Merry Christmas

 It's been very quiet here on the blog because, well, there isn't much horsing happening. 

The weather has been absolutely atrocious for pretty well a month solid. It feels like it's been freezing cold forever - and not the "oh, I have to put on a sweater" kind of cold, but the Under Armor 4.0 long underwear and fleece pants might keep you warm enough for the 10 minutes you're outside to bring your horse in kind. 

We're expecting our second blizzard in a week on Wednesday. The last one came two days after a night of freezing rain, which meant roads were (and still are) terrible throughout the city and the side roads. The snowplows scraped off all the snow but left the nicely polished ice on the roads. The highways at least are clear, at least until the next snow day. 

And then my car died last week and I was bumming rides for a few days. It's fixed now though, and I'm only a couple of hundred bucks poorer.

Incentive to ride has been zero. It's been tough enough getting out to the barn more than once a week, as my free time/decent temperatures/decent roads have not lined up much this month. The last three weeks have had the least amount of days that I've been out to the barn in probably five years. 

It sounds like no one has been riding though at my barn. I was talking with the barn owner and she said this period has been the most quiet it's ever been for people coming out to see their horses and only a couple of people have been riding. There are only about three people who keep their horses on indoor board for the winter, the rest of us have to put our horses out into the cold afterwards. Although it's really nice to have the heated arena, it can be really hard to make sure that your horse is completely dry before turning them back out in -28 celsius. Not to mention how hard it is to keep yourself from getting chilled through after breaking a sweat riding. 

So not many people ride in this weather. 

When I have been out, Stitch has been getting a chance to get moving and play loose in the arena. The good news is that he looks great. I haven't seen any of the wonkiness behind in weeks. 

The bad news is that he has been an absolute twat in the crossties. 

I can't figure out why. He gets worried as soon as we start approaching the area, and even if he backs in nicely as soon as he's clipped up he starts frantic and sometimes dramatic pawing. 

I suspect part of the problem is that he wants to pee after coming in from the cold, but he won't do it in the arena, and doesn't want to do it in the crossties, though he ends up doing so after he's been in for a while. I don't have the option to pop him in a stall for a few minutes which I think would solve that problem, so I'm not sure what I can do to encourage him to pee ideally in the arena. 

That's definitely not the only reason though. So we are working through some other things that I'm trying to change and see if it makes any difference. I'm sure a few wet saddle pad rides might also help, but I don't want to have to deal with the aftermath of getting that horse dry, so that's low on the list of options at the moment. 

That is about the extent of what we are doing. 

It's looking like next week might get slightly better - well, it's supposed to be quite nice for a couple of days (that I have to work) and then drop again, but not as cold as it has been, so maybe we'll manage to get going again. We'll see. It's looking like the temperatures that are technically doable, but easy to convince yourself that it's cold enough to not want to.

Enough whining.

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and a fun New Year. I'm set up to be snowed in for the day on Christmas Eve and will be spending Christmas Day with my family, playing board games and eating too much food. The horse is well blanketed and spending his days in front of a round bale buffet with his buddies. Santa will bring him cookies in a few days when he can get out again. 

Merry Christmas!