Cob Jockey

We woke up on one Sunday in February to a relatively unexpected snowfall. And I literally read my local NWS meteorologists Forecast Discussion twice a day when they release a new forecast package, so if it surprised me, that should tell you something.

NO.

 

DOUBLE NO.

 

It was nasty, wet, heavy stuff and late enough in the winter that it was truly unwelcome. Every bit of winter that happens after the first 60 degree day, which had happened the week before, feels SO much worse than before!

But it wasn't all bad. Our BO's daughter, the one that originally designed the facility, was visiting from Florida, and it was her birthday. So there was only one thing to do.

 

Disco had never been outside the arena with me, had never been in the back field, had never gone on a hack with another horse, had never had the dogs running loose around him for a ride, it was my first ride with no blocks, blah blah blah.

 

He went on the buckle the whole time. I mean, of course he did. When do I stop trusting this horse so much?

Connor also went on the buckle, but no one is surprised about that.

 

Disco was a little quick in the beginning, but in a way that felt good and solidified my desire to do nothing but trail riding with him as soon as the trails are firm enough to not leave hoofprints. If he doesn't like to move out, he's not going to learn that in the indoor.

Really, he was perfect. A nice, flat footed walk, and not an ounce of concern from me about whether he'd be good or not. And we did keep it to the walk - the ground wasn't totally frozen, and it was really too soft to be out there, but what's a couple of hoofprints in the land the BO's daughter built in exchange for a snowy birthday trail ride for someone that never sees snow anymore? I wasn't going to be precious about it.

 

 

Couldn't get him to look enthusiastic for his portrait, but I promise he enjoyed the ride.

 

And, as always, it gives me so much joy to see Connor making someone else happy. My unpleasant feelings toward the snow melted away as the BO's daughter and I chatted away and her joy at getting a snowy birthday ride bubbled over. It was such a perfect morning.

 

Good boy, Con

"Our winters haven't been too bad the last few years. It's sweatshirt weather through Christmas, then we get about 8 weeks of winter but the snow never sticks around for more than a few days, then it's spring." - my words last year to our newest boarder who moved here from Las Vegas

Yeah. About that.

Normally we have two miles of visibility from the top of this hill, which is my driveway. That's not fog, that's heavy snow.

Over the previous two days, we got the biggest single snowfall I can remember in all my decades of living in Indiana and Illinois. 11 fluffy inches. A mind-boggling thump of snow for this part of the world.

Dogs for scale

Even more mind-boggling, it's not supposed to melt. Like, ever. This is the land of 4" snowfalls that melt within 3 days, so it's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that we're not going to see grass until maybe February.

Mr. Canada is like whatever

In previous winters, when I lived in town, I've always tossed around if I should sleep on the couch in the barn lounge during winter storms, but I never actually did it. With this storm though, the roads were virtually impassable for 36 hours and a travel ban was put in place. I've never been so grateful to live a softball throw from the property line and to be able to tell all the boarders to just stay home.

Even for a very fit CrossFitter, walking through deep snow spiked my heart rate big time.

The barn owner is away, which meant plowing fell to me for the first time. Thankfully my partner helped me unbury the snow blade the BO had hidden at the back of the equipment barn, because wow, we may only use it once every few years, but when you need it, you really need it. This would have taken forever with just the FEL.

Between the blade and the bucket, I slowly got it done, which took me most of the day. That's a skilled task, getting snow off gravel, and I wasn't awful at it, but I know I'll get better at it over time.

I made circle drives in two different parts of the parking lot and told the boarders they are just going to have to appreciate the snow median until spring.

The horses thought the first day was great fun, when we only had about 6" on the ground, but when they came out to 11" the next day, they were all like "...nah." Nobody played and everyone just stood around and ate hay. Our old man OTTB who moved here from Las Vegas moved so slowly through it, I thought he was injured at first. He wasn't, he was just despondent, lol.

Back in November, my Minnesotan BO put snow sticks around the driveway for the first time in the eight years I've boarded here, and I joked then to the boarders that my BO almanac said we were in for a rough winter. I didn't know how right I'd be!

So here we go...a proper winter. I guess if I still enjoy taking the care of the barn on days like this, which I (mostly...I had my moments) did, I know I'm really meant for this. 

Thanks to a miserable snow storm that featured a whole day of rain, followed by flash freezing, followed by 12 hours of sleet and freezing rain, followed by 6" of snow, the horses have been in since Tuesday evening this week. 

 

I did get them out a little bit Wednesday evening, and Connor and I had a fantastic lesson that night, but otherwise they've been stuck inside, which I hate, but it's for their own good since we don't have run-in shelters in most of the pastures.

To my surprise, CONNOR was actually the one to quietly move the ball across the arena on Wednesday night

 On Thursday evening, with our county's travel status at red (emergency responders only), I made the decision not to go out and clean my stalls. The PM feeder (who lives less than a mile away) did make it out, and the power has stayed on so the auto-waterers stayed on. 

It was in the 40s/50s the two days before the storm, so I took the opportunity to clear all the wet/old sawdust that had been at the back of our sawdust bin for years out before we get a new load next week. Which left us with...not a lot, lol. But we'll be fine.

 

In the end I decided that the horses could live in dirty stalls for an extra night, but we couldn't live without our only vehicle and our only driver if something happened to me and the truck, since Nick can't drive for 6 months. No regrets about that decision - they're having a hell of a time clearing the roads since they couldn't pre-treat them due to the rain, it's a skating rink out there.

 

Just in case the power went out...

The PM feeder did toss my boys out in the indoor though, and Disco finally started getting rowdy with the big ball for the first time. It's tough being 9 months old and inside so much!

It's fun to see him get a little more rambunctious lately, and how about that effortless sit in the second GIF? Love that hind leg structure!

Happy Friday, everyone!

 February always sucks. This one took the cake though.

Normal height barnmate next to Connor, in case anyone forgets how big I make him look

I can't write about most of it at this time, though I hope to someday. But all you need to know right now is that I went three weeks without riding due to the shit month that was February, the weather, not having a Dressage saddle, 10 straight days of absolutely crippling anxiety, and (STILL!!!!!!) being without a truck. Although at least the snow melted so I can get my husband's RWD sports car up the driveway now.

He is really going to miss her when she leaves

But you know what? This guy picked right up where he left off. In fact, he picked up better than he left off after I finally gave up on my Dressage saddle and went back to my jump saddle. He's so much more willing to lift his back in the jump saddle, to the point that it makes me wonder if the long tree points on Dressage saddles are just a problem for him in general, because I've never felt him go like that in any Dressage saddle.

I like this saddle and I cannot lie

Good riddance, worst month of the year!

On Monday night, we were supposed to get 1-2" of snow. And snowfall forecasts being the most tricky thing in meteorology, they ended up being quite wrong in the fun direction.

5.5" of fluffy, fluffy powder

It's been years since we got enough snow to fully cover the grass, and probably even longer than that since we got a snowfall that stuck around for more than 24 hours. But it's so cold here right now, this snow isn't going anywhere anytime soon. And you know what that means!

I put a post up on our barn's private Facebook page saying I was heading out for a snowy hack in the open field after work and anyone was welcome to join me. I got one taker, S, who hadn't ever ridden in the snow before and was a little nervous that her boy Hector would be silly. But he was perfect.

We just walked, trying to make this a positive experience for Hector and also not wanting to overwork the horses who aren't used to walking in snow over their fetlocks.

Connor started out making me regret putting his nathe in, walking faster than Hector and not letting me take pictures. But by the end he was cruising along on the buckle. 

 

Someone remind me five years from now when I'm riding a baby that they do successfully make it through the baby weirdness and become solid citizens. I've owned this horse a decade this year, and I'm still sometimes amazed that he's become the go-anywhere-do-anything on the buckle in an open field kind of guy he is today.

Chilling loose in the barn while waiting on his buddy to get tacked up

They would make a movie about how much this dog worships the ground I walk on, if only they knew about us <3

When Connor was at my old barn, I rarely got the chance to ride him when it snowed.  It was just too risky to make a drive that was 45 minutes on a good day when the roads were covered in snow.

But now that he's three miles away...


We really didn't get much snow last winter, so this was my first opportunity to really ride him in the snow at this barn.

We had about 4" on the ground here, this grass is pretty tall.

We just walked and trotted, but it was gorgeous out there.

The Worst Snow Car Ever was parked in several inches of snow when I left for Texas, and was buried in even more when I got back.  7 more inches, to be exact.

Can you see it?  Barely?  It's under there, I promise.

I mean...I pushed snow out of the way with the door when I opened the door to see if my moderately reliable battery would even start.  Open door:

Yep, that's my floorboard on the right, my Auto Febreeze on the left, and smoothed out snow in the middle.

I was standing there staring at it and and contemplating digging out two tire tracks with my hands when Connor's breeder texted me to tell me she was minutes from the airport, where she was headed to pick her husband up, and she had a shovel in her trunk!  I have a great friend with great timing!


I think my favorite part was when she dug me out and then said, "Now, I know you have a new saddle in your trunk that you want to try on Connor, but the roads are pretty bad and you should really just go straight home.  I'm not your mother, but I am your Other Mother, and anyway, I think your mom would agree with me!"  (She did, and told me to tell Lisa thank you.)

Thanks to my Other Mother, I got out of the parking lot and did go straight home.  It made for a good story!

You may have noticed Connor was wearing his new bridle in yesterday's post.  I did manage to get out and ride on Friday night before the storm hit, although it was only a few minutes of walking.  Multiple people told me I was crazy, but it was 20 degrees outside, heat wave!  Plus it was therapeutic just to sit on him after the weather keeping me from him all week.

The aftermath - 10" total.

The new figure 8 fit Connor a lot better than the Nunn Finer, but strangely.


He's on the second from the top hole for the cheekpieces (I moved it up after taking this photo, the bit is too low here) and middle strap, top hole for the noseband, second from the bottom hole on the "flash" strap and throatlatch.  I guess this means his head is short and wide?  Just like the NF, the cheekpieces once again have miles of excess:

Hard to see, taking pictures with cold hands is hard!  I'm holding the bottom of the cheekpiece excess.

That sheepskin disc really does cover his nose from one side to the other!:

I'm not sure what this means for future bridle shopping purposes - cob headstall with a pony noseband and cheekpieces?  But this one is definitely an improvement over the last one, size-wise, so it's staying.

My husband actually kicked me out of the house yesterday and told me to go to the barn.  I spent Saturday snowed in and painting, and by Sunday, I was in full-on cabin fever mode.  He knew just what I needed, though, (or he just wanted to get rid of me for a few hours).

He saw the farm's dog digging in a snowpile.  Ignore the loop in the bridle, sometimes you just have to admit that keepers and winter gloves just do not mix.

I started out hacking him down the track, but then the herd in the big field across the road saw him, no doubt because he was obvious against the snow, and stood at alert and ran.  This turned my quiet ride into a prancy, alert ride, and I decided to head to the indoor and get some real work done.

Full alert pony.

The indoor wasn't much better, since it feels like it's been months since we rode in daylight, and the late afternoon sun was causing shadows and sunbeams.


But we did get some work in, a lot of cantering.  I asked for different gears in the canter like we did at the trot.  I also moved him back and forth laterally while cantering.  He's always been weirdly good at that, for a horse that once couldn't canter and also doesn't always remember how to leg yield at the trot.

Now he gets a week off, because I fly to Texas on Tuesday to first visit my best friend in Houston, then for Blogger Weekend, courtesy of my husband having more airline miles than he knows what to do with thanks to work.  I fully intend to bring Spring back with me when I get home on Sunday, so he better be ready!  It's time to go to work!

Winter is only good for gorgeous sunsets.