Still snowing hard, temperature dropping fast, and no barn for me today. This is what it looked like outside my office window last night; add another foot of snow and you’ve got this morning.
It was above 30 yesterday. Snow melted. The sun came out. This morning, it was 20 while I had breakfast, and I saw a blue jay out the kitchen window. I know we will probably get another good storm or two, but – we might actually make it through this winter!
Last night, I rode. While grooming, I noticed that his fetlocks were puffy all around, front more than back, and he felt very stiff in the warmup. I had longed Thursday night, and spent longer on the trot-canter transitions than I intended. He was blowing through my commands and I kept him hopping until he got a few good, prompt responses, but that was more time cantering on the longe than he’s done in a while.
Lesson learned. Nothing permanent done: I did a long, loose warmup, and after 20 minutes jumped off to run my hands over his legs again. Cool and tight. He worked out of the stiffness and we worked on transitions, of all types. Into and out of lateral work – one step of leg yield, then straight. Two straight strides, two strides of shoulder in, and back. Off the wall, straight, back to the wall, straight. Then halt-walk-trot-canter, up and down. Transitions within the gaits: off his back for a bit of a hand-gallop and then back deep in the seat for a more settled canter through the corner.
It was easily 35 degrees in the indoor, and that combined with the length and intensity of work would have left him sweaty and puffing even 4 weeks ago. Last night he walked out of any puffing within a few minutes, and was only slightly damp on his chest. His weight is at a good level, and his topline is slowly, slowly filling in. I’ve been noticing his neck lately: that long connected muscle over the top is standing out again, creating that triangle instead of the long thin pencil. The point of his croup has almost entirely rounded back in with fat and muscle. The dip in front of his withers is rising, and his withers in general are thickening.
He’s shedding out in earnest now, and that combined with the muscle building is easing some worries I had about metabolic problems that might come with age. His injury, time off, surgery, and rehab were perfectly sensible reasons to have lost so much muscle, but I couldn’t silence that niggling voice.
Tomorrow, long hack – going to explore a new turn in the dirt roads, and then Monday, lesson.
I am hoping beyond hope that this morning’s -15 nastiness is the last gasp of the bitter cold this winter. I haven’t ridden since Sunday: every afternoon, I monitor the temperatures and every evening, by the time I could get to the barn (5pm or so) it’s into the single digits and dropping fast. This is March, people. We’re supposed to be high teens and reaching for spring, not this awful stuff.
Tonight, it should be in the low 20s by the time I get to the barn, and then the lows stay in the teens for a solid week, per the current forecasts. Double digits! All day, and all night! I could swoon.
Progress on March goals: have emailed the vet, and if I can peel away from work today I’ll hit up the DMV to get registrations processed and begin the process of getting my rig back on the road.
The theme of this week might be something like I get knocked down – but I get up again. (Sorry for the ear worm…)
Sunday was good! Quiet afternoon chores, in the middle of which I did a really nice longe session with Tristan. Then I hopped on bareback with a quarter sheet and we attempted to go for a bit of a hack through the snow, which he was having none of. The snow was well over his knees and he took about three steps and decided it was way too much work, eff you, lady and spun right back around for the road. I tried again at a different entry point and we didn’t even get three steps, so I relented and we walked up and down the road for a bit.
Monday was not easy. I stepped up to do morning chores, though my hand was not quite up to physical labor, and it was a solid, exhausting six hours in temperatures that never went above 5, and whenever the wind picked up were easily double digits below zero. Most of the paths were too icy to get to regular turnouts, so we rotated the horses for shorter periods through the accessible turnouts, and cleaned stalls as best we could. Every piece of manure made a clinking sound as it hit the wheelbarrow, and every water bucket was so frozen it took me three, four, five stomps of my boot to break through the top, pour what little water was remaining onto the manure pile, and then tip the buckets over in the sun to help dislodge the icy rims. Most of the buckets had an inch or more of ice all through the insides, clinging to the bucket walls.
Needless to say, too cold for riding or working, and on top of that Tristan had once again – somehow – irritated his eye. I flushed it with saline, which was an adventure, and gave him a gram of bute and another gram with dinner. It was dripping clear thin tears, he was acting totally normally, and there wasn’t a hint of anything different about the eye itself. Plus, it was clearing up slowly through the day. So I worried, of course, but held off on the vet. Will check in later this afternoon and see what he looks like, and vet out tomorrow if it hasn’t cleared up.
Today has gone downhill: after a plan to get my truck inspected and ready for summer, I have discovered that a) the battery died during the recent cold snaps, and b) I somehow lost the freaking registration after renewing it in January. Why why whyyyyy can’t I keep on top of things this winter? So, back to the drawing board: new copy of the registration tomorrow, will get the trailer updated while I’m there, and hopefully back on track in general. It’ll be my daily driver for the summer, and I hope to do quite a bit more hauling in general, so it needs to be in top shape.
My hand has been alternately aching and stinging all day, as I almost certainly opened the cut up doing chores yesterday. It is supposed to get up to a high of 18 today, but considering at noon it had just edged above zero, I find that unlikely. So I am stuck inside, cleaning and making lists of things to get ready before we have a house full of weekend ski guests and oh man, the apartment is something else after three weeks of me not able to do a whole lot of intensive cleaning.
Sigh. Chop wood, carry water, etc. /whine
Thursday was awesome! Thursday started out with about 15 minutes of longeing in the chambon and surcingle, and he was forward and soft and lifting his back and all good things. Then I tacked him up in the ring and we rode and zoooooooooom pony. I had a forward, sensitive horse with a warmed up back who had a few glorious strides of a higher self=carriage than he’s yet achieved.
I tested the waters with some shoulder-in and haunches-in and it quickly became apparent that wasn’t the ride I had to do. Instead, we worked on half-halts and using them to collect, not kill the motor. We did leg yields one step at a time, half-halting on the straight parts, and rode every step of the shoulders through circles.
We finished with just a few circles at the canter, and he was more maneuverable and balanced than he’s been in months. Whooooo! I’m not thrilled he had two weeks of just free-longeing but they actually seemed to have done him some good both mentally and physically. I think we’ve finally reached a tipping point for his muscle development, in that we’re layering good on top of good and now that there’s definition it will only increase.
My hand was pretty much fine; right now it only hurts if I bump the cut or make a tight fist. Just a little while longer and it will be all healed.
Even better: HOUSTON, WE HAVE SHEDDING!
Then, there was Friday. Friday was an insane sprint at work from start to finish and I was so much in the zone that as soon as breathing space appeared, I packed up, changed into barn clothes, and headed to the barn, only a little bit later than I’d hoped for.
Then I stepped outside my car, sniffed the air, and realized crap, it’s really cold. Checked my phone: yep, 8 degrees. No riding for me. So I thought: I’ll make the most of it! I did Tristan’s topline exercises, did carrot stretches, fussed over him generally, and then started to get excited about the prospect of a quiet night of getting home early and maybe watching a movie and getting to bed at a reasonable hour, something that hadn’t happened in two weeks.
Got in the car, headed up the driveway, and put my hat down on the passenger seat. I glanced down to see where I was putting it for just a split second and as I did that, I could feel the right front wheel of the car catch in slightly deeper snow and then a split second later…
We got somewhere between 14″ and 18″ in the snowstorm yesterday. Business more or less as usual. In fact, people were mostly thrilled – good skiing this weekend! Some schools canceled, and for me work closed an hour early when it became clear the snow would impact the evening commute as well. Since I walk to work, I stayed to catch up.
I wish I could ride in it, but we’re heading out of town tomorrow to visit some friends. Hopefully enough will still be there Monday…and I can finagle a way to hold the reins without really using my right hand? Hmmmm.
In the meantime: have a cool photograph. This was taken near Crystal Lake Falls in Barton, VT in 1941. Before snowplows, rolling and/or scraping snow was the order of the day. The idea was not to get ride of the snow but to make it a smoother surface for sleighs to travel on. In the 1940s, Vermont didn’t have an interstate highway system or really even much in the way of paved roads – or electricity. It’s still a very rural place, but not quite like this anymore!
(Photography courtesy of the VT Agency of Transportation/Department of Highways: Vermont State Archives and Records Administration)
The cold snap has broken here in the great white north. Yesterday, it was up to 20F. Today, it will go up to 30F. I haven’t even buttoned up my winter work coat or worn gloves in the last two days. Our furnace is occasionally turning off and not working overtime in a desperate attempt to keep the apartment marginally warm. It’s amazing.
Last night, I headed to the barn. I’d spent all day thinking about what kind of ride I wanted to plan after a week and a half off. Sure, he’d walked around for about 45 minutes on Monday, but he hadn’t had any proper work in 10 days.
The more I thought about that, the more I re-thought the idea of riding at all. I decided to longe. As it turned out: good decision!
I started with a good hard curry all over to loosen his muscles and dig in to his coat, since I hadn’t been grooming him much in his time off either – the barn picks his feet out 2-3x a day so I knew he wasn’t exactly suffering, plus I felt bad pulling his blanket just to groom him for 10 minutes. (There’s no logic there, I know.)
Then I put on his surcingle and the chambon, twisted the reins of his bridle up into the cheekpiece to get them out of the way, and we headed into the ring. Almost immediately, I was very glad I had longed! He was a bit keyed up and antsy while I was attaching the longe line, but I attributed that to the fact that I’d pulled him from his stall just as the other horses were getting their grain, the poor baby.
I sent him out on the longe line, and before I even had time to bring up the whip to point at his hindquarters, he exploded. Buck, fart, crowhop, take off, you name it. Two whole circles around me! I know, some of you with very “up” horses are laughing at me right now but this is Tristan. Any bucking exuberance is extraordinary. I have to admit when he first took off I was laughing too hard to really pull him back, but he eased up nicely when I asked him too.
He was clearly a bit stiff all around, and I was glad both that I’d grabbed the chambon and that I was longeing. He clearly relaxed and came through bit by bit through the whole session, which lasted about 25 minutes. He still had some energy at the end, but I hadn’t been looking to burn energy, just to loosen him up, and he was coming through quite beautifully in both directions at the walk and the trot. He even made some attempts to stretch in the canter, something we’ve been working on a lot.
He was generally saucy through the whole session, and would occasionally stop and turn in. When I sent him back out in the direction I wanted him he would snort and let fly with his back feet and prance around a few strides before settling in. Nothing really naughty, more playful and just a touch uncooperative and spunky.
Tonight, I’ll get back on him and do a more thorough ride, probably incorporating poles.
In a horsekeeping note, after a three-round botulism vaccine (!), all the barn horses are now on round bales. Tris is very, very happy. The barn manager mentioned that she was a teensy bit worried about Tris – thought he looked a little bloated when he came in – but he laid down and took a nap and then pooped a lot. So…just a pig.
I rode my horse!
This has become basically the most boring horse blog of all time. I’m sorry! Last night, it was warm enough to go ride my horse…but the sideways snow and the hacking cough got the better of me so I went home instead.
Today, I have only left the couch to accompany the boyfriend to go see Frozen. Which you should go see, if only for the Fjords, they were totally adorable. (It was a good movie too. But Fjords!)
Besides, our high was 7 for the day, and the hacking cough is way worse.
Tomorrow: work on my day off, followed by a massage for Tristan, which was supposed to be preceded by a lesson. But the high is 12 and I should probably not be engaging in athletic endeavors. Potentially by Thursday the temperatures will start to crawl back up into the teens and stay there, and God willing and the crick don’t rise (it can’t, it’s frozen) I will kick this cold.
Sigh.
Here, have a picture of our bucket ice pile. I know people say you should have potable water in front of your horse at all times, but those people clearly haven’t lived in a place without an electrical grid that will support heated buckets…in an environment in which ice forms on open water in ten or twenty minutes. They refresh the buckets constantly during the day, and swap buckets around all the time to keep the ice buildup down, but winter, it is not to be messed with.
Good news! It’s back in the double digits and I have packed barn clothes and I miiiiiight be able to sit on my horse tonight.
Bad news! It’s snowing and the wind chill is way low…and I am coming down with a nasty cold.
Please oh please, weather and/or bacteria, I just want to ride my horse, even if it’s bareback around the ring for 30 minutes.
I did stop by the barn last night to kiss Tristan on the nose and commiserate with the barn manager. She’s had a very long week and I reminded myself to be grateful. Cold and cranky as I was, I have an indoor job and a warm apartment and was not mucking stalls all week.
She mentioned that they will be looking for people to fill in more frequently on shifts – particularly Sundays. My regular work schedule is Tuesday – Saturday, and to be honest, I frequently am at work on Mondays as well. I’ve worked the last three Mondays. So committing to a regular Sunday shift at the barn would mean giving up my only reliably free day, and my only length of time with the boyfriend. It would also mean no church, and while I am not a really religious person by any stretch of the imagination, I like the people and the atmosphere.
On the other hand, regular shifts would mean regular lessons, which would make a huge difference in my work with Tristan. It would add extra exercise in to my week, which I am sorely in need of. It would mean spending time with terrific people and with my horse. I’ve certainly done it before, even many days a week, but I didn’t love it.
I’m very torn. My first instinct with everything is to go-go-go, push harder, work harder, and go bigger. But I’m pursuing so many things right now that the smart choice might be to know when to back off – pick a few dates each month and not commit to a weekly shift.
Have you traded barn work for lessons? How do you keep your barn-life-work balance?
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