Winters are generally mild in Tennessee, and short, so I thought that cold snap which...um..."blanketed" the country a few weeks ago was essentially the depths of our winter.
When I lived in Vermont, my horses were blanketed five or six months of the year. In the bad old days, turnout rugs were made of canvas with a felted wool lining and they took FOREVER to dry! It was necessary to have two for each horse; one to wear and one to throw over the treadmill to dry (which is probably the best use my former treadmill was ever put to!)
Technology changed and blankets became waterproof and breathable so my horses wore them like a second skin all winter and never needed to take them off.
Since I still have the blankets, the horses here might as well be comfortable so they wore their heavyweight rugs for eight or nine days this winter instead of the usual two or three.
Now that it has warmed up into the 30's and 40's, they can wear a lightweight "Weathabeeta" rain sheet on especially raw nights so I bundled the heavyweight blankets up and took them to the local laundromat. They are washed with a special non-detergent soap that will not remove their waterproofing and then brought home to dry on the porch railing before being folded, bagged and put away for next year.
Things haven't gone all that well this year. There they are on the porch railing but it keeps snowing and they cannot dry. Not only that, I can't even drag them into the basement because THEY ARE FROZEN IN PLACE, after the last snow blew sideways onto the porch itself!
I thought spring was right around the corner and now I'm wishing I'd been a little less efficient!
For information about Big South Fork real estate or horse properties in Jamestown, Tennessee, go to www.trailridersrealestate.com
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