The Kostelniks' Horses

The earlier photos and thumbnails on this site were put up when dial-up connections and lower monitor
resolutions made them more practical.  So, they look unusually small on today's systems. (Sorry about that.)

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December 2010

What a December this has been! I don't think we've broken any records, but it's the 4th coldest on record, so far. 
No plunging to 19 below, like in December 1983, when we had just returned from the tropics of Australia
(Cairns, where it was about 100 degrees each day -- December is their summer!)  But it's been about 20-25 degrees
below "normal" for this area every single day and night... and there has pretty much been snow on the ground, here,
since the first --  written December 21st.

New Videos: "riding" in the snow, December 4, 2010

You can hear the freezing cold wind blowing in these, if you listen... it was below 30 degrees (F),
and it was snowing pretty hard during our adventure.  Pretty much met my criteria for a "ride in the snow": 
enough snow on the ground to cover the grass, decent amount of snow falling (there were some really pretty,
big flakes, for a while, as you can see on the "after the ride" photo) and we got on horses. 
Didn't get far, though, as something was bothering them -- a LOT.  We don't know what.  Hunger? 
Fear of deer hunters?  Coyotes?  Heaven knows they'd been ridden in snow every year before! 

Then there were my stirrups... those really hard-to-adjust, Western ones, which I found out, when I finally
mounted, were set up for 6'2" Joe!  And while trying to adjust them, I felt like the protagonist in Jack London's
"To Build A Fire" -- had to take my gloves off, and was afraid my fingers would freeze and break off!  haha
OK, it wasn't 50 below, but that icy, snowy wind...and it was blinding me...  OK, I quit. haha...

Maybe it was more like "The Blizzard"... aw, never mind.  (Link is to YouTube video of Jim Reeves' song of that name)

The first video starts after the worst of the horses acting up. Then I adjusted the stirrups (as described above)
while Amir did some fancy dressage movements, and then I re-mounted, and made the second video after they had
calmed down even more, and had started digging for grass under the snow -- so I was able to get the camera back out!

Both videos are just from my digital "snapshot" type camera.  They are MOV format -- Quicktime will play them.
If you have it properly installed, just clicking the links should do it.  Just give them a while to load.

video/4-Dec-2010-a.MOV  this one is more of an overview   

video/4-Dec-2010-b.MOV this one is sorta funny, if you ask me ;-)

Top Snapshot:  I thought the snow on the back of my saddle looked like something
from a Joseph Hornes' Christmas window display.  Anybody else out there
remember those?  ;-)  You can see that where I had been sitting the saddle is dry.  ;-) 
Poor Amir was really soggy before we even got there. :-/ 

There's another huge early-December-snow snapshot below this one, if you're
really a glutton for punishment... heh heh...

If you have a real detective's eye, you can see that the trees at the top of the hill across Blue Rock Rd (background of photo) don't have snow on them, but those at the bottom of the hill do.  Where we were riding was the top of the next hill, behind the photographer, and guess where it was windy?

Those condos across the road sit where there used to be a beautiful, old estate on 42 acres.  The mansion had Elizabethan half-timbering and was part stone.  Look at it now.  :-(

Now, the 20+ acres where we ride, etc., are the only remaining parcel of land that large within miles.  Condos just went up recently on the land that used to be a farm with a produce stand along another edge of the property.  <sigh>

This huge photo shows what it looked like out our front door before we left...
and before the nasty winds blew all the snow off the branches.

This is at our home, two miles from where the horses live, and we ride where the horses live. 

I THANK GOD FOR THAT WONDERFUL BLESSING!!!  HORSES OF OUR OWN, A PLACE TO KEEP THE WITHIN TWO MILES OF OUR SUBURBAN HOME, AND MANY ACRES OF FIELDS, WOODS AND CREEKS ON WHICH TO RIDE!!!  THANK YOU, JESUS!!!  And young Barbara thanks you, too... little Barbie has seen at least two of her childhood dreams come true. The other is my husband, a real knight in shining armor... and he even rides a "white" horse!   heehee!

[ Amir ] [ Bill ] [ Doc ] [ Sugar ] [ Kids-1999 ] [ March 2000 ] [ May 2000 ] [ May 2004 ] [ New Videos, etc. ]

This web site, graphics and text, copyright © 2012 by Barbara A. Kostelnik, Hippo-Logistics.com