When temperatures began to dip in Nebraska, one resident went above and beyond to ensure her horses stayed warm by opening her doors and welcoming them into her house.
Kelly Rowley, 47, who works for the Niobrara State Park, has two horses—a 19-year-old mare named Diamond, who has been with her since she was foal, and Rip, a 3-year-old stallion who has been with her for the last two years.
One weekend in January, Ms. Rowley was left in despair as she was suffering from a sinus infection, and her daughter, who lives with her, was away that weekend.
“That night, a Friday, I hardly slept at all,” Ms. Rowley told The Epoch Times. “The winds were reaching 40 miles an hour, and the temperature was below 17 degrees Fahrenheit, but it felt more like below 30. It was awful; it was like Antarctica out there.”
The horses’ water was frozen solid so Ms. Rowley was bucketing water to them. Despite the wind cutting into her face, she chose to do it because Rip was constantly shivering even with a blanket on. Although Diamond wasn’t shivering, she had snow stuck to her hair.
The horses had their heads down and were constantly moving around to fight off the elements.
“It was so heartbreaking,” she said.
Each time Ms. Rowley woke up that night and looked outside at her beloved horses, she was saddened. With her elbows parked on the windowsill, forehead in her palms, she prayed that they'd get some peace from the “hell blizzard.”
As she grew more concerned, Ms. Rowley thought about leading them to her aunt’s house but realized going outside in the middle of a blizzard wasn’t a very safe or realistic option.
The next day, she offered the horses water, but they drank only a cup or two—they should have been drinking at least 10 gallons a day.
“I knew they weren’t getting enough, and now they wouldn’t even eat their grain so the panic set in,” she said.
On seeing them suffering, Ms. Rowley decided to take them inside her home and immediately got to work turning the dining room with its wooden floor into a big stall. Table, chairs, plants, and pictures were all hauled to the living room and, after removing the dog gate, she raced back outside.
“I didn’t even have to pull them in the house,“ she said. ”I just opened the door, and they ever so calmly followed me right in.”
The horses enjoyed being Ms. Rowley’s guests for an hour and a half and were able to get the snow and ice out of their coats and dry out.
Lulled by the moderate warmth, Ms. Rowley said they began to doze off.
“I was talking to them the whole time, brushing them with a dog brush because I hadn’t prepared a horse brush beforehand, just trying to get the ice balls melted off their faces, necks, and manes,” she said. “It wasn’t until they kind of started coming alive after an hour and a half that I decided, ‘Okay, they’re back! We’re good!’”
However, the whole time they were inside the house, they stood still like statues and didn’t move.
Later, Ms. Rowley led Diamond and Rip back outside and offered them water, which they eagerly took. When the blankets were properly dry, Ms. Rowley put them back on her horses.
She said one reason she took them into the house was because it’s going to be torn down in the spring or summer to make way for a new one.
