Even before the snow came last week we were living in a beautiful, frozen landscape.  The mud had frozen hard, which make walking much easier, and even the stream froze – in some places all the way across.

It wasn’t quite strong enough to bear my weight but the dog had no problems at all.  I’m not even sure she realised it wasn’t normal ground.

The water tank in the yard was very well frozen  and that was enough to bear my weight.  In fact, it was a bit of a problem because although we could break the ice it just kept freezing throughout the day.   Once the snow came the ponies were eating a lot more hay which meant they needed more water too.  We had to increase the number of water buckets inside the stables – they still froze but with only a very thin layer of ice – and we periodically topped them up with warm water as well.  The ponies loved that!

We also stopped soaking the overnight haynets for a while too.  They just froze solid and made eating very difficult indeed for the ponies!

Despite the problems though, everything was simply beautiful and I miss the frost now the rain has come back and we are once again sloshing through the mud.