IT WAS a tropical 4ºC on my way into work this morning and it almost felt like it was time to look out the shorts and flip flops ...

well maybe not, but certainly one less layer.

Although there’s been a thaw for almost a week and (hooray) grass is now showing, it’s been impossible to turn my horses out. Ironically, even though there was a heavy snow they’d been turned out every day right up until the thaw. But they’ve been confined to barracks for the past week.

Even with heavy overnight rain, the area outside their stables, the whole yard and the route to fields the snow has compacted into a thick layer of treacherous ice that’s almost impossible to walk on without slipping or falling.

It’s been interesting mucking out. Once the wheel barrow is filled how do you push it to the muck heap without both me and the barrow falling over? Well, natural momentum takes the barrow in the right direction with me tiptoeing along behind trying to stay upright and I have to repeat the process on the way back, albeit much harder as its uphill – so it’s like one step forward, two steps back.

And as for feeding – trying to walk and carry three buckets takes a lot of concentration – its easier to push them along the ice and walk crab-like behind them although this doesn’t work when its water buckets. When the pipes are frozen every drop of water is valuable, but at least there’s a thaw and I’ve got a bucket underneath each drip, its amazing how quickly the buckets fill up this way.