Not again!

With a tiny bit of guilt, I rescheduled my Subaru's service appointment to Friday (weather forecast: COLD!) and played hooky from my responsibilities for a little while yesterday afternoon.  You are getting tired of me saying it, but the winter heat wave was still with us and driving home from an early afternoon patient, my car thermometer read 48 degrees!  If you guessed I threw on riding clothes and headed to the barn, you'd be exactly right.

As a side note, I have been finding dressing appropriately this winter to be extremely difficult.  I'm used to piling on the layers, and this winter's warmth has befuddled my wardrobe.  I've been hit or miss with choosing correctly; for example, on Monday afternoon, Gesa and I took Cricket and Sefi for a handwalk around the neighborhood just at dusk.  I had a single polarfleece top plus my winter jacket, silk long underwear bottoms beneath my winter riding tights, and my lightweight winter boots.  I was steaming -  unzipping, unbuttoning, unsnapping, and even shedding layers just while grooming. With that in mind, yesterday I dressed a little lighter, with "fall" tights instead of winter over my long underwear and two thin layers on top plus a light jacket.  I rode around the same time we'd walked the day before, and it was about the same temperature.  Yesterday, by the time I returned to the barn, I was very much on the chilly side and looking forward to cranking the heat in the car.

I was loading my tack into the car at Gesa's, on my way up to Red's barn, when I realized that, like Sunday, I'd forgotten Red's bit at home AGAIN!  Geez! I leave it there so it will be warm for him, and I can't seem to remember to bring it.  It doesn't matter that it's warm when it's sitting at home. Planning a road ride, I knew I needed a bit not just his rope halter, so I threw Cricket's bridle into the car along with saddle, pad, girth, rump rug, and reflective vest (for me) and leg bands (for him).

It's amazing how different Red looks in Cricket's bridle!  He has the longest head of my three, as I had to let it out a bit to fit him.  Also, Cricket's curb bit is a 4 1/2" and a 4 3/4" bit fits Red better.  Despite the strange bit that didn't fit, he seemed perfectly content in this bridle.  I have never ridden him in any other bit besides his snaffle, so I don't know if he has any experience in a curb bit or not. 

Ready to go and mounted up in no time, we set off down the edge of the icy driveway.  I had high hopes for the state of the gravel road, given our streak of spring-like weather and sunny days to melt the road surface, but, alas, I was wrong in my prediction and we ended up with a short 2 1/2 mile walk.  The sunset was lovely, and we enjoyed being out, so I didn't really mind.  Who can complain about riding in January like this?

This shoulder was the best footing of our whole ride.

Beauty!

Tradition

I always celebrate my birthday with a ride.  More specifically, I ride Red, my first horse.  Being that my birthday is in January, this is frequently a very short ride due to weather conditions.  This year, I was able to ride as long as I wanted and we wandered around all over the farm trails, neighbor's trails and hayfield, and the other's neighbor's gravel pit.  Kelso and Killian accompanied us, and we had a grand time.  See the story below in photo essay form.

The cows observing us on our way back to the trails.

Whee!  Killian and Kelso are so happy to be running off leash.

Checking out some of the trails that Dave has been using to get wood.

We are being stalked by a wild beast!  Oh, never mind...just Killian's shadow. 

Crossing the hay field toward the frozen bit of swamp that we can utilize to get to the neighbor's gravel pit.

In the gravel pit.

Red's a little afraid of these stumps.  Every time we see them.  You'd think he'd get over it. 

My crazy set up, because I'd forgotten his bit at home.  I attached my reins to the noseband of his rope halter instead of knotting the permanently attached leadrope back on itself.  It looked ridiculous, but it seemed to give me more control than when the "reins" are the leadrope attached under his chin.  He didn't like it much when I held him back, though, and tossed his head (not used to pressure on his nose.) 

Carol took our picture after our ride!  (I am a little overdressed - it was 33!)

He's searching my pockets for treats.

After his post-ride drink, just making sure there aren't any more treats. 

Pinch Me

45 degrees.  January 6.  Duluth, MN.  Yep, you did read that right!  (And actually yesterday was even warmer... what a strange winter!)

It will come as no surprise to anyone that I found a convenient hole in my schedule this afternoon, and took myself directly out to the barn.  This is my first ride of 2012!  The wind was really blowing when I was saddling up, but I didn't much care as it didn't have the usual icy bite to it and I needed to RIDE! Rhio and I set off solo, winding our way around the pasture and the neighbor's pastures to the cut-through in the woods which dumps us out on the dead-end gravel road just to the north of the farm.  I figured the footing might still be too icy on the road, since it is heavily shaded and gravel roads compacted by vehicle traffic don't melt easily in my experience.  Luckily we've had so little snow that the plows have left bare scrapes along the edges of the road and that gave us some non-slip surface.  And, actually, day two of balmy temperatures did have even the center of the road pretty soft and therefore not icy at all.

Rhio objected mildly to leaving alone, and offered to turn around and head home pretty regularly for the first mile or so.  I was prepared for this, and had a stash of treats in my saddle pack so that I could reward him when he was going forward and relaxed.  He remembered this lesson immediately, and anytime I moved from using both hands on the reins to having one hand relaxed at my side, he'd turn his head watching for a treat.  Silly! And very food motivated.

We headed up the steep hill and emerged onto another portion of the same gravel road, which also had some dirt showing along the shoulders.  The footing was good enough to trot much of this portion, and we stopped briefly to chat with a lady and her small dog out enjoying the day as well.  She admired my horse, and that always feels nice!  She was curious about his blaze orange rump rug, but quickly agreed that it was great for visibility when I mentioned that as its primary use.

My goal, if it was doable, was to ride all the way to our favorite local snowmobile trail, which I had scoped out by car on my way to the barn to make sure it was rideable.  Not only was it rideable, the footing was perfect!  It had been packed by a handful of snowmobiles, so the snow was firm enough to support a horse with enough softness of the top to give us grip.  YeeHaw!

In order to get to the trail, we had to ride about 1/4 mile along a very busy county road; Jean Duluth Road is a major local route for getting to and from town and is very well travelled by not only passenger vehicles, but county road work vehicles (including plows and sanding trucks - not much call for those today!), school buses, semi's, and the like.  It does have pretty wide shoulders and is very popular with the road biking crowd, so drivers are somewhat used to sharing the roadway - but of course bikes don't spook at random or unexpected things.  Rhio is (now) really traffic safe, and I felt comfortable heading down the shoulder against traffic.  The footing continued to be excellent, and for much of the distance we could actually get down into the ditch.  At about 3:00 pm, the traffic was fairly light and I'd say about a half dozen vehicles passed us.  Rhio didn't flinch once, and as soon as we hit the last section of gravel road to get to the trail, he seemed to know where he was and launched into his smooth and ground covering big trot. We turned onto the trail, and headed up the big hill, both of us working hard enough by the top to be puffing and sweating a bit.  We continued along, trotting and cantering and even a little galloping, enjoying the silence and solitude of the winter woods without frozen cheeks or frosty breath.  The late afternoon sun and gathering clouds accentuated the naked trees, and I lost myself in the moment with my horse.

My GPS battery conked out just shy of 5 miles, so we went a little farther and then turned for home...and the lessons began.  Rhio started channeling his anxious, rush-rush-rush self (last seen at the Kentucky Diehards endurance ride in November... I don't like this Rhio very much!) and head tossing violently while cantering/galloping on the edge of control.  Well, this was PERFECT!  What a training opportunity.  I spent the trail portion of the return trip insisting that he relax, and trot.  And, guess what? It worked.  Without the added emotional craziness of a ride, and other horses, he was able to listen to me and although he continued to attempt to start cantering, pressure-and-release on the reins and verbal "No" resulted in good behavior.  He wasn't perfect by any means, but I was encouraged by his response.

He even seemed to realize that the time for antics was past when we hit Jean Duluth Road again on the return trip, and he walked along obeying my leg and rein cues to move over as I micro-managed our position relative to the road to deal with footing and traffic.  Now, closer to 5:00 pm, the traffic was heavy in both directions.  Horse-eating monsters were in the mix, including a propane-delivery truck with air brakes (really? did you have to?), a truck pulling an ATV trailer, and a obnoxious pickup without a muffler, and Rhio kept walking along calming, just an ear and an eye on them clueing me in to his slight worry.  I would (will) ride this section of road again, but only on a really road safe horse and preferably in the middle of the day.

We walked most of the three miles home, for safety reasons as well as to get him cooled out well since his winter coat was soaked with sweat and evening was nearly upon us. It might be crazy warm out, but not warm enough to put a wet horse out to pasture at night!  And, I didn't want him to have to stay in the barn unless absolutely necessary.

Two hours, and ten miles, later, we rode in the way we'd left.  I was admiring sunset, and he was grabbing at grass (!).  Both of us were pleasantly tired and utterly content.  It was a good ride, a really good ride.

Keeping Track

When it comes to my horses and endurance, I've learned not to set many yearly goals down on paper.  So many variables about my competition season are completely out of my control that I have to just take whatever opportunities I have to compete and enjoy them.  That said, I do have some career goals in this sport.  I would like Rhio and I to achieve Decade Team status, which means we've ridden and completed at least one endurance ride of 50 miles or more each ride season for 10 years.  2011 marked year two for us on this goal, although we completed our first 50 mile ride together in 2007, we did not do any in either 2008 or 2009.  I believe the ten years need to be consecutive, but I may be mistaken about that.  I can't wait to compete together for at least another eight years!

Another goal I have for Rhio is to make 3000 career endurance miles in competition.  We are 1/10th of the way to that goal, having now 300 endurance miles to our credit.  He's also got 180 limited distance miles for rides between 25 and 35 miles in length.   I expect he and I will continue to do some limited distance rides mixed in with endurance rides as seems appropriate at the time, although I do think that the shorter rides are too easy for him and he does not learn to pace himself because he can "race" them.  We have a lot of work to do in the area of "pacing" and "listening to rider even when other horses are in front of or passing us." I will use the LD rides as conditioning/training for him, and hope to concentrate only on having a calm, easily controlled horse whenever we do ride them.

I've mentioned previously that I would also like to ride in competition in every state where competitions are held (which is not all 50 states; conveniently there are none in Hawaii, since getting there to ride would be extremely difficult!).  So far I have 5 states on my list: Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Kentucky.  2011 was a great year for this goal - I added two states this year!

Living where we do, with long winters and wet springs, we do not have as much opportunity to accrue miles, either conditioning or competing, as we would if we lived somewhere with a longer riding season.  I expect it will take us a long time to reach these goals.  And that's ok, because I plan to be Rhio's partner for many, many years to come!

Red's log is the one on the left (obviously!); Rhio's is the one on the right

I keep a log book for each of my riding horses.  I usually ride with a basic GPS and try to record distance, time, speed, and a little bit about each ride in the log.  This has been a really interesting exercise, as it has been invaluable as a "reality check" when my sense of "we've been riding a lot" or "we've hardly been riding at all!" kicks in.  In 2011, Rhio and I did about 200 miles of logged conditioning rides, not counting lazy local rides with friends or arena work, and 150 miles in competition (two 50s and two 25s).  For comparison, in 2010, we did about 300 miles conditioning and 205 miles in competition (three 50s, one 30, and one 25).  In 2010, I rode him on 93 days for the year, and in 2011, I only rode him on 65 days.

I also have a good record of the weather via my log books; for example the first time the roads were clear enough of snow and ice to ride out was March 7 in 2010 and March 16 in 2011.  Our first ride that we hauled out to trails in 2010 was April 11, to Dago Lake (south of us and sandy), and the first time I was able to ride local trails was May 10.  Our first time to haul to a trail in 2011 was technically February 15, as we went to the local snowmobile trail because the footing was perfect for horses but too soft for the snow machines.  I didn't ride a local trail in 2011 until June 3; we tried on May 17 and it was still too mucky for the horses.  Despite not being able to get out on the trails until after the first Minnesota ride of the year (the first weekend in May), I seem to manage to get about 100 miles of conditioning in between March and May, all road riding unless we get to go somewhere south of here.

Similarly, I can see how far into the fall we were able to really ride each year, and at what point our riding became walking through deep snow (otherwise known as "resistance training," or sometimes I call it merely "mental health therapy").  In 2010, our last "real ride" before winter settled in was November 7.  In 2011, we still had open roads and trails through December and do not yet have any deep snow.  We do have some ice, and that's been constraining our riding, but we are not yet doing any "resistance training."

A Peach

Rhio was an absolute peach today.  It was my first ride since the 18th, with a trip to Arizona (wonderful, though unfortunately horseless) over the holidays curtailing my December riding schedule.  Our unseasonable, yet delightful, fall weather is spilling over into winter and we have been incredibly mild and snowless.  I will confess some disappointment, as I really do like winter and find riding in the deep snow to be quite fun.  However, the opportunity to get the horses out moving with the lack of snow has been hard to resist and their level of enthusiasm somewhat larger than I would normally expect in the winter.

Today, Rhio was really responsive and light without any of the rushing that he tended toward on our last ride.  It was a short ride and nearly all walking, but he seemed to be just enjoying it as much as I was.  After we turned for home and asked for a tiny increase in pace above the walk, instead of a trot he gave me a lovely walk-canter transition and continued on in his relaxed easy canter.  I was in my bareback pad, as I nearly always am in the winter (warm tushy), and riding that 100 yards was bliss.  The rest of the ride wasn't too shabby, either, and I was really proud of how carefully he negotiated the steep downhill with about 2" of powder snow masking the uneven ruts in its surface.

The following photos are from our ride on the 18th, which I didn't have time to write up before leaving on the 19th.

It was nearly 40 degrees!

The neighbor's horses, Missouri Fox Trotters.

Can you see how high he has his tail?  The accelerator was a hair trigger this day and the brakes were a little sticky. 

Gesa & Paco were lovely companions, as usual.

It looks wintry, but not to the usual degree for late December! 

A Little Scare

After riding this afternoon, Gesa and I had Rhio and Paco out hand grazing (which meant first clearing the 1" of snow away with their upper lips, then munching the still-a-little-bit-green goodies hidden beneath) and Cricket knew he was entitled to come out as well.  I took the opportunity to give him a thorough grooming and check him over good, and then reblanketed him for the night.  We put the horses back in the pasture with a little hay to tide them over until the evening feed, and said our "Merry Christmases" early as I'm heading to Arizona tomorrow to visit my parents for the holidays (and trying not to dwell on how nice the weather is, still, and how much riding time I'll be missing!).

I filled up my beet pulp and grain bins, and refilled Cricket's soybean oil jug from the big container, so that Gesa would be all set for the week, and handed out my chewed apple core to the first horse to come to the gate in the deep dusk (Sefira) before heading home to find some dinner for myself and the dogs.  All was well, and humans and critters were all settled and content. Not a minute after I'd finished my last bite of dinner, my phone rang and Gesa's husband popped up on the caller id.  I answered cheerfully, only to hear that Cricket seemed to be colicky and I needed to get back out there pronto.

It was easier and faster to let Kelso and Killian jump into the back of the car, and away we went.  By the time I arrived, Gesa said he was fine and it didn't seem to be colic.  I had wondered on the drive over if he had another incident of being down and unable to get himself up.  This has happened once in each of the previous two winters, and sure enough that was the case.

There is a tiny slope/knoll area of the pasture behind the barn (barely discernible, really, really insignificant) and Cricket had laid down there only to get himself stuck.  Wearing a blanket restricts his shoulder and foreleg motion just a bit, and when his legs are pointed uphill instead of down, he seems to have trouble rising.  He had evidently been struggling a bit, and both his neck and his blanket were soaking wet.

The most interesting thing is Sefira's behavior.  Apparently she was extremely protective of him, and quite upset, and didn't want to let Gesa get near him.  I am not sure what exactly ensued, but he was standing in his stall looking extremely worn out when I arrived.  A quick physical revealed that everything was normal, although his heart rate (28) was a little low and might indicate some mild shock.  He wasn't interested in eating, but was interacting with me and did take a few treats.  I gave him a pain medication (Banamine) and put a dry blanket on him.  He is staying in at night anyway, and had a full bucket of water, his yummy mash, and plenty of hay already in his stall.  Gimi across the aisle was munching away, content to be the buddy horse for the night.

He is ok, and I'm obviously going to check on him tomorrow, but unless Gesa calls me, I will go in the middle of the day when it fits into my schedule rather than get up extra-early to go first thing.  It is nerve-wracking to have an old horse, even more so than any horse, and I am very glad this happened tonight, while I was still in town, rather than tomorrow night, when I'll be stuck on a plane.

This evening is an example of how quickly things can go wrong with horses, and how invaluable it is to have someone you trust caring for your horses if you can't do it yourself.  I try not to worry.

Therapy

Sunday was balmy, really and truly balmy - over 40 degrees on December 11 and sunshine.  It won't come as a surprise to anyone that I spent the day outside, with my ponies.  I haven't had a horse day in a few weeks, and I was severely in need of one.   I did forget my camera, though, so I didn't take any pictures.

The day began with a long, leisurely walk with Cricket and Sefira.  Sefira is Gesa's youngest, a homebred filly just a few months past her third birthday.  She is not under saddle yet, and needs to start getting out and about to get used to the wider world.  Cricket loves her, and with his age and wisdom, is a perfect buddy horse for her adventures outside of the home farm.  He also loves to go for walks.  He struts.  And poses a little bit, ears perked, neck arched, and tail up.  He is the picture of a happy, engaged horse and no one would guess he is a mere 3 months shy of 30.

We were out for over an hour, walking along the shoulder of the paved road briefly, with a couple of vehicles and a large pile of rocks to get used to.   We continued up a dead end gravel road, again with a couple of vehicles, wind blowing in the dry grass, a barking dog, etc.  Sefira was a little upset by the new things, but Cricket was unfazed and his calmness really helped her.  She was not brave enough to lead, but was happy to follow.

We also stood and observed a neighbor's herd of minis and llamas.  Even Cricket was on alert when they all came up to the fence and stared back at us, but relaxed when one of the minis whinnied.  We continued onto a bit of trail and Sefira handled that like a pro.  On the way home, we saw some people with kids and ATVs - yet another good thing to be exposed to.  We let the horses "graze" on the dormant grass outside the pasture as a reward, and all the while we'd been chatting, catching up, and generally just enjoying each other's company.  It was truly a lovely way to spend some time.

I rounded out my horse day with a fantastically fulfilling ride on Red.  It was our first bareback pad ride of the year, and I decided to ride until I got cold (a common method I use to determine how long to ride in the winter) and after nearly an hour and a half, with dusk quickly falling and only my knees a little tingly with chill, I decided it wasn't going to be an appropriate measure for this particular ride!  I could easily have ridden twice as long.  We traversed all over the immediate neighborhood, taking in two gravel pits, some woods trails, and a nice trot up the road about 1/2 mile and back.  I am a little out of shape for bareback riding with speed, but it's just a pleasant ache in the thighs.

The horses all give two hooves up for their new treats, "German Horse Muffins" made in St. Paul, MN.  They came free from Valley Vet with my recent wormer order!