Keeping consistent with my recently decided goal of staying positive all winter, I have been trying to make something good out of something that we might normally complain about this time of year. We were recently (I can’t quite call it blessed), um, subjected? To an abnormal amount of precipitation in the form of SNOW over the last two weeks. We got about a foot and a half over night last week, on top of the few inches we already had. It made for quite a bit of snow!

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My favorite thing about snow aside from the sparkly light it reflects when the sun is shining on it, is the ponies’ snow feet. Clean, smooth, beautiful. You can see every imperfection, every bruise, every blemish. Not only that, but the hoof knife slides through like butter and one rasp will last three horses all winter! Ca-Ching, baby!

I took Replika out after the first snowfall, and set up to trim her feet. I hadn’t touched her since pulling her boots after the 75 at over Halloween weekend, and she was in need of a trim!

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Left front. Very over grown bars, lots of hoof wall! Luckily she doesn’t get too distorted when left alone for a month or so, but there was still quite a bit to trim!

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Right front. This is her smaller foot that tends to need more work on her toe, but still not bad.

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Pretty back foot. Both the right and left look the same.

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Right front, after trimming. I did most everything with the rough side of the rasp. She was still very balanced despite needing a trim. I took the bars down with the knife, and used the rasp to take some wall off. Take a look at the bruising, and the blemish in the wall near the white line. The foot is truly fascinating, and it isn’t often our horses’ feet are so clean!

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Same story on the left front. Different shape to this foot, but I don’t mind a little variation. She was a little higher on the outside here, sometimes taking pictures is a good tool to use while trimming. Aaaaaaaand…..

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The Princess, herself. DON’T tell her she’s fat! Shhhhh…

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We’ve been having some super fun rides. For now, we’ll hope it stays snowy. I don’t know what I can come up with that’s positive about mud.

Enjoy that snow!
~ Amanda Washington
SW Idaho