Snow Days

As much as I bemoan MidWest winters there are some lovely days and joyful rides.

I love the sound (or lack thereof ) after a new snow. All is quiet as we ride.

Moose seems to enjoy it as well. As the snow tickles his belly, he gives little bucks...then a big one! Feeling my balance shift, he immediately stops and cocks an ear, as if to ask, "All OK up there?" As I settle in the saddle, we are off again.

Though today is a joy ride, the competitor in me takes over. I find myself watching the fresh tracks in the snow -"Are we straight?" "Was that shoulder-in 2 or 3 tracks?"
The snow becomes the arena mirror I have always wanted and the drifts become cavaletti as Moose lifts his legs to get through.

With temperatures below freezing and snow all around spring season seems so far away...yet the training is never far from my mind.

The January Thaw?

I have lived in Illinois since 2002 and have never been able to ride outside after December. With high temps in the low 50s and high 40s and no snow or ice anywhere to be seen it seems a great time to ride...

We rode OUTSIDE on CHRISTMAS!

Unless you have a toothache that turns into an emergency root canal that turns into a major infection.

But now I am better! Yay! I went out to finally ride (!!!!!)  But ....during the drug induced fog of my tooth drama Mooseys feet grew and grew. Not worth a tendon injury.

A call to my fantabulous farrier explaining the situation results in an immediate trim....I am ready to ride (!!!!!)

BUT

Feels like 3? Snow? 25 mph winds?

Ugh.

Seasonal Affective Disorder=SAD its winter!

The first Sunday of November marks the time/ riding change where I find my self banished to the indoor redneck engineered tractor shed until March.

the 50X120' winter prison

While I am lucky to have an "indoor" of sorts the sheer effort and time required each evening (watering, raking,etc) to prepare for my ride makes it easy to sit on the couch with my hound and a book. It takes every ounce of motivation to grab the hose and rake, scrape the mud of the Moose and go for ride. It is especially a let down after such a wonderful year. But I guess that is /must be my motivator! To 1. not lose ground on what we have accomplished and 2. try to improve a little while confined to 50X120'

Riding in such a small space is not conducive to free-styling exploits (where Moose and I excel!). Our winter grind routine so far is this:

• Walk 10 minutes
• Leg yield head to wall & tail to wall each way
• Tracking left haunches-in and shoulder-in at walk
• Tracking right more head to the wall leg yielding (no haunches in this direction yet) and shoulder-in at walk
• Trot a few loops then circles at each end
• Leg yield quarterline to wall as well as head to wall & tail to wall at trot
• Trot tracking left is ridden 90% of the time with a counter bend
• Trot work tracking right is always ridden shoulder-fore (Moose's weak side)
• A few canter circles -Moose finds this difficult in such a small space...but it is better than last year where any attempt to canter in the indoor resembled toads wild ride amiss a dessert sand storm!
• Interspersed are plenty of walk breaks
• We end with a few trot-canter and walk-canter transitions

Goals for the winter

1. To not be so fat. I need to stay get in shape. Blah.
2. Develop haunches in at walk tracking left
3. Improve canter
4. And finally -I hope -the big goal- is to be balanced enough to counter-canter inside!

As I write this I am looking at this:

Mommy peeese stay inside

But riding beckons. And I have a date with the exercise bike. I hate winter.