# Winter weather predictions



## walkinthewalk (Jul 23, 2008)

Blech, it is that time of year again.

Every area of world globe has their own nature predictions for the type of winter each of us might experience.

It might be fun to post them

1. I live in southern Middle Tennessee. No matter where I have lived, I have always watched when the horses would start growing their winter fur.

They usually start furring up mid-July to mid-August. This season they didn't star growing winter fur until September!

Either they spent way too many hours in the barn, in front of the fans this summer, or we are going to have a mild winter, or a late start to winter.

2. In Middle Tennessee, persimmons abound. Winter predictions are made by cutting the persimmon seed in half and looking for the shape of a spoon or fork inside.

I have never seen this prediction method until today, at the doctor's office. One of the techs had cut a persimmon seed in half and there was a perfectly shaped spoon inside! I just kept staring, lollol

A spoon means we will have enough snow to shovel this winter.

3. Combine that with my horses furring up nearly two months late, my prediction for my area is a late start to winter but when it gets here, I'd better have the tractor ready to plow the driveway


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## Corporal (Jul 29, 2010)

NOAA and the Farmer's Almanacs are polar opposites, if you will excuse the pun.
NOAA is expecting El Nino to stop the California drought.
NOAA’s Winter Weather Forecast 2016 |Strong El Nino | Unofficial Networks
The Farmer's Almanac gives you and me a cold winter with a lot of snow.
Farmers' Almanac's 2016 Winter Weather Forecast
REMEMBER THIS THREAD when it comes time to watch the winter...and we'll see who is right. =D
Btw, I am a weather junkie. =b


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## Saddlebag (Jan 17, 2011)

Walk. your horses fur up according to daylight hours and actually begin the winter coat months before people realize. The weatherman says it's will be cold - this is the middle of Canada, we have cold winters. Just don't want the dump of snow we had two winters ago.


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## walkinthewalk (Jul 23, 2008)

*Corporal,* I am also a weather junkie. I will stay up half the night watching the radar on the local Channels (I switch back and forth), when we have active weather. I would be the dumb head standing in the door, videoing a tornado that was bearing down on me:icon_rolleyes:





Saddlebag said:


> Walk. your horses fur up according to daylight hours and actually begin the winter coat months before people realize. The weatherman says it's will be cold - this is the middle of Canada, we have cold winters. Just don't want the dump of snow we had two winters ago.


I go by the point in time their winter hair starts becoming noticeable to me, lol

Winter hair wasn't noticeable until September. I don't ever remember my first realization of winter hair this late in the season.

I tip my hat to you, with your weather. I spent the first 50 years of my life on the OH/PA border and that was bad enough. I love Canada in the summer but I do not have the grit to tough out your winters.


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## Change (Jul 19, 2014)

*walkin* - I've BEEN the person standing in the door, filming a tornado...well, actually, the first one I was sitting on my roof (when I lived in Kansas) and the second one, I was on the 4th floor of the parking garage at the doctor's office next to the hospital (here in Alabama). I missed the bad ones that hit here and Tuscaloosa a few years back in April. Well, missed seeing them. I was at the airport for two warnings, then flew out before the big ones hit and did all the damage.

As for weather? I'm going to guess fairly mild until mid-January, then ugly through mid-March with a bit of chill through April. Even though I know winter doesn't officially arrive until Dec 21, I'm always caught off guard when Feb gets nasty. :-S


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## waresbear (Jun 18, 2011)

I am afraid to look. I am hoping mild winter, ending in March, like all awful snow gone!


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

By all guesses we're supposed to have a lot of snow this winter. 

I don't know how much a lot it. Two years ago, at home, we got 100" and at the other end of my work area we got 14". 

I dunno. But I will have enough supplies in my truck to live well for 3 or 4 days.


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

boots said:


> By all guesses we're supposed to have a lot of snow this winter.
> 
> I don't know how much a lot it. Two years ago, at home, we got 100" and at the other end of my work area we got 14".
> 
> I dunno. But I will have enough supplies in my truck to live well for 3 or 4 days.


Stop it!!!!
I'm expecting a tropical style winter here in CT this year, I'm going to grow pineapples, bananas and citrus fruits. I'll be wearing my shorts and T shirts in January and that dream is the only thing that's keeping me out of deep depression at present


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## HombresArablegacy (Oct 12, 2013)

After a long hot miserable summer, I am so happy to see cooler temps finally here. And, since we don't get much snow here in NC, I always enjoy it when it does snow. Winter is my favorite time of year. I'm so comfortable in thermals, sweats, gloves and down coat. Summer actually makes me ill. Been counting the months off until October since May. Bring it on!!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## SwissMiss (Aug 1, 2014)

jaydee said:


> Stop it!!!!
> I'm expecting a tropical style winter here in CT this year, I'm going to grow pineapples, bananas and citrus fruits. I'll be wearing my shorts and T shirts in January and that dream is the only thing that's keeping me out of deep depression at present


Jaydee, maybe you should consider a winter-long visit to the South


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## MyBoyPuck (Mar 27, 2009)

My horse is fuzzing up a full month late, so I'm going with the Noah predictions of dryer/milder for CT this year. We're right on the edge of the line, so a slight 50 mile shift and we're screwed.


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## Change (Jul 19, 2014)

One of my co-workers is building a house in Pensacola. I told him to make sure he builds a corral out back so we can visit - visions of me riding on the beach. He tells me his house is on a golf course. [sigh] What a waste of perfectly good pasturage!


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## Wild Heart (Oct 4, 2010)

The winter for my neck of the woods is suppose to be pretty mild, especially for New York! They said the temps will be above average...which would be very nice!


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## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

I always snigger to myself about the UK and its weather! 

Get two inches of snow and the country comes to a standstill! 

Winters here are certainly milder than they use to be. Last, what I would cal 'real' snow where I am living, when there were feet deep drifts was back in the 70s. 

No matter what the long range weather forecasters say they get it wrong! 

My first riding instructor was the best, looking at berries, leaf changes, where insects were hibernating, she could say what the weather was going to be months ahead.


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## Corporal (Jul 29, 2010)

HombresArablegacy said:


> After a long hot miserable summer, I am so happy to see cooler temps finally here. And, since we don't get much snow here in NC, I always enjoy it when it does snow. Winter is my favorite time of year. I'm so comfortable in thermals, sweats, gloves and down coat. Summer actually makes me ill. Been counting the months off until October since May. Bring it on!!
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


YOUR NC winter is a perpetual IL Autumn!


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

My mother used to say that the amount of hawthorn berries was a good sign of how bad the winter would be in the UK - I'm thinking it had more to do with how good or bad the summer had been!!!
I'm not a cold weather person at all but when I find myself longing for a mild British winter I think of the mud and stop immediately!!!


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## Corporal (Jul 29, 2010)

*Bad Winter signs*

20 Signs of a Hard Winter - Farmers' Almanac

Signs of Winter Weather: 14 Folklore Predictions - WebEcoist


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## HombresArablegacy (Oct 12, 2013)

Corporal said:


> YOUR NC winter is a perpetual IL Autumn!


Lol, does it count that it got down to zero degrees here a few times last winter?? And I had to shovel a walkway to the barn??
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## Corporal (Jul 29, 2010)

Yes. We have had -5F with a wind chill...December 5th.


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## stevenson (Sep 12, 2011)

horses hair growth goes by how many hours of daylight. 
If it went by Temp, my horses would never get a thick winter coat. 
Winter ? I have not worn a coat in years. I would love to wear a coat again. 
I am tired of it being hot and dry. Snow.. I used to see that on the mountains .
I hope we have a winter this year. Snow in the mountains but all the forecast say less than normal snow, but we are supposed to get some rain, It will need to be a lot of rain to fill up the aquifer so that we have some irrigation and drinking water. Nevada also needs a lot rain .


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## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

Wel, we in the UKshould be OK - long range forecast from the officials. As they predicted a hot dry summer, I must have missed it. I only had to hose water the garden about five times and water barrels never emptied. 

They predicted an Indian Summer, more rain than sun so, here's hoping they are as wrong for the winter! 

Sub-zero temperatures and violent snow storms could hit as soon as late October as a freak ocean cooling in the Atlantic threatens to trigger a historic, nationwide whiteout.

Emergency services have been warned to prepare for a repeat of the devastating 1962/63 winter which saw rivers and lakes freeze over across Britain. 

The shock warnings have also sparked fears Britain could face fuel and food shortages as roads and transport networks grind to a halt.

I well remember the winter of 62/63 drifts over twenty feet along one stretch of road to the stables,

It wasn't just the snow but the freeze that followed. We had to cart water to the horses and ponies in heavy cast iron milk churns dragged, mostly uphill, on sledges.


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## walkinthewalk (Jul 23, 2008)

*Foxhunter*. We need another another button that is somewhere in the middle of "like" and "don't like", lol

You write very well and I can easily visualize what you experienced but it wasn't a situation that was "likable".

I hope your weather predictors are wrong.

I hope you don't experience anything close to your 62/63 winter


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## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

That was the only time that my mother allowed me to miss school. I was 13. Every day I walked, dragging the sledge two miles, all uphill, with the four churns on it. The churns held twelve (UK) gallons and tipping it into the troughs with the ponies drinking it as soon as it was in the trough. 

Years later when I wanted to leave school to work with horses the careers officer told me that it wasn't all galloping across the fields with the wind blowing through your hair.
My mother turned and said that of dragging those sledges up the hill laden with churns hadn't put me off, nothing would. 

She was right.


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## Emeraldsprings (Mar 1, 2015)

Foxhunter, I've heard its to be as bad as the early 60's as well... 2010 was bad enough 

I bought a thing in 2010 that I never used.. It's a stock tank heater? Came the whole way from Cincinnati. I was planning on maybe selling it but most people in Ireland/UK have never seen them.

Do any of you US/Canadian folks use them?


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## PaintHorseMares (Apr 19, 2008)

Emeraldsprings said:


> I bought a thing in 2010 that I never used.. It's a stock tank heater? Came the whole way from Cincinnati. I was planning on maybe selling it but most people in Ireland/UK have never seen them.
> 
> Do any of you US/Canadian folks use them?


Here in North Carolina, we had never had to use stock tank heaters...until last winter. We had such a string of well below freezing days that we finally broke down and bought a couple.


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## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

Not very often that tanks get frozen solid in the UK!

2010 was nothing in the way of snow, at least not in the south west. A few inches and roads turn into hazards! 

It snowed on Boxing Day '62, a real blizzard and white out. 

When we opened the front door, which was on the side of the house, there was just a great drift ahead. People across the road had a drift up to the eaves of their two floored house. This was in town - far worse out in the country.


A video of what it was like. Notice that the prices are in old money, £.s.d.

I know that temps are nowhere near as cold as many states get, the difference is that we always get a damp cold.


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## walkinthewalk (Jul 23, 2008)

Emeraldsprings said:


> Foxhunter, I've heard its to be as bad as the early 60's as well... 2010 was bad enough
> 
> I bought a thing in 2010 that I never used.. It's a stock tank heater? Came the whole way from Cincinnati. I was planning on maybe selling it but most people in Ireland/UK have never seen them.
> 
> Do any of you US/Canadian folks use them?


Depending which part of North Carolina *Painted* lives, my state of Tennessee is 8-1/2 hours due west, going from state Capitol to state Capitol.

We get enough freezing temps in the winter that I have used heaters since 2005, when we retired here. The operative being "retired"; I have earned the right to not have to bust ice out of tubs anymore, lol

Before the heaters, I have never seen the big tubs freeze more than a couple inches. The stall water buckets have froze deeper and the dog & cat bowls have froze solid.

I also now use heated stall buckets.

The further north, toward, Canada, clear across the U.S. The more folks have to deal with serious freezing over and stock tank heaters are very common. Even with the heaters, I think some of the folks close to the Canadian border still have icing issues but I'm not sure on that.

*Fox*, that was quite a video. I was raised in northeast Ohio, where we were privy to "lake effect" snow from Lake Erie. Your video reminded me of the 75-76 storms. The National Guard dug our road out, during the worst of that winter's storms. 

My son was two and I wasn't working. We had the family backhoe at our house. I would no sooner get the drive plowed and would have to start again ---- a painful process with a little one in the house to keep checking on. My sons's father left work early, barely made it home in our Jeep, and I barely got the drive cleaned out (again) for him to get up it. A short steep climb that one couldn't get much of a run for.

I had better never have to plow that much snow in the temperate climate I now live in, lollol


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## SueNH (Nov 7, 2011)

You guys are funny.

I've already had 2 frosts.

The hawthornes are loaded with berries.

I noticed my pony's curly winter coat coming in in August. I keep trying to tell myself she's fuzzing up early because she's 40 but she has been a great predictor of winter every year.

Summer was on the dry side. That makes me cringe because mother nature has a way of meeting those precip averages.

Without a heater my stock tank would freeze into a solid block. Just cutting out over night the ice is often thick enough where I need a splitting maul to break it.

Snow has been over my head before. Hip deep is usual.
One year it was so deep that the snow mobile club used their big snow cat to clear me a pad out back so I could bring in the round bales of hay. I was literally unable to move anywhere without a machine made trail.

It is not unusual for the dogs water bowl in the house to have skim coating of ice on it.

Average snowfall for this area that I can link to is 78 inches. It's warmer than my actual home site. I get noticeably more.

Plymouth, New Hampshire Climate


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

Foxhunter - We had an extra snowy winter in '63 when I was a kid in Michigan, too. I remember it as fun. But not as much snow as what your video showed.

I always feel sorry for urban areas when they get a blizzard. In the West, on the prairies, we can always get around drifts if we need to.

Tank heaters? I'd have to count how many we have! I even threatened to put one in the bathtub of one of the camp houses in WY the kids and I wintered in one year. The water cooled very fast in the tub in that house!

People who live at higher elevation than me have already been skimming ice off their tanks this fall. But that is normal. I hate living in the mountains. Two months of preparing to stay warm. Ten months of trying to stay warm.


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

I figured out why I'm dreading this winter so badly.

I have to drive a lot for work. Every time a vehicle passes, going the other way even, I'm in a white out. Completely unable to see for several seconds. 

Scares the heck out of me.


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## JCnGrace (Apr 28, 2013)

Emeraldsprings said:


> Foxhunter, I've heard its to be as bad as the early 60's as well... 2010 was bad enough
> 
> I bought a thing in 2010 that I never used.. It's a stock tank heater? Came the whole way from Cincinnati. I was planning on maybe selling it but most people in Ireland/UK have never seen them.
> 
> Do any of you US/Canadian folks use them?


 Not only do I use them, I think they are the A #1 invention of horse care products. LOL


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## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

I was taught that when you break the ice on a tank to only break enough that they can get their noses in to drink. That way the top layer of ice stops the water from below freezing so hard. 

Back in 63 all the horses and ponies were living out on the downs, they had icicles under their chins and jingled when they moved around and also had ice over their backs. They couldn't get to any grass because of the solid frozen snow so relied on hay (which also had to be hauled on sledges) this made them drink even more! 

They came out of the winter as fat as little barrels. Non of them were blanketed and some were in their late twenties. 

The fact that they had ice on their backs showed how well insulated they really were.


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## Dustbunny (Oct 22, 2012)

jaydee said:


> My mother used to say that the amount of hawthorn berries was a good sign of how bad the winter would be in the UK [/QUOTE
> 
> NOOOOOOOOOOO! The hawthorn tree in the pasture is loaded.


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## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

Hawthorn has plenty of berries here too - but then they do most years. 

I haven't yet seen any sloes, fruit of the blackthorn. 

Swallows have all just about migrated, normal time for that.


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## walkinthewalk (Jul 23, 2008)

*SueNH* I could not handle your kind of winters. The OH/PA border winters were bad enough. We got to where we had the cold but not enough snow to get the snowmobiles out, unless we trailered up to the Alleghenys. There were a few times I rode my snowmobile to work because the snow would be gone long before the weekend.

When I lived on the Ohio/Pennsylvania border, one of the tried and true winter weather predictors was how far off the ground the bee hives were built.

The higher they were in the tree, the more snow and cold we could expect.

The winter the big hive was only hanging 4' off the ground, on the corner of the spring house roof, was the winter we enjoyed record breaking, above freezing temps all winter.


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## SueNH (Nov 7, 2011)

The only hives I've seen this year are in the peak of the barn. Don't tell me that.

The stock tank heater is a necessity here.
If you have one, keep it. It doesn't take up much room, won't spoil and if it's needed you have it.

Breaking a small hole only works in milder climates. When it stays well below freezing from November to mid March it doesn't take long before it freezes solid. Ice will form down the sides and grow thicker too. It isn't just the top.


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## SueNH (Nov 7, 2011)

Freeze warnings are up for tonight.


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## sarahfromsc (Sep 22, 2013)

Ugh. I hate winter.

I'm on the PA/OH border, and from what I have read, our snowfall is suppose to be above average this year.

Snow isn't so bad.  We tend to get the freezing rain, sleet, ice crap which, with the horses makes areas around grates and barn doors very slick.

Ugh. I hate winter.


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## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

Where I live it is hilly so, two inches of snow and we are cut off from the world! 

I, for once was dressed up and put at a dinner dance. Someone came in and said it was snowing. No one took any notice but when we left, just after midnight, there was about 9" on the ground. 

A woman friend and I set off. We got,from one town to the next with little problem. Main road, been somewhat cleared. 

There was no way we were going to get back to our town which had hills to get up before we could go down!

We had friends that lived near so I, much to the shock of my friend, knocked on their door and begged a bed for her whilst I went across the road to wake my cousin.

I had a pair of borrowed rubber riding boots in the car, six sizes to big, an old sheepskin coat so I borrowed some jeans and a sweater from cousin and after a couple of hours sleep, set off to walk home. 

The snow was two feet deep most places.

I get home to be told there is a stranger in my bed. Dad had found a couple marooned in their car and brought the in for the night!

I put on my own clothes, ate a big breakfast and set off to go to the next village to feed the young horses. I had already walked 4 miles and had the same to do in the opposite direction. 

On the way through I saw a farmer friend. He had to milk the cows and had lost hos lambing ewes that had been in large barns but the snow had covered the electric netting so they had gone walkabut. 

After feeding the horses i went back to help get the sheep back. The wind was bitter, on the top of the hill there were deep drifts and the ewes buried in them.

I had my GSD with me and once he realised what we were looking for, was running ahead, giving a couple of barks, digging a few inches into the drift and running on to the next group of sheep buried. 

John and his son took the flock we had found back down to th farm, dragging a sledge laden with near dead lambs. I went on further around the field to find any more.

There were a few ewes under a hedge and I started them home. The dog was barking at me and interests in a pile of snow in the middle of the plough. I thought it was a bale of hay that had been abandoned but I went to look. It was a ewe that had limbed twins. I picked the lambs up and put them order my coat. The ewe wasn't going to move so I tied a length of bailer twine around her horns and started to pull her. This was hard work but not as hard as trying to stop her when she took off towards home!

Lambs in the kitchen wrapped in towels, some in the cooker, others stacked on a makeshift bench over the top, anything to get them warm. We were tubing milk down their throats.

The dogmas outside and he starts to bark. He ignored me telling him off and when I went to see he had gone back out and brought back three lambs, he carried them by their tails. I brought them in and he just turned and ran back to the field. 

By the time I finished it was nearly dark and I had three miles to get home. 

My old instructor always said snow came with the number two attached to it.

It made th countryside look twice as pretty, it was twice as cold, twice as wet, took you twice as long to do half as much and made you twice as tired but, when all was done you were twice as satisfied that all the animals were fed and safe. 

She was right!


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## Corporal (Jul 29, 2010)

DH and I THOROUGHLY enjoyed your story!!!
It so reminded me of the _exaggerated_ stories of "I had to walk 5 miles in the snow to get to school...", except I could feel your effort through your words. 
Nobody who doesn't keep livestock has a clue of what we go through to care for them in the worst weather.
YOU were a BIG, BIG HERO that day!!!!! **hugs**


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## Foxhunter (Feb 5, 2012)

No, the dog was the hero!

He was a rescue, sable with light brown eyes so looked nasty at a glance!

He had never been allowed to even look at a sheep before that day and John, having had more than one GSD attack his stock, disliked them until that day. 

Not once did he bring back a dead lamb, they were all alive and as I said he carried them by their tails so he could carry more. 

It was one of the few times I ever saw him really tired at the end of the day.


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## boots (Jan 16, 2012)

Ugh. I worked a cattle ranch several years ago that also had sheep sections. 

We got a spring blizzard with really strong winds. The cattle walked right over or through fences with the wind. The sheep traveled with the wind until they came to a fence or bit of brush and then bunched up and got covered.

Many of us rode the draft horses, used to feed hay, out to find them and dig them out. I carried a long pole and poked into every drift I came across. Maybe 30 or 40% of those had sheep in them. Most still alive. Some smothered. 

Days like that are tough.


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## jaydee (May 10, 2012)

Still warm here and it was quite hot in Mass. yesterday
Not much sign of winter coats on my horses yet but the year we moved here my British horses had quite thick coats when they left the UK at the end of a miserable August


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