A lot of things made me decide, but the main reason to stay in town for the winter is water. A minus 6 C is just fine. I can handle that. But when it gets minus 25 C and the horses water freezes up every hour .... a little harder to cope with. I don’t mind so much to break the ice so now and then. But I loose a lot of water because of the freezing up. I have to take that ice out, and the water level drops and have to be filled up. So I need to haul and store more water then I thought. A little miscalculating. I don’t have the room to store so many bottles to have enough water for a week.
Also the nights got real cold and I had to get up every 3 hours to put another log on the wood stove. Not so bad for so now and then, even though waking up in a cabin that is only 8 C is not much fun of course. Hahaha! But when it gets real cold in later winter, this could be dangerous, health wise. So I had to make a decision fast, before getting a load of hay to the acreage.
I think it was wise to get my horses back to my friend Carol, and bring the cats home for this winter. Not an easy decision, but there are some things I really need to adjust and there is no time right now to do this before winter. At least I know now what to adjust before next winter. We learn as we go, right?
So.....horses went back to Carol last Friday. Trailering went just fine and within an hour they were over and in with Carol’s horses again. They all seem so happy to see each other again. Running and playing together again. Thank you Carol, to welcome my girls back to your place again. :-)
Saturday it was time to trim the horses feet again, and even though it was very cold, the horses did just fine. In the afternoon after they were done, I went to the cabin where Paul was waiting for me. He had lit the woodstove and it was a cozy 28C in there. LOL I think he liked to 'play' with the wood stove.
We cleaned up and loaded up a lot of things to take home. Then we put the both cats in a kennel and drove home. My house cat isn’t too happy with it, and was hiding in the basement for a long time. She doesn’t like Taz and Dizzy so much. Paul brought her upstairs and she will stay in the computer room for now until I have set up the spare room for Taz and Dizzy. They can switch their time out again like I did last winter. Polly gets really depressed and doesn't seem to be able to cope with the two farm cats, so this is the only way to go with her to keep her happy.
Hunter is fine and they adjusted to each other easy.
Today Paul and I cleaned up some more at the cabin and yard, took home some more things and now we just keep the cabin for visiting so now and then during the winter.
I really enjoyed my time at the cabin, even with the cold and all the work with the water for the horses. I love to be there and have my horses close and see them daily. But now I will have time to fix up my house in town. So it’s not wasted time. As soon Spring comes, I can move back to my lovely tiny cabin, and finish there what needs to be done. Still lots of things to do there to create a nice homestead. Something wonderful to look forward to! :-)