this will surprise no one - I knew there was one in my own personal Collection of Useful Items, and mine included an outlet for a 3-prong plug, which you may recall was essential for the extension cord/de-icer experiment. I would not have asked AM to hardwire a fixture but, well, he offered and I've become a lot more comfortable with saying "Great, thanks," when people offer to do things I can no longer tackle myself but would if I could. (About a hundred years ago I wired half my house.)

But...

when AM went back into the crawlspace he realized the box the original socket was wired from was too small for the new ceramic socket-and-plug base, so he went home and got another box and a circuit tester - safety first! - and was back in about 10 minutes. I'll tell you what, it's pretty convenient to have a neighbor doing work here!

All in all, AM finished the water line in about 40 minutes but was here for two hours, thanks to my little request to plug in an extension cord. And he was also quite soaked by the end of it, after crawling in and out of the little window several times during the electronics episode. Fortunately for me, he's not thrown off by the unexpected quirks in projects, probably because his family has an old house too, and livestock. It's probably why he charges by the hour for most jobs. Very sensible.

AM turned an old tattered shelterlogic roundtop
into this permanent shelter after the barn disaster of 2024.
That's a perky Dara in the foreground.

Speaking of livestock...

The testing of the crawlspace circuit extension cord was stretched out over 3 days, as I wanted to add each de-icer cord individually, giving it plenty of time to deal with the ice accumulation in one trough before adding the next. It took over 12 hours just to melt the solid ice in the barn trough! The outdoor trough was added next, then it was time for the wildlife basin. First I had to find the de-icer plug, which was on the ground and had been buried in snow and then encased in ice. I plugged it in overnight and by morning was able to dump out the meltwater and replace it with fresh. I think the birds are happy to have plenty of water available all the time again, instead of a little pan of water replaced twice daily but freezing over quickly.

About thirty finches and juncos flew out of frame
the moment I tried to take this picture. Trust me.

Let's hope the plumbing and electrical projects are finished for a while and I can carry on with other things. There will be no trouble coming up with the next items to work on, but as I often say, everyone needs a hobby, right?  Right??

Sculpture by Quinn

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early morning 2026

View from the barn when the wind blows:

Same view, between gusts:

And a lull:

See the light in the window to the far left? That's me, typing this. Right now there are two cardinals at the hanging feeder outside my window, silhouettes only identifiable by their size and crests. They are excavating the new inches of snow on the tray feeder, to see if it's worth the effort. (It is.)

I hope your first day of this new year is a very good one, and I hope all your excavations in 2026 yield your personal equivalent of hulled sunflower seeds and mealworms.

~~~~~