OK, that's enough of the white stuff.....

So we still have snow. It doesn't usually last more than a day here, but seriously sub zero temperatures all week have meant it's all still with us.

This in turn means I've had the kids at home all week as the buses aren't running and the schools are closed. They have now had enough of bracing walks in the cold and snowball fights etc.

Worst of all though, we haven't had any water in the house since yesterday morning, all the pipes out the back are frozen solid and not responding to the hairdryer treatment either.....So I've been melting snow to water the animals, which is hard work, you need a lot of snow just for one bucketful!

Today, after one more of those bracing walks, during which Sky did some skating.....

...but was otherwise happy to get out and about...

...we piled into the car and did a very careful 20kms an hour over to Tanya's, so we could all have a shower and I could fill up some bidons of water for the horses! Then we helped with sledding some water down to her horses....

....and when the farmer arrived with new hay we spent rather a long time stretching the new big bale haynet over it to hopefully slow down consumption a bit! Horses none too impressed with it.....

A haircut and a hack....

The other day on Facebook, someone shared this photo.....

And ever since then Ali has been on at me to try that with Seraphina's mane. I finally gave in and we did this:

Not great really. So I chopped off the top bit and she'll have to live with the zigzags til it grows out. Not that she cares, obviously!

Lots of sunshine today so I dragged the kids out for a little walk. Ali took Fina as she needs to get used to being out on her own. She was pretty good, only tried to turn round and go home a couple of times, but Ali used the one rein flexions that we did last weekend and that seemed to work pretty well......

She did a bit of cantering OK......

....and at the top of the hill, the girls had to play on the big frozen puddle!

Practised some laterals......

......and some TREC!

Hopefully that's worn the kids out so there'll be less bickering now.......!