Ode to Winter 2015

Wednesday January 23 2015

A snot-dripping, eye-watering wind hurls down from a tablecloth cloud hanging over the white Owyhee mountains. I'm leaning into the howling gale as it batters me off the ridge trail I'm hiking. The 'breeze' is 20 to 30 miles an hour, gusting to 40. Those little blasts are knocking me sideways. The wind chill is below 20*. But it's always fun braving the Owyhee winter wind on a hike (not a ride!).

The horses have been huddled behind the hay feeder all day as a windbreak, eating hay to stay warm.

I had just refused to believe the projected El Niño predictions of southwest Idaho being drier and warmer than normal. Not fair! It just had to snow and get cold this winter! And my denial has paid off: unexpectedly, the Owyhee mountains are currently at 140% of normal snowfall already. That's great news to a years-long drought that has parched the land in the summer, dried up cricks, and lowered the water table, among other less obvious things.

The latest winter storm we're in the middle of (lasting several days) dumped a load of wet stuff from the Pacific: big wet gloppy snowflakes in just-at-freezing temperatures. Much of it melted, then turned to sleet then rain which melted the snow into gloppy mud, then more wet snow. It's unlike the dry fluffy snow that comes with arctic blasts from the north that evaporates without contributing anything to the earth. This wet stuff means more groundwater soaking in. Not so great for horses standing in mud, but you take what you can get, when you can get it, in the desert.

I'll be gone down south at least a month, but I hope the cold and snow continues up here. But I also hope it saves some more cold, wet action for me for when I get back!

that's Stormy, wearing a snow blanket!

The Wicked Wind Whispers and Moans

 

Sunday December 2 2012

Roaring down from the Owyhee mountains, the wind howled through the canyon, launching tumbleweeds, blowing down trees, tossing trash cans and wheelbarrows, hurling sand and harrying the horses.

Some (Finneas) were irritated by it, 

but some (Jose) made lemonade from lemons by rolling and reveling in it and shaking up more dust 

and (Jose) dancing around and searching for and finding victims to play with 

(like Bodie above).

My Eyebrows Are Sweating

Thursday March 15 2012

So said Jose, after the ride we squeeeeeezed in today, between days of gale force winds, rainstorms, slick ground, hurricanes, and more rain and snow (yay!!!) and slick ground to come.

Our first local endurance ride, the Owyhee Tough Sucker, is coming up April 7 - and our training has been sporadic the last two weeks and will be over the next couple of weeks, due to weather and traveling.

We took the horses on the Three Cheese Casserole ride - three layers of washes - 2 miles up a wash, 3 miles down another wash, and 1 1/2 miles up another wash and up onto a ridge. The sand is somewhat deep now, and with the horses still wearing partial winter coats (they have started to shed), it was a strenuous workout.

I don't ride with a heart monitor, so I go on knowledge - what I know the horse has been doing, and what he can take - and by how much he sweats. I've always heard that when the top of a horse's butt gets sweaty, he's either out of shape, or working very hard. I've never seen a scientific study on this, but I have found it to be accurate. And when their eyebrows are sweating, they're producing a lot of heat.

Unless the wind is just right, I can't hear my horse breathing when I'm trotting or cantering, but today I could hear Rhett huffing behind me on the third Cheese layer, and I used that to help gauge the effort the horses were putting out.

Today the horses worked up a good sweat under their saddle pads, on the neck and chest 

and shoulders, 

and between and down the back legs (you know, the 'shaving cream').

And the reward was a taste of the hint of green grass starting to color the desert.

Blast

Tuesday March 6 2012

A biting Arctic storm roars through Owyhee under the cloak of night, rattling houses and barns and shaking beasts who have already started shedding their winter coats. 

Capricious gales scour the earth bare and pile the snow deep. They drive ice crystals with the force of stinging needles. The ice clings like white blankets, to the topside and backside of horses, and vertically to the windward side of tree trunks.

By noon the storm has fled, chased by sharp blue skies, leaving a desert world in black and white, buried and bare.

The Owyhee mountains are polished to a shiny icy silver sheen. The world awaits Mother Nature's next whim.