Cocoa and Chestnut pounded their hooves against the wooden floor of the barn, anxious to be let out into the pasture. They whinnied loudly and brushed their heads against their stall doors waiting for me to put on their halters and lead them out of the barn for some fresh air and exercise.  They had been cooped up in the warm, toasty barn for three whole days while a bad, winter storm had caused a huge blizzard to cover the whole mountain and valley below with ten feet of snow.
I had already spent two freezing, never ending hours shoveling a path way from my family’s log cabin to the barn so that I could finally let Cocoa and Chestnut out of their claustrophobic stalls and out into the open pasture to stretch their legs. Although Cocoa was on edge and dying to get outside, she patiently allowed me to clip her lead rope to her halter and slowly walked along side me into the pasture. As soon as she was free, Cocoa dashed into the field as fast as she could despite the ten feet of snow. Before I could really take in all the scenery, Chestnut whinnied at the top of her lungs, desperate to be heard so she could go out with her mother. I rushed into the barn to grab her halter and lead rope, then I slipped through her stall door before she could take off on her own. Chestnut was chomping at the bit to get out, unlike Cocoa, Chestnut did not know how to be patient and was on pins and needles. Once I got her to sit still long enough to clip the lead rope to her halter, I led Chestnut to the gate. I fumbled with the chain as I tried to catch my breath from trying to keep the same pace as Chestnut. Then I shoved the gate open a second time through the icy snow and unclipped her halter.  As soon as she was free, Chestnut took off passed me to try to catch up with Cocoa who was already on the other side of the pasture.
I watched as Chestnut stumbled through the deep, icy, cold, tundra that was the pasture as she tried to reach Cocoa. Cocoa was already rolling in the snow, her coat looked a snowy white rather than her usual light gray, hazy color.  You could barely see her in the field except for the displacement in the fence where Cocoa stood. Chestnut, on the other hand had a vibrant reddish brown coat so she couldn’t hide herself in the snow even if she tried, she stood out like bull’s eye on a target.
It was such a beautiful sight to see the two horses running in the pasture not even giving a second thought to the ten feet of  cold, icy snow covering the ground beneath them. The sun was attempting to peek through the cover of dark, grey snow clouds in the sky but had no success. The wind whistled through the tall pine trees and throughout the mountain ranges that engulfed the entire landscape causing the air to go even more frigid. I stood there rubbing my arms with my hands and tucking my face in my scarf as I admired Cocoa and Chestnut playing together in the pasture. The snow began lightly coming down again which was the signal to go back to the cabin to warm up with hot chocolate, so I gave one last glance at Cocoa and Chestnut before I sprinted through the barn to the cabin.
Even sitting on the sofa warming up with a hot mug of hot chocolate and relaxing, nothing compared to the view of horses exploring the snowy white world that the storm brought just three days ago. So I poked my head through the curtains on the window where I could see the mountains and the pine trees. Then enclosed in the center, are two beautiful  horses, one with a snowy white coat and the other, a vibrant brown coat enjoying Earth’s wintery snowy gift.