Everything's Frozen... Still

December 9th was more frigid than the day before. Yes there was sun gloriously peaking out, but oh it was still so bitterly cold. My girls needed to get out; the ground was so frozen at our place that they were not getting much turnout. I did not need someone going lame because they twisted a fetlock... or something...

Our ride was slow and short, only traveling to the lake and back. The trails we ride on are almost always in the shadows of the trees. Between the crazy cold temperatures and never seeing a glimpse of sun, the trails were solid ice and crunchy, mud ice crystals. This makes for some interesting trail conditions. As you can kinda see in these photos, the ground had thawed, frozen, and re thawed so many times that the usually wet areas had become cavities in the ground.

The horses would step on the crystals and their hooves would fall down and inch or two until they hit solid ice. This make for some slow moving...

Neither horse panicked and we made it to the lake all in one piece. There were no other people or animals in the area, so it was quite unusually peaceful.

Then I took a look out past the shoreline. The little cove had frozen almost completely over! I have never seen this happen since I have lived here.

After taking in the beautiful sight, we moved a little ways off to the grassy slope. While waiting for the girls to get their fill of frozen grass I took some shadow pictures. This is the only one that turned out...never knew a horse could move so much while standing still...

On our way home I was able to get some good pictures of the frozen vegetation throughout the forest. Again, the sun never reaches this area because of the gigantic Douglas Firs and Cedars.

Sure made the rest of the ride look a whole lot warmer once we broke into the sun's rays once again. Although short, the ride was relaxing and inviting. I couldn't wait for the next one.