A Warm One!

So... Guess what we got yesterday? 

If you guessed 'MORE SNOW', you'd be right! Imaging my surprise when I tried to leave my house yesterday morning to find 6" of snow covering everything. It hadn't been snowing when I went to bed... So when did all of this snow show up?

My guess is sometime after two am. Why?

Because that's when the weeks worth of snow accumulation on my roof chose to slide off. On the plus side, I now know what an avalanche sounds like; on the down side, it scared the crap out of me and both poodles. I was pretty sure I was being robbed by a bear....

What is this? The great outdoors?

On the plus side, it was 30+ degrees when I went out to the barn, and I loved it! Seriously. Who wouldnt enjoy nearly-above-freezing-temperatures for a change? I rode RC in a sweatshirt! No layers upon layers of jackets, making my rides look like the Michelin Man has taken up dressage. It's really not a good look. Nor is it terribly effective... But at least I'm not freezing. 

So my ride on RC was in a sweatshirt... How could I top that with Delight? 

Yeah, I warmed her up OUTSIDE. 

That's right. You heard me. 

Outside. 

We took a ten minute trailride through belly deep snow around the big field. That's got to be good for getting her to free up her shoulder and bend her hocks, right?

Ok, so maybe you cant see how deep the snow is here...
But its deep. 

 Evidently it did the trick, because she was very very good. We're still trying to get her a little bit more honest into the outside rein, but she started the ride out much looser and forward thinking (without the spook). Success!
 Not that we're going to have another outdoor ride any time soon...

Ahh... back to the single digits. Gotta love the UP

And then it was Tilly. Fortunately for her, I was running a little late so I only have 45 minutes to work her before I have to put her away and give a night's worth of lessons. We also had a "please move into my outside rein" kind of ride. But she gave me some very calm, very organized trot-canter-trot transitions, so I'd call that ride a win too.

"You said this was a SHORT ride!"

So, the moral of the days rides: Get the horse to the outside rein... then you can move on to the more fun stuff. 

And I should enjoy the freezing rain today because it's only going to get colder.