AK Pony Girl's Riding Log: November 2010

The weather here has been crazy.

First it snowed about 2" on October 23. We frantically got the plow trucks ready to push snow on our commercial parking lots. At 2 am when we left to plow it was all melted. The asphalt was still warm enough to melt the snow.

Then it snowed another 2" the first of November. We plowed the commercials but not the residentials unless they had a paved driveway. I learned the hard way that you DO NOT plow a gravel driveway/parking lot until the third or fourth snowfall. When you drive over the snow and pack it into the gravel, you set a base so that when you drop the plow on the gravel you don't plow the gravel off the driveway and into the lawn. Many hours raking gravel off the grass and back into the driveway taught me that lesson.

Now we are dealing with freezing rain and ice. Monday there was a temperature inversion and the snow that was falling through the warm air turned to rain and then froze when it hit the already icy ground. Schools were cancelled, the bases had only mission critical people at work, and my sanding truck ran 12 hours on Monday and another 12 hours on Tuesday.

I had not cleaned the horse pens so they had some traction. Voosh and the Mare stayed in the barn but silly Hailey stood out in the freezing rain. I had Briar put her blanket on then switched it our for a polar fleece cooler. Hailey stayed dry. The blanket was more for me than for her. She has a shelter but chose not to use it.

I'm sitting in the office with a lot of invoicing to do and procrastinating by catching up on blogs, Facebook and just dinking around. I hate paperwork with a passion and will do almost anything to get out of it. Unfortunately I'm the only one that can do the invoicing and the banking stuff. Since this is my income you'd think that I'd be getting it done sooner than later.

I'm not cooking dinner for tomorrow. My friend's husband works on the Slope and he left today for two weeks. She is an excellent cook and loves all the hoorah. So Briar is off to spend the night with her and they will cook for tomorrow. Fritz and I will just go over when it's ready to eat.

Forecast is for two and poosibly four inches of snow. So it looks like I will be plowing on Friday.

Hope your holiday is peaceful.