Snow Balls

By Patty Wilber

If the snow conditions are just so, making snow balls is a snap.  Gather and pack.

Great for building snow men and snow forts and ambushing unsuspecting relatives.

Or packing up in the horse’s hooves.

Snow balled!

One  way to deal with this is to pull the shoes. No shoes, no snow foot balls.

Unfortunately, shoeless is not a good option for my horses. (Except the Spanish Barb, Cometa, with hooves of steel!)

Fortunately, the snow usually sticks around just a few days before morphing into mud in all but the shady spots.

But on those snowy days, I am not interested in being house-bound!

Got enough layers? Warmth is achievable!

I decided to try (another) experiment.

Spray stuff on the hooves to deter snow stick.

Last year I tried Silicon spray and WD-40.  Did not work.

This year a friend suggested

I used Mojo as my first test subject,

because Fjords are just meant to go in the snow!

Cleaned his hooves and sprayed them both with Pam.

Went riding!

Blue grama grass (eye lash grass)

When we got back, his hooves looked like this:

Minor snow pack.

Not terrible, but not snow free, either.  Mojo, like most Fjords, has big flat feet. I think that may have made at least as much difference as the Pam.

Also, my experimental design was flawed.  What I really needed to do was to try Pam on one hoof vs. nothing on the other, so I had a control.

I asked LT…

She said, “or…no.”

So, Stetson got the nod.  He is a big, beautiful and sweet guy.  He is always happy to be picked.

Pammed one cleaned front hoof and only cleaned the other.  Headed out.

When we got back, both hooves were equally packed.

Pam: Fail

In the photo, it looks like the left front did better than the right, but a big hunk had just fallen off the left, as I was “setting up” for this shot. Pam: Fail.

Next I looked on line.  Pam was a favorite. Maybe our snow conditions were not conducive?  Motor oil and ski wax were also suggested.

Ski wax sounds interesting, but you have to pick the right wax for the snow conditions. Pretty sure we have some old wax around here.

I did these experiments two weeks ago, but yesterday, a new storm rolled in.

Where’s the wax?