A comedy of errors: horses, winter, and water

I sometimes remember that we aren't even technically in Winter yet, and it blows my mind a little bit. We've been getting daytime temps in the 20's, lows in the single digits, freezing rain and snow and all of the crap associated with Winter. How can it possibly still be Fall?!

Today I got to battle with the water situation at the barn. Last week, the spigot we use met an untimely demise due to a very solid freeze. While it's out of commission, we are using the water connection on the neighbour's house. Lucy and Brantley share my 100-gallon Rubbermaid tub and it was getting pretty low, but when Maddy went to fill it this morning, she discovered the heaters hadn't been plugged in last night and all the tubs were frozen solid. She plugged them in and resolved to fill them later.

Well our little ponies must have been a thirsty bunch today, because they drank so much water out there that the heater was almost completely exposed by the time I got to the barn around noon. I just bought this thing and I know that is a really fast way to fry a heater, so I knew I had to fill the tub. No problem, even with the broken spigot, because I could connect our hose to the neighbour's house. I skated my way across the driveway, which is a sheet of ice, and grabbed the hose.

Oh wait, except it was 20 degrees today and whomever used the hose last time didn't drain it, and it was totally frozen! I was about ready to bang my head on the side of the barn, and of course I had cleaned and dumped the tub already, so now the horses had no water at all.

I called Kenny in desperation, and he came right over to the barn and filled the whole tub for me by hand with 5 gallon buckets!! I was so grateful. The water tub should be all set for another week or so and I hope by the time it needs filling again, we will be above freezing and able to use the hose.