How A City Girl Breaks Water In The Country

I wake up at approximately 8:47 to a text from Greg:

"Hey babe, I didn't have time this morning to break water for the horses, so you'll have to do it."

I roll over and look at Cody (our child who oddly has four legs, a wet nose, and very long ears), "Well Coders, it's time to get up."

Beautiful snowy ranch of Boxwood Avenue

We head to the kitchen to warm up the coffee that was last warm at 6 o'clock (I conveniently have once again forgotten the teeny tiny part of my vows: "She rises before dawn"). As the coffee warms, I head in to wake up the kittens - they sleep in even later than I do - and on my way back to the kitchen I begin filling up a 5 gallon bucket with hot water from the bathtub, and begin my morning routine. 

I sneak a sip of hot coffee and reach for my J.crew puffer coat that has amassed an alarming number of barbed wire snags, then pull my muck boots over my silk pajamas, and head out the door. 

Beautiful snowy ranch of Boxwood Avenue

The four of us (Cody, the kittens and I) make our way to the chicken coop we did not want, and say, "GOOOOOODMORNING to the chickens," - apparently it will make them more friendly, yet the rooster still doesn't seem to look at me straight. I open the door to some very concerned girls. They look at me like "Where the heck have you been?" - luckily I have a handful of 'Chicken Crack', and all is forgiven. 

I pour some hot water over their frozen bath, and it's a free-for-all. After a few minutes of gulping, squawking, and clucking I check for some eggs and find two that have yet to freeze. I bid the girls farewell, and my troops and I head back inside to where it's warm. 

Then I remember the horses. So, I regroup, and this time opt for snow pants since the thermometer reads -4. Coders and I head downstairs to start the Ranger, on a mission to break ice for the horses. 

Somehow, in the midst of opening the garage door, sending a Snapchat, loading Cody into the Ranger, and finding a suitable object to break le ice, I forget to make sure the garage door is actually OPEN. If you can imagine - my head was fully wrapped in a scarf, secured by my hood, so my range of sight was limited. 

The Snapchat culprit...&nbsp;

The Snapchat culprit... 

As I throw the Ranger into reverse and gun it, I feel as if we are caught on something, so I gun it even harder. At this point I realize the garage door is not in fact open, and I am in big trouble. In slow motion, I get out of the Ranger and assess the damage. Luckily, it's not that bad; the garage door has been knocked off the hinges and sent into the driveway. I don't know if I should laugh or cry, but since there's nothing I can do, Cody and I hop into the Tahoe (which I am still driving thanks to the poor Antelope incident), and head down to help the horses find some water. They had successfully spent the morning strewing their hay around as if they were raised in a barn... Oh wait. 

I carefully climb over the barbed wire fence, trying to avoid yet another tear in my jacket, and walk towards the creek, pronounced 'crick' if you know what you're talking about. I scan the frozen water in search of the spot Greg normally breaks, since it'll be thinner there, and I only have a hammer which I found in his tool box (that I am not supposed to touch). 

I begin hacking away, the water spraying on my glasses and instantly freezing, I've accomplished my task. As I look up, I make eye contact with my three horses - they look at me as if to say, "Um, what exactly are you doing down there with a sledge hammer?" Then they go back to eating snow. 

Perhaps country people would find this normal, but since I am only part country, I become concerned that they aren't fighting each other over the water that had been frozen since last night. Shouldn't they be thirsty? Shouldn't they want to drink? At that moment I see Greg pull over the first cattle guard of our driveway and I remember the garage door. 

Frozen horse whiskers from Boxwood Avenue

The horses will have to figure it out, because now I've got to figure out how to break the news to Greg that I drove his man-toy through our garage door (and touched his tool box). 

He's with our friend/neighbor/ranch hand, Alex, and I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that, yes, I backed the Ranger through the garage door. The two of them successfully spend the next 45 minutes bending the door back into shape, and rerouting it onto the hinges, and I am very thankful I have cookies waiting for them upstairs, because perhaps they will be good enough for them to forget this whole ordeal ever happened. 

So if you were ever wondering how a city girl breaks water in the country - I can tell you that she has absolutely no clue what she's doing, and she may or may not have lost Ranger privileges in the process. I can also tell you, I probably won't be asked to do that chore again.

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