Here in the Kansas the winds are blowing at a sustained 30-40 MPH from the south!!! It is warm today (50), but tomorrow the winds will turn to the North with a vengenance and blow just as hard. Weather folks are predicting a 20-30 degree drop in one hour - from around 60 to 30 and then keep falling into the teens. YIKES!!!

My old guy doesn't do too well with such temperature swings. Gonna have to watch him closely. I really hate wind and then adding bitterly cold on top of it makes me wonder why I still live on a farm. Guess it is the beautiful creatures and wide open spaces. But sometimes, town living looks appealing.

Not me.You can come to my place for a weekend and we'll go to Jonesboro on a Friday.That's all it takes for me to remember why I wanted out of there and out in the country.Plus,I'm only about 5 miles from where I grew up all of my childhood life,so,not many people can say that,I feel very blessed.

Kansas sure does have some rough weather.I'm sure you have blankets and/or shelter for your horse.We don't have a barn here.So I do feel for them on cold rainy nights.

If I needed a reminder about why I live where I do, I got it yesterday.  We had a beef processed at the butcher shop in Ft, Sumner, NM.  I was on my way to pick it up early yesterday morning.  By the time I was 50 or so miles from the house, the sun was just rising above the far distant horizon behind me.  Clear, brilliant, glorious light that accentuated the tawny gold of the grassland, casting long shadows behind the clumps of spanish dagger and the occasional pinon.  Movement off to the right caught my attention.  Out of a hidden fold in the earth flowed the biggest herd of pronhorn antelope I have ever seen.  Around here it is common to see groups of a dozen or so, sometimes as many as thirty.  This herd must have numbered three or four hundred!  They moved as one animal, fluid and graceful.  It was exactly like watching a shoal of fish in the ocean, turning, reversing, stopping in unison.  Beautiful.  Perfect.  Unforgettable.

Marla

We had our drastic temp drop today. 62 degrees at 8 am this morning to 6 degrees now at 10 pm. Wow, what a day. The wind is howling at 28 MPH and we have thunder sleet. Like they, "If you don't like the weather in Kansas, wait an hour"!

Glad I have my horses all tucked in their stalls. Gonna be cold tomorrow morning picking their stalls, but it's better than worrying about them in the pasture.

Terri,

I know what you mean about the wind!  It doesn't bother me much until it gets above 30 mph or so, but after that I find something to do in the chinchilla barn to stay busy.  I have heat, air conditioning, running water and a stereo out there, so working conditions are pretty good!

Marla

Hey ponytammy,

How far is Riley, Ks. from yalls? My Josie came was bred and born there. She came out to Ca. just as a 4 year old. If it's a cold place that explains Josie longer coat, used to this cold weather, lol!!!!

I believe Riley is near Manhattan, KS which is out in the flint hills. Very pretty but baren land - mostly wild grasses and sparse trees. And it is about 3 1/2 hours to the west of me. I am located about 50 miles from Kansas City. Our wild weather ride continues.

Now we have a freezing rain advisory for tomorrow and then another Artic Blast on Sunday where wind chills are expected to be -20 to -30. Geez, if I wanted canadian weather I would move there. This weather is rediculous. Last winter was awful and this one is shaping up to be worse. California sounds real nice to me right now.

I'll tell ya what ponytammy, it's pretty darned cold here in our neck of the woods. We are getting hit with the cold spell too, finally everything has froze even the ground, nice to kill all them bad bugs, flies and bacteria. We haven't had a decent winter here since the early '80's. I remember walking to the end of the main road so the school bus could pick us up in the snow, then having to stop and help the driver put chains on! Yup, we worked hard as kids comparded to the kids nowadays. I tell Cody that story, and even though he is only 4 1/2 years old, his eyes light up and he goes, "wow!", it's pretty funny to watch him take it all in.

UGH!! Another artic blast starting Sat. afternoon going all the way to Tuesday. 30-45 MPH winds will make wind chills -30 to -40 below zero for about a day and half. The high on Sunday is suppose to be 3. Geesh, this weather is way to early for winter here and we hardly ever have temps this cold. The winds this year have been extremly strong - even last Spring and Summer the winds howled. This is getting old real fast.

What do you folks do up North to make sure your horses don't get frost bite or what do you do extra to keep them comfortable? I feed more hay for heat, but I really worry about my old horse since it takes him forever to eat a flake of hay. He is blanketed and gets alfalfa chops and 5 pounds of senior a day. Looks good, but I know the cold is hard on him.

All of the horses will be in the barn, but I always wondered how they avoid frost bite on their noses after drinking water. They have heated buckets too. The horse apples will be easy to pick up in their stalls thats for sure.