Sunday, December 14, 2008

What a day! It went from rain, 35 degrees to snow and 6 in a matter of a couple of hours. I left the pups at home, didn't want to deal with pupsicles. Josie was in eating dinner when I arrived. She was dryer than I thought she would be. The other horses blankets were frozen, very hard. I am glad I don't have to worry about blankets.

The gate was frozen so I had to use the barn's horse exit and entrance to get into the pasture. I had to go pretty much right up to Josie. She now has her snow pads on - barely any snow on the ground and ice. The pads are clear instead of the black I am use to and do not have the bubble I remember the other pads having. Either way it keeps her from having snowballs which could endanger her ligaments and tendons. We carefully navigated back to the barn. All is well until something makes a bang in the night. She startled which caused her to lose her footing and she scrambled to regain it. My thoughts were uh oh this is going to be a long walk to the big barn but she settled down for the remainder of the driveway. I guess we could call it the white mile.

She looks good. Her coat has marks from the other horses where she has been corrected for being an uppity youngin. Just a side note, I decided to keep her in shoes this winter to help with the cracks that I have been working on for a year. I will have to take some pictures to keep track of our progress. For having her feet done every 6 to 8 weeks it sure takes a long time for a crack to go away. I may have almost a half inch clear. You can tell where I started using the two different hoof healers. She has really nice hoof coming. I ordered some fly wraps for her legs for fly season - taking advantage of free shipping.

I hope we get more snow. I ordered poles to use with my snow shoes. The rain took away most of the snow. There are drifts and clear spots right now. You need four to six inches to snow shoe.

People at the barn were, oh, I have to leave before it gets dark, the roads are so bad. It was fine as long as you didn't drive like a total idiots - two of which had taken care of themselves, I noticed on the way in. One off the road on a cloverleaf and one in the ditch. Try not driving 80 mph - it really works. I am glad I decided to stay and ride. I was able to practice our test Intro A. How am I ever going to remember three tests. YIKES! I guess I will have to have a reader. I should still know the tests in case the reader makes a mistake. I suppose it would help my memory to keep memorizing things.

I must be trying to hard as Josie was a little crabby at a few spots. We definitely need to work on our working trot/medium walk/halt. We transition down to the walk okay but she doesn't like to halt. She kept anticipating canter departs but I kept her in check most of the time.

The drive home was all right. I averaged 50 mph for the most part and 45 for the remainder. The worse roads were those right by my home. The ABS works on the SUV.