Chapter 12

The temperature sank to minus thirty-one degrees Fahrenheit and stayed there for a week. It was freezing, but this time they anticipated it would last for a longer time, so they always had all the faucets running just a little bit around the house. It kept the pipes from freezing, at least for the moment.

The stable wasn’t quite as lucky, so they had to carry water for the horses and the sheep every day, and the teens agreed to do it in the evenings, while the adults took care of watering the horses in the mornings. It was a hard job, carrying water across the yard when you were almost freezing yourself despite all the winter gear, but it had to be done.

The horses stayed warm outside and even inside the stable with their thick winter blankets on, and the Shetland pony had grown a winter coat of his own and looked like a ball of fur more than a pony. The kids would have a lot of work trying to relieve it from all that hair, come spring and shedding time.