Brothers Are Annoying

 It's been a beautiful winter so far out here in the the prairies. Daytime highs have been holding just above freezing most days and nights haven't cooled off too much. And barely any snow so far.

Yeah, that's all ended.

Mother Nature finally remembered that's it's January in Alberta. Our temperatures plummeted this past weekend. Just before the dump of cold we had a snow squall that brought in super high winds and a rain/snow mix (which all hit just as I was planning to ride - the ride didn't happen). So now the ground at the barn is covered in a sheet of ice.

Ponies aren't moving around enough and thus are sassy.

Phantom keeps threatening to bolt off at a canter. Cisco's hind end feels a little bouncy for the first few minutes of the ride and he spooks at anything that moves more than a millimeter or makes a sound louder than a floating balloon. He quickly works out of his excess energy, Phantom works into it.

They've got the next week off though. I can't dress warm enough and feel my feet in the stirrups in this weather.

I managed to get the arena free on Sunday for them to go for a little play together. 

It started off as it usually does - Cisco stays right next to Phantom and pushes his luck annoying her. 

She puts up with it for a while and then tells him enough. He only sorta listens.

 Some hijinks ensue.

Then Cisco made a mistake. He blocked Phantom from going where she wanted to go - namely, down to the scary end. He cut her off just as she was starting to speed up along the rail. 

This did not go over well with Phantom.

She immediately spun her butt towards him and let him know with her back feet that that was rude. And she was not in a forgiving mood. Little brother really pissed off his big sister. He kept trying to approach her and she just turned her butt and backed towards him. The big FU.

Unfortunately, I didn't catch most of this on video. I caught the tail end of it - you can see the definite difference in their body language from earlier. 

I decided that was probably a good place to end it. Also because Phantom looked a bit lame. 

Not sure why, she had been looking pretty good (for a creaky old mare) earlier. Maybe she jammed her leg down when she had to stop hard. Oh well, she's got at least a week to let it rest.

I want to try to let them loose again at some point during the week. I don't know if I'll do it together or separately this time though!