The Meltdown

The past four days have been really, really nice! So nice in fact, that I let my 2 year blogging anniversary go without so much as a second thought. It’s been above freezing since Sunday!!!

To make matters better the sun has been shining, it’s been windy, and the snow is melting! Melting away! Yesterday and today were exceptionally gorgeous! It was around 45 degrees as the ambient temperature today and yesterday; warmer than that in the sun. It gave me the chance to ride Shuttle down the road today and yesterday. Today, I was able to take Gump on a 4.5 mile jaunt. He and I have been doing some slow work and today I saw it pay off. As an aside, Jill, you’ll be glad to know that I rode him in a German Martingale and my wire O-ring yesterday and it was like riding a completely different horse. It was a beautiful thing. I digress. He’s an ex racehorse. And as such he likes to get a bit, shall we say, strung out and then he likes to pull on the bridle. Old habits die hard. He can be, and is now, soft in the face (compliments of my superstar, Zach!), but we have been working really hard on shortening up his stride and really getting him collected*. I think it came together today. He’s always been a bit harder to ease into his left lead. Today, notsomuch! He’s never had that collected rocking horse lope but today- Voila! there it was. he was really really fresh and loped about 2 miles of his four mile stint. We long trotted another 2 and walked 1/2 mile to cool down.

This nicer weather has also encouraged me to go out and catch my horses every morning. Shuttle hasn’t ever been really bad to catch. She loves me. Gump, on the other hand, has been known to be less than cooperative. They live in a 13 acre trap, and so it could be difficult to catch them, if they weren’t in a “being caught” state of mind. To encourage this type of behavior, when I catch them, I take them to the barn for grain and alfalfa hay (I’m not above bribery!). Shuttle was first to get caught this morning, and when I came back to get Gump he was all for meeting me to get into the gate. I didn’t even have to catch him. He bee-lined it for the barn door- politely of course.

The weather is supposed to turn colder again. I knew that it was too good to be true. But you know you’re adapting to the cold when at 45 you think it’s a heatwave and you’re down to just a long sleeved thermal t-shirt and a down vest! I’m sure I’ll be back to blogging regularity as soon as it’s cold again. Until then, I’m going to enjoy the sunshine and de-frosted earth!